False starts. You'll soon understand.

[rustyc]

False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

So, i had this idea that by going onto the forums for yachting and boating that i would meet like minded people and gather some good advice that you just don't get without experience.

Unfortunately, I got mixed reactions from the Liveaboard thread folk. A lot of people inc Mustang Tom who invited me over here, wished us luck, and most just called me a troll. Whatever that is in internet forum terms.
So, for the benefit of anyone who hasn't been through the liveabard thread recently I'll see if i can't make some enemies on here too.
My partner and i are buying a boat. We're refitting it and taking it to Malta to live on a few months a year, maybe all year. and to pay for the cost of keeping the boat anywhere but in our back yard we are planning to charter it out for days even weeks in the summer with a few agencies possilbly from the south of france.
I've received harsh critisism about my budgeting being £5000 a year to keep it.
In any case, i only ever really wanted to know what it was like living on a 60 foot speedboat (or whatever i should call it) in the med. No one could tell if if pirates still exist, no one could tell me if you go mad in a confined space with one other person for company, and many people even told me things i already have evidence to the contrary.
See, I don't know about boats, i don't know about living on one. but that doesn't make me (us) the cretins we have recently been perceived to be.
So, what is it like living on a boat. Are there really still pirates? Will my girlfriend and i go mad?
Thanks to the few who have wished us good luck, and thanks to the folk who said I should try motor boats forum.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Hey, welcome back - weren't you here the other night asking about 60ft speedboats? One thing I have definitely noticed about all the mobo-owners I have met, is that they all know their own minds. Your plan is a pretty unusual one, and in the absence of fundamental evidence to the contrary - I'd give it go. Why not? Best of luck with it all.

Cheers
Jimmy

 

[rustyc]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Oh, the boat is 28 years old, we have a marine engineer of a lifetime experience in the family and on hand, and our local diesel engineers, who funnily enough are familiar with the Isotta Fraschini engines have quoted £30 per hour.
The people on the last thread didn't seem to notice me stating this and said my maintanence costs would be iro £50000 per year. Only if it needs a new engine, but then, that's not caused by chartering it, it would break anyway even if we didn't charter it, so not included in costings. All we want is £5000 to cover the costs of the mooring at £2000, insurance, SCV re-cert and other bits and bobs, like a new loo seat if one gets broken.
People were previously very quick to say that my costs would be £45000 over budget but no one had offered to say what would cost the extra £45000 a year.
Thus, I don't think the extra £45000 exists, and thus the cause of my previous arguments.

So i'm a troll.

Sorry.

Any straight forward responses welcome.

Thanks

Russ
Michaela

 

[rustyc]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Thanks Jimmy!! Wish everyone was like you. Peaceful!

Hope to hear from you again soon.

 

[rustyc]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Oh, yeah. I put my penny's worth in on another thread asking about this boat in comparison to an older fly bridge, a Baglietto 20 we've seen within budget. I don't think anyone replied to offer any advice, probably because no one has seen either of these boats as they're both quite old. I expect most people on here have noice new boats such as yourself. Unfortunately, we can't afford to maintain a new one never mind buy one in the first place. Would like to make a few e-friends on here too. most things happen because of who you know not where you shop in a small market place like boating eh?

 

[whisper]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Well to answer some of your "questions"
I'd think that living on a 60ft powerboat in the Med would be lovely if one has the funds to support it.
Pirates - yes they do exist. They are to be found in or around the Eastern entrance to the Red Sea or at almost all of the marinas in the Med.
Will you go mad - well a 60ft boat is pretty large, so should be fine especially if you are moored/berthed at interesting places - you can always go ashore for a break.
Have fun.

 

[Divemaster1]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Welcome...

First of all..... if you are not already mad,.... being a boat owner you will become mad.... Without knowing your starting budget it is difficult to say anything about realism.... there are 60 foot speed boats thaqt you can get quite reasonable... but I would not be buying in the UK.... transport to Malta will be expensive..... at £8-10K plus for transport ... and if older you may not want to take her down yourself...

Malta will not be cheap to keep a 60 ft boat... you may make it on £5K .... but it will be pushing it...

