costs involved in motor boating?

[ianali]

Thank you Tranona, thats exactly the type of info we need. Its rather complicated changing from canal to sea. This is why we are asking what are silly questions.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Speed wise its not something im sure about . Would be happy to cruise at 10 knots I guess., Its all new to us, not looking to zip around at water sking pace. Just so long as we have enough power to get where we want to go. We intend looking closer at boats later this year and booking a course or two.

Hmm, 500 hours @ 10kts, 5000 nm a year! Are you planning on going around Europe each year? Or 3 x round the UK?

 

[vandy]

I don't know your experience, or previous history of boating/sailing. My only advice is to do a yachting/boating course - as part of that course you will have better views on whether boating on the sea is for you, or best to live on the south coast and still continue canal boating.

We started at Thames (Tidal) and then moved to midlands and used the canals in this area - then straight in the sea! As for costs:

Typical for a 30-34ft Boat:

Mooring fee: around £5k in a marina
Insurance: £500+
Maintenance: £600 + £600 per engine (so a twin engine boat's annual maintenance cost is around £1800) - alot less if you do DIY (30% of total)
Fuel: go for 1.8ltr per nm -> at your 500hrs you are talking about around £9k! a bit steep in my view. I think you are too optimistic of the number of hours you can cruise/sail really...

The "main" difference in cost for you in my view is mooring fee and also potential engine breakdown cost. a canal boat using a 20hp diesel engine's rebuilt cost is less than a £1000 - on the seaboats you are talking alot more as lots more need to be done (lifting etc.)...

 

[ianali]

Thanks Vandy, we will be taking courses, without them we would pretty quickly become lost I expect. Re costs we were expecting to spend around 6 to 8k plus fuel. Its not so much different to narrowboating which is dearer than some of you sea goers may realise. Thanks to all above for useful info. We will spend sometime now looking at boats , take a course or two and all being well will look to buy a boat for next summer. Cheers.

 

[gjgm]

I think you need to pin down the type of boat first. Just as somewhere to start, how about an older Nimbus 32-34ft. This is going to be ALOT less room than a barge, but will enable you to happily potter about, cross channel etc.
If we take that as a guide, then berthing in a marina in the Solent will be £4-6k I reckon, but you can find cheaper places up the rivers. Berthing will probably be your single most expensive item. Cornwall and back might take you 25 hours as a guide, so for your 500 hours, you would make that trip 20 times !! Bear in mind you travel at a reasonable speed , so most of your time is at anchor or arrival, and not the journey!
So I would say £5k on fuel would be alot... servicing say £1k to allow for some repairs;safety equipment etc.. £10k should cover it. Probably less, tbh.
Maybe 10pct on top if you want to add depreciation. If you sell through a broker, that is 6-8pct again.

 

[Dub2Dub]

Ianali,

Unfortunately, many on this forum, despite being exceptionally knowledgeable don't seem to be able to provide a generic cost, it seems that the types of boats and types of power (wind or motor) vary vastly from person to person and very few seem to quote what their costs are, which no doubt would be an amazing starting point for us looking to consider what it might be.

It does really seem to be a black art at the early stages.

I, like you, plan to do some courses and I'm hoping from there to get a better idea and picture. I'm personally looking at something somewhat small and for more a weekend boat than a week long chill out. I was persuaded to look at sailing but still feel that the luxury of 'twist and go' and speed makes a Mobo more appealing.

I personally have a budget at 10-15k for my boat which is now starting to look a little light, boats in this range are large petrol so consumption is through the roof.

So it's the Diesel category I am considering, depending on where you moor the boat is also going to provide a vastly different annual cost.

I have it in my mind that a boat of 10-15k used on a few weekends in the summer and maybe one or two the rest of the year is going to cost me the best part of £3k a year + fuel.

As I said, still at the early stages and starting to think doing a course and asking people how much it actually costs them a year will help me navigate to my total cost of ownership.

Good luck!

 

[julians]

Here you go then:-

yearly costs for an 8 year old 25 foot planing cuddy cabin boat with single diesel engine of 260hp kept in the water in a marina in mallorca:-

- insurance £310
- Fuel £750 for 50 hours running
- Engine and drive servicing £1000
- Antifoul £600
- Lift in and out of water £140
- Mooring charges £4k
- Fixing the various things that either wear out or break £1500 -£2500

Total = £8300 - £9300 per annum not including any depreciation.`

 

[Dub2Dub]

Here you go then:-

yearly costs for an 8 year old 25 foot planing cuddy cabin boat single diesel engine of 260hp kept in a marina in mallorca:-

- insurance £310
- Fuel £750 for 50 hours running
- Engine and drive servicing £1000
- Antifoul £600
- Lift in and out of water £140
- Mooring charges £4k
- Fixing the various things that need fixing £1500

Total = £8300 per annum not including any depreciation.

Stealing this for my other thread! really useful!

 

[Momac]

Just figured out I have spent £6.5k (maybe a little more) on the boat so far in 2015 .
Boating keeps me sane - worth every penny.

.

 

[lionelz]

Funny i dont want to know how much i spend on it as it might drive me insane?

 

[gordmac]

Can you actually cruise at 10kn on a sailing boat? Do you want to learn to sail? I would think you would have no problems with a motor boat but would need to learn to sail with that option. I wouldn't think fuel costs would be too bad with a displacement hull, 5-10l/hr I would think.

