JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Maybe that means that buyers of bigger motorboats are getting a bit more discerning and viewing more before buying?
Declining numbers of Sailors
- Thread starter ctelfer38
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Maybe that means that buyers of bigger motorboats are getting a bit more discerning and viewing more before buying?
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Not sure how you can draw that conclusion. My source was actually talking about sales with deposits rather than footfall. The mass production builders are putting more effort into MOBOs as that sector of the market has been growing for some time. The number of them on offer from Bavaria exceeded that of sailboats.
RobF
Well-Known Member
I'm wondering if this is because most people who sail in their thirties are occasional sailors - they will do a week each year on a med flotilla and perhaps a weekend charter out of the Hamble. Therefore, they aren't familiar with maneuvering a boat in close quarters, particularly crowded harbours like Yarmouth.
lpdsn
Well-Known Member
There is a bit of a predjudice though. Whn racing I sometimes find people think I'm the owner because of my gray hair.
I was racing on a boat once and after the race one of the owners came up to me and said that young guy you had on the helm when you passed us was bloody good. I had to say, actually, that's the owner. He's only in his thirties.
mjcoon
Well-Known Member
Are you saying you don't think there are crowded harbours in the Mediterranean? You might find, say, Hydra and Fiskardo a bit of a shock!
Mike.
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
It was mere speculation, aided by your failure to mention that you were talking about sales. And yes, motorboats do seem to be selling in a way in which sailing boats are not.
Brent Swain
N/A
There are an increasing number of formerly homeless youth around here ,who have discovered that owning a boat is their only alternative to homelessness. Most find sailboats , as power boats are to expensive to run, on their minimal budgets, and they fit right in to the sailing live aboard lifestyle, with dreams of offshore cruising. With our real estate market having become an offshore piggy bank for the rich, radically inflating the cost of living ashore, they have zero chance of of ever owning a home on land, or making payments on one, for a billionaire land lord . Boats here have never been cheaper. Many are being given away.
Is that the case in Britain?
Is that the case in Britain?
RobF
Well-Known Member
On the contrary
I've been to Fiskardo a few times and am aware that it get's pretty crowded (with some overflow outside the harbour). However, my observations are that the lead skipper of the flotilla goes in first and then organises the remainder of the flotilla in, ensuring that the less experienced skippers benefit from organised assistance by themselves and crew members from other boats. I've also been to Yarmouth a few times and have not witnessed this - usually the HM points you where he wants you to go and if you're lucky the owners of the boat you're rafting next to will be on board and help take your lines.I appreciate that my limited experience of both harbours does not qualify as quantitative evidence.
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Yes, the basic problem is the same, but there are many constraints to living on a boat, particularly a sailing boat. The two main issues are the shortage and high cost of a marina berth that will tolerate liveaboards. So berthing costs are out of proportion to the low coast of boats. The second is that most marinas are not in areas where there is plentiful employment - at least paying decent wages. for example there is virtually nowhere that is accessible to central London. while very hardy souls can live off grid, the climate means that a berth with good access to services and electricity is almost essential.
So, the main emphasis on liveaboards is in the inland waterways, particularly canals. For years this was viable for the small number of people who liked the wandering lifestyle, but in recent years there has been a huge growth in waterborne ghettos, particularly close to towns. Although in theory residential moorings are controlled, cruisers are allowed. But it is a constant fight between the authority that runs the waterways and those who defy the restrictions placed on them.
Seven Spades
Well-Known Member
Quite simply this. If the numbers drop then facilities become less financially viable and they get re-developed into housing. Once lost they will never revert to boat yards, marinas etc. just look at what has happened to the Thames above Teddington lock, so many facilities have gone to and converted into premium housing developments.
Seven Spades
Well-Known Member
I think you are quite correct. y children have had quite a privileged upbringing and I have tried my hardest to remove all forms of H&S and to get them outside and away from TV and computer games. It has been a battle and 2 out of three ain't bad, but that third one just lives on his computer, he is to busy on his computer for girlfriends. The worrying thing is he is probably more representative of the general public than the other two.
It is however not the whole story, economics do come into it but for those of you moaning about the size expectations of today have to put it into context. In the sixties there were 2/3 TV channels, a large number of households in the UK were not on the phone. No one had freezers so most food was bought fresh daily, the majority of households did not own a car, only the rich had been abroad for a holiday. Putting all that together you can see why roughing it in a 22" yacht was probably on a par with the alternative which was a holiday at Warners or Pontins.