Also for charter, you will have to consider the cost of coding a vessel that size... and maintaining her coded.... and at 60 ft ... she'll probably have to be skippered as well for the charter... Then there is a question around the market potential for chartereing an older "speed boat". There are plenty of older vessels out there for charter, but they have been re-furbished to the tune of several £100K's ... so will be high standard and crewed...

Ask specific questions here and I am sure you'll get response ... good, bad and indifferent.... all you have to do is to ask, keep focussed, ask the right questions and sort out the wheat from the chaff....

 

[strakeryrius]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

I'd like to say straight off the bat that I wish you luck in pursuing your dream. I have dreamt about living aboard and cruising the Med for a long time, and may someday be able to do that when I retire.

However, I would be very surprised if you were able to achieve your target spend of £2000 annually for berthing with a 60' boat in the Med, especially the S of France. Have you had a definite quote from somewhere that put this figure into your mind?

As a comparison, think how much it would cost to rent a flat in the town you plan to be based in, with the same floor area in square feet as your 60' boat. Then multiply that by a factor of two - as boaty things are always more expensive than direct equivalents ashore, and you will come out with a realistic figure for how much it will cost to keep the boat there.

You will find noonsite.com has lots of information about the activities of pirates around the world if you still need it.

 

[Divemaster1]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

[ QUOTE ]
............a Baglietto 20 we've seen within budget. ......

[/ QUOTE ]
Now that is different... we looked at one a couple of years back .... in Almeria....

Engines V12 Detroits (some earlier was V8's)... often V12, non turbo's. Nearly all 71 series, which are the most reliable series Detroit ever built. Reasonable parts and easy to maintain ... if you are mechanically minded. A bit sensitive if they are over propped, and if so a full overhaul may be needed (calculate with £1500 per hole). Fast starting when cold and non-smokers are good sign.

Engine room in the B 20 is good , so no reason for not keeping those DD's in good shape...

Hull: get a good survey and when kept well, they should last a long time... Superstructure is a bit more variable as it will have bee subjected to fresh water... look out for moisture in corners of flybridge and entrance to bridge (if mods have been made).

Main cabin (access behind bridge down to starboard) are a bit suseptible to be damp, if not vented... so watch out for internals here. Forward cabins should be OK if teak deck has been kept well sealed and not been allowed to dry out.

Bullwarks could be water damaged, so keep alook out here as well.

Very well built boats and do contact the yard and they will give you the information you require....

Also look at Cantieri di Pisa Pegasus 21 and Maiora 50 and 57's ..(slighly smaller, but with aft cabin.... lower mooring cost). some good ones out there in the same price class as the Baglietto 20's...but younger..

 

[Tranona]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Sorry, rustyc. You are persistent, but I think you should be getting the message from people that what you are proposing is so far away from everybody elses reality - usually based on experience. They are not able to answer your questions in the way you seem to want them answered because they are unanswerable. This is why you might be labled a Troll - which is forum speak for a poster who asks unanswerable questions.

Every time you come back and say nobody understands what you are saying - and then repeating what you have said, you demonstrate you are not listening.

Don't think that trying a new forum will get you the answers you want - it won't. The people are basically the same, but with different preferences for how they go about their boating.

So suggest that if you are convinced of your plan - which nobody else is, give it a go. Then report back in a year's time as to how it worked out.

Best of luck!

 

[Divemaster1]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Forgot to mention that we backed off when we were quoted EUR 15,000 for an annual berth for a 20M...

 

[Richard10002]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

[ QUOTE ]
My partner and i are buying a boat. We're refitting it and taking it to Malta to live on a few months a year, maybe all year. and to pay for the cost of keeping the boat anywhere but in our back yard we are planning to charter it out for days even weeks in the summer with a few agencies possilbly from the south of france.
I've received harsh critisism about my budgeting being £5000 a year to keep it.

[/ QUOTE ]

To answer your question, living on a boat is my dream, and I loved the 18 months I had living on Rogue. Health has curtailed my experience. SWMBO was not particularly impressed with living aboard, so she came and went during the year. I would expect a 60 ft motor boat would be great to live on if it is something you both want to do.

I havent met any actual pirates between UK and Malta ... a few rip off merchants, but no pirates.