 

[About Time]

Abt. Fuel economy. I have owned a 27' Four Winns 268 weekender with 1 x 5.7 GSI V8 gas engine (260HP) - now a 37' Windy Grand Mistral HT with 2 x KAD 300 diesel engines (abt. 570HP). Both gives me a fuel economy of abt. half a gallon per NM. As long as you go motorboating it seems a good guidance is 1/2 a gallon per NM over the season. This is what I hear from my friends in same boats as well.

 

[JT57]

I started out as a yachty twenty odd years ago but converted to motorboats six years ago. Both are expensive hobbies, but in my experience motor boating is far more costly because of servicing, general maintenance and fuel. So why did we switch? Because we wanted more time at our destinations and less time at sea. Do you want to spend six hours going thirty miles, or do you want to be tied up in a good marina place and in the pub watching the yachties arrive four hours later? Personal choice. You could of course by a slow motorboat and get the "best" of both worlds.

 

[benjenbav]

My last boat was 33ft semi-displacement, plenty of room for two, built like a brick outhouse. I think my overall running costs were approx.£15k per annum. Did many fewer annual hours than you propose but paid someone else to deal with mechanical maintenance.

I would suggest something similar but, if you look after the engines yourself, I would go for a single engine (shaft) rather than twins unless you are built like a racing snake. I am not. Also, as above, fewer things to go wrong. The mythical advantage of twins: that if one fails, the other will get you home is slightly questionable, imho.

 

[speedfiend]

Last boat 42' motorboat (fast planing )12 years old:
Berthing £4,600 pa
insurance £1,000
servicing & antifoul & upkeep £4000,
lifting £1000
Running 100 hrs per year , fuel £8000.
Total £19000 per annum approx. plus depreciation.

 

[Dab]

I started out as a yachty twenty odd years ago but converted to motorboats six years ago. Both are expensive hobbies, but in my experience motor boating is far more costly because of servicing, general maintenance and fuel. So why did we switch? Because we wanted more time at our destinations and less time at sea. Do you want to spend six hours going thirty miles, or do you want to be tied up in a good marina place and in the pub watching the yachties arrive four hours later? Personal choice. You could of course by a slow motorboat and get the "best" of both worlds.

This may seem a bit far fetched, but you don't have to extend that sort of logic very far to decide to spend £50,000 on a very nice car, and use the money saved on the purchase price and annual running and mooring costs to drive to the same locations and stay in a good hotel. You would probably still have enough to charter a small boat/rib at the destination if you fancied a waterborne look around.

Back to the real world, where we all still want to go sailing:

As the OP is a narrowboater, he will be used to travelling slowly and enjoying the rhythm of the journey as much as the arrival at the destination. In that sense a displacement power boat or sailing yacht may be a good match. I think that one of the best ways to find out before spending any money on looking for or buying a new boat would be for him and his wife to do a Competent Crew course on a sailing yacht and the nearest equivalent on a powerboat. This will give them both five days of experience in a typically sized cruising boat of each flavour, doing the sort of (mostly short) journeys you would expect to be using each type of boat for. That would cost about £500 each per course, so £2,000 in total. At the end of that they would have a pretty good idea of what each type of activity entails, a much better idea of what to look for in a boat that will meet their needs, one of the courses will have been the start of the training they have already anticipated they will be doing, and the other will have shown them how the opposite side of the boating community to the one they have picked go about their business.

 

[JT57]

I think your extended logic is very sound Dab. Must confess I do sometimes wonder, if I lived on the mainland, would I go down the route you describe? Wouldn't be restricted to the coast either.
I'll get my coat.

 

[julians]

But then you get to the crux of why bother with a boat?

If all you do is go marina to marina,you could do that with a car, and various ferries.

I'm guessing that the reason people have a boat is to enjoy the journey between marinas, to enjoy anchoring in bays, to get to places that only a private boat can get to, to come and go as you please without submitting to a schedule,without being crammed in with hundreds of others etc.

 

[BruceK]

I don't know about the last, we get equal enjoyment going out and visiting distant marinas and getting into a muddle trying to berth with all crew maning the fenders as I make a pigs ear of it, as we do just sitting on our pontoon out in Conwy harbour. Being on a small pontoon in the harbour, with stunning views it must be said, is as good a getaway and and even better social. Being able to go places on a drop of the hat is just the cherry on the top. Lots of cherries it might be said as not evey weekend has blessed us with good seas but enough. We have no qualms about calling Amanzi our boatavan, because whatever we choose to do, we always have a good time just mooching and boozing or out and about, good family time too.

 

[ricky_s]

I don't know about the last, we get equal enjoyment going out and visiting distant marinas and getting into a muddle trying to berth with all crew maning the fenders as I make a pigs ear of it, as we do just sitting on our pontoon out in Conwy harbour. Being on a small pontoon in the harbour, with stunning views it must be said, is as good a getaway and and even better social. Being able to go places on a drop of the hat is just the cherry on the top. Lots of cherries it might be said as not evey weekend has blessed us with good seas but enough. We have no qualms about calling Amanzi our boatavan, because whatever we choose to do, we always have a good time just mooching and boozing or out and about, good family time too.

Nothing wrong with that, I'm going to mine this weekend and will use the Kayak and go for a bike ride but suspect the boat will stay put and be used as a floating caravan.