The low cost alternatives to owning a 22' yacht are numerous so you easily understand the fall in appeal. It sonly once you add size and "luxury" features that you start to make a yacht a contender and therein lies the problems because this is where economics comes into it. I have to say that I think that most young people can afford to acquire a reasonable modern 34' boat. However they cannot afford to run them, the costs of berthing simply kills it for most people.Even storage ashore is horrendous, you are looking at £300+ a month for a 40' boat in a car park in the Hamble. I am convinced that lots of people leave boating because they cannot afford mooring fees on fixed incomes in retirement. I have no idea how to fix this problem because the government do not value yachting and large see it as a way of funding pensions etc.
westhinder
Well-Known Member
The cost of berthing does play a part, certainly in the UK, where prices are outrageous. The comparison with the Netherlands is valid: berthing costs are generally a lot lower and you see more young people in small yachts.
But there is more to it: young people's budgets are spread over a much greater range of essentials and desirables: housing is taking a langer share than say 30 years ago, education has not become more affordable, cars likewise, there is a host of electronic gadgets you can't live without, they have got used to travelling far and wide, and that shortski is something they will only grudgingly drop, if at all.
When we decided to buy our first boat, it was a bit of a financial stretch and meant we made a choice: we were going to go sailing, not travel to the far corners of the planet or buy a holiday home in France or Italy or at the coast, as our friends did. I'm not so sure many young people are prepared to make that choice any longer. And most won't have to make that choice, making ends meet is enough of a challenge.
jac
Well-Known Member
All very true.
I would add that the balance of financial decision making I think has changed in many marriages. A generation ago, the man worked and brought in the money. Now it's a more joint thing with both working and having a more equal say in where it gets spent. How many would object to their partner spending their own money? - very few I suspect. Far more would object to the partner spending their other halves money
By definition, both parties will probably need to agree on the spend. That causes issues when typically SWMBO wants to stick with just the occasional charter somewhere warm and let hubby out for the occasional race or course or weekend jolly with the lads.
Add in that with both parties in a marriage working, some of which may be shifts / weekend working there is less time during the week for chores so weekends may be taken up with chores at home that may otherwise have been done whilst hubby was at work. SO less chance for people to get away at the weekend which makes the case for purchasing less strong.
STATUE
Well-Known Member
I moor directly off the National Sailing Academy, Portland and believe that organisation is 'democratising' sailing,
I know many yacht clubs invest a lot in their cadet training, BUT, there is still a cachet about yacht/sailing clubs being snooty, you know the titles of Commodore, Vice Commodore. etc. - I suspect that too many people think this environment is excluded to them.
Brent Swain
N/A
Fortunately, I live in BC , where free anchorages are endless, in the millions. In the 33 years I have owned my current boat, I have never paid to tie to a dock. The wiser youth here stay out of cities and over regulated harbours.
They say the closer you get to a city, the less capable the liveaboards become, and are glad they learned their boating in rural areas, rather than in suburbia. It also drops the cost of living drastically, in many other ways, and you have no bureaucrats to deal with. You need no one's permission to live aboard or do anything else, for that matter.
With the beaches here piled high with driftwood, endless heating fuel , free for the taking, heating costs are also zero.
No ,here a berth with electricity is anything but essential.
I met a kid who said he lived in a 17 footer in his friend's driveway while going to school . Said it sure cut down the size of his student debt!
Brent Swain
N/A
20 years ago, all the women I met wanted to do was buy real estate and make babies. They seemed hard wired to want to do so. Cruise the South Pacific in a yacht ? Not a chance. Those who did, with their hubbies, considered it a short term sacrifice, to humour him, then he was obliged to live the rest of his life persueing her aspirations, and abandon his own.
The world definitely doesn't need more people!
Such a breath of fresh air, to be meeting so many young women who have no such super orthodox ambitions, and own and cruise their own boats. No, they don't want to crew, they only want to cruise in their own boats . They quickly become extremely capable, self reliant cruisers. I have taught several how to do their own welding and metal work ,some of who have gone on to qualify in the trades, with real union wages.
Owning a house is not ever going to be an option, in their lifetimes .
So ( thankfully) old gender stereo types about the man wanting to cruise and the woman wanting to stay home and make babies, are wonderfully outdated.
What a wonderful cultural shift!
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DownWest
Well-Known Member
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Brent Swain
N/A
Brent Swain
N/A
A good care system eliminates the need to make more, and thus threaten our entire existence.