On to your budget... I pay £3,000 per year to keep my boat in Portomaso. I think Grand Harbour is about the same, and Msida only has berths during the winter. So I would expect most of your budget would be eaten up by berthing costs. In addition, it was not easy to get a marina berth for a year, so I would wonder how sure you are that you will actually get a berth in Malta?

As to chartering, you need to factor in the cost of getting her coded, extra insurance, advertising/marketing, along with the fact that it is a very competitive market. Would you be chartering from the SoF? If so you need to factor in the costs of getting her there.

My boat is 14 years old and each year some things need replacing, or substantial repairs, and I cant get away with budgetting less than a few thousand pounds for these eventualities. Then there is hauling out for antifouling and stuff .... another grand plus plus plus. Then there is fuel, unless you plan to go nowhere?? Insurance, another grand or so.

In the nicest possible way, and with all due respect, I would have to suggest that your dream will cost way way more than your budget. If you intend to proceed with your dream, I would researched it in much more depth, as the difference between 5 grand, and 20 grand, and 50 grand, are not small beer and the experience might bust you. If that happens, living on a 60ft motor boat with your girlfriend will not be fun /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[jfm]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Hi rusty. I've had a 60footer (almost!) in the Med (S France) for 5 years.

The cruising is lovely, so you'll enjoy it. And 60foot should be big enough for you and g/f not to go mad! you'll be busy anyhow, either maintaining the boat or taking in the cruising

I'd be astonished if you could run the boat coded for charter on that budget though. Just for starters, if you code for 12 guests + 2 crew (as my boat is) you will have an annual service bill for 2 liferafts plus an inspection fee. That's €1000 for starters. The rental of a rectangle of hardstanding for a week to antifoul her plus the crane will be €1000 in Cote DAzur but perhaps lots less in less busy places. To skipper her on charter you need to have commercial YM licence, which is a serious ticket to get and requires lots of things including 2500 logged sea miles.

The charter market there is based on very high class service. Guests will expect meals served on china and cooked to restaurant standards, egyptian cotton sheets on their beds, full aircon, uniformed crew, etc etc. Mind you they'll pay €3000/day if the boat is very spick and span.

And then there are loads of boats for charter - supply way exceeds demand. I'd suggest you budget on getting 3 weeks/season max if the boat is good and you try hard. you could get more but it would be a massive effort and would require a pretty good boat.

Alternatively you could break away from the pack and offer simpler/more basic charter for lower cost. Dunno how that would work. A very small number of boats offer charter by the cabin and it seems to work ok for them.

Berthing a 20m will be much more than the budget you set but of course if you live on the boat and anchor out most of the time you could actually do it for £2k

With one exception there are no pirates in the Med. The exception was last summer when some pirates in a fast small boat held up a charter yacht called Tiara, off Corsica, with guns. They took the contents of the safe and the guests jewellery and stuff and no-one was hurt, but a pretty shocking incident

Good luck, let us know what you decide

 

[oceandrive]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

I run a Charter Company in the Balearics also an RYA Training Centre and brokerage. First thing with all this is why are you chartering. Most charter companies strugle to achive more than six weeks cherters per year. We list fourteen boats and we would consider six weeks of bookings for any individual boat to be doing exceptionaly well in this day and age. Also consider your own licenses to operate, which you don't highlight in your question. you would need to be coastal skipper or Yachtmaster commercialy endorsed to overcome the paperwork and to operate responsibly. Vessel will require aproximatly 5k in safety equipment, and to hold its various certs of compliance. It;s all very daunting. However eight years ago I arived in the Balearics and did exactly the same.

How are you going to live aboard and also charter? do you mean run day trips??? If thats the case you will probably find that you will require the full charter cert for both Malta and the UK presuming that the vessel is UK reg.

All in all you should budget around 15,000€ to cover licensing and keeping the boat charter legal. SOLAS B Pack life raft service anual cost region 800€ for example.

So you need to fully consider the cost of setting a legal boat up as against it's earning capacity. Age has nothing to do with it. you can have all the charter bookings or day charter bookings you like but if it's a F4/5 outside the Marina then your charters wont be happening. These are all considerations you must build into any charter business plan. Belive me we see boats roll up every year with people going to take the charter business by storm. In most cases the boats are not legal and the authorities see them as a meal ticket.

So I know you say that people have been negative and you seek advice. Well I have not wrote before but without reading the full thread I presume that people are warning of the short falls. some of which I list above.

If you are positive and realy wish to do this as a change of life style, then my advice would be to use an established charter agent in Malta who knows the system. pay him a charter commission to ensure you are legal.

With regard to living aboard. You will probably be fine through the summer months as life in the med is very much outside so internal space is not important. This all changes in the winter dont belive anybody who tells you that Med winters are warm!! They are compared to the UK but on the water the Humidity can still be 70/80% so a damp boat feels colder than the UK.

The trick is to have good heating with dehumidifiers or even better rent an out of season apartment Nov-Dec-Jan-Feb suprisingly cheep out of season.

Many people live on boats and are quite happy. I am not an expert on Malta so I dont know the full picture. But I can't see it being much different to anywere else.

Pirates: I've done over 100,000 miles in the Med and the main pirates are the marinas and the authorities, Its normal life in the med that if your doing something then they will all want a pice of the pie of profit.
Are you going to be boarded by pirates I would say no stay on this side of Italy and you should be fine.

So in conclusion if I have helped at all, chartering is very expensive to set up and is full of red tape. Living aboard and enjoying the Med life I would certainly recomend. You will find it healthier and cheeper than the UK but do your homework and understand fully what you are doing.

My final advice would be to make some enquirys in Malta with a few charter agents and see what the responce would be. They will soon tell you the requirements and if fair should be able to forcast the vessel usage.

I did it but must say it was a new boat not initialy for charter but for training. it has been a hard path but eight years down the line I list a small fleet and skipper the biggest boat inside LIBS this year . So It can work, if you work hard at it.

 

[MapisM]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

[ QUOTE ]
I put my penny's worth in on another thread asking about this boat in comparison to an older fly bridge, a Baglietto 20 we've seen within budget. I don't think anyone replied to offer any advice

[/ QUOTE ]Well I also put my penny's worth on this topic, actually - did you see it?
I'm not pretending to have been tremendously helpful, but I don't think you can expect much more based on the inputs you gave us, either.

 

[oldgit]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

" Baglietto "
These are not entirely unknown over here,there are even a couple down here on the Medway and one or two of very similar constrution wooden craft by other Italian builders(Posilino) ? ,in the main imported by ship for use as a static house boats.
Unit18 has one just up stream from him at Cuxton.
Passing by, would appear that the hull condition of older boats is fairly important as the seams on some boats look in need of urgent attention.

 

[Chris_d]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Its a shame you received a rough ride, I think most here share your dream, however experience tells us the budget is very tight.

As for being a troll, some of your comments did make you sound like a notorious windup merchant on here called GC1 and some peeps here are very wary, your other mistake was to call a motorboat a "speedboat" this will annoy any serious sailor. Speedboat is a term used by ignorant journalists, greenies and mobohating pretentious yachties /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Nautorius]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

Hi Rusty,

Welcome. I love your entusiasm so please do not lose it!

There is lots of good advice above so I will leave the thread at this stage,

Good Luck living your dream

Paul /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Nauti Fox]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

If I can offer my views on the liveaboard side of things.
We've been liveaboards for about five years now, on a 1972 build 11.5 metre motorboat in the UK.
Firstly, if you are buying an older boat (especially if its not been used as a liveaboard) all the domestic systems will probably fail in horribly quick order, so be prepared for that, try and keep spares of everything, pumps, heater elements and all that sort of thing.
The electrical system will need to be in good order as it will be heavily used, ours for instance tripped the whole pontoon for a short time until I could find the problem, which doesn't make you popular, when it rained, the rails on the flybridge went live! Obviously very dangerous and fixed straight away, but a bizarre problem to have.
You have to be comfortable, we took out the boat seating and fitted ordinary, comfortable furniture.
Stay warm, dry and comfortable and it is enjoyable, we don't regret it one little bit. Space can seem a problem at first, but we soon adapted and thoroughly enjoy life onboard....even in the UK.

 

[gjgm]

Re: False starts. You\'ll soon understand.

I may have missed this, but have you calculated a fuel bill for a 60ft boat, when not being chartered.. ie your own use? After all, if you dont actually go anywhere, I m not sure the reason to be on a boat.