Financing your first boat

FullCircle said:
As an opposite point of view, we bought our boat in 2005 and put 60k on the mortgage. ..................

On the other hand, you have forfeited 6 years of your sailing career vacillating and not getting proper ownership experience. ....
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Delighted to report, it's not the case FC. I've designed & installed electrical systems, fixed the plumbing, antifouled, varnished, winterised, planned & crew'd passages, got into and out of loads of trouble, got some of those RYA certs, and had loads of fun in those 6 years (was actually 7yrs - my mistake). Its where I cut my teeth and did my research. When I went shopping for my boat, I knew what I was talking about. nothing forfeited - I'm not yet 40!

In truth, the only tangible difference now that I'm a boat owner, is that the paperwork and bills stop with me:rolleyes:. Thats okay, cos my mortgage repayments have dropped over the last few years not risen !

I guess its a matter of how comfortable you are with dept. Personally I can't stand it. Itsn't the esesence of sailing self-sufficiency? :confused:

rgds
cimo
 
As others have said try the second-hand route; the prices are really attractive at present. I used to charter and was going to buy a 28 footer. The guy who I was chartering from told me to go to 30 feet because that makes all the difference. He was entirely right. If your wife is new to sailing you want it to be a comfortable experience for her (indispensible...). With a 30 foot boat you have full head-room and a very good compromise on cost, comfort and performance.

If you buy wisely you can expect to get back roughly what you paid for your boat. So you have to factor in the cost of capital immobilized until you resell. However when you use your boat you save the costs of vacation accommodation, car running, vacation travel. You also have week-end accommodation. These are not negligeable offsets.

Good luck,

John
 
snooks said:
Debt and savings are on different sides of the same wall

Debt is buying something you can't afford
Savings are affording something you can't buy

:)
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ain't that the truth.

then again money isn't everything - but it sure is handy stuff! :)
 
Save, save, save

FWIW, my wife and I decided about 11 years ago that we wanted to go cruising, eventually. We started saving - I created a dedicated savings account just for the boat. Every month the money would go in as a direct debit. Every time either of us got a salary increase, we would increase the monthly payments into the boat fund. Not the full amount of the increase, but a portion. And the boat fund was sacrosanct. We never touched it for anything else, no matter how tight things got. I suppose if we'd both suddenly lost our jobs we would eventually have had to rely on it*, but in principle (and in fact) we never touched it.

I have to say it wasn't very encouraging after a year or two - still a very long way away from buying a boat. But believe me, after 10 years it was significant (at least for us).

We are very close to taking at least a short break from work and sailing off into the sunset. There's no way we could have done that without the discipline of the long-term savings.

* Someone whose advice a respect when it comes to financial matters told me, a couple of years ago, that everyone should have 6-12 months salary sitting in an emergency fund, "just in case". Obviously not something you can build up overnight, and even after 10 years the boat fund isn't there, but I have to say it does give a feeling of security knowing that there is breathing room if we ever need it.
 
Another rule of thumb is that no toy, including a boat should ever account for more than 10% of your net assets.

Clearly not possible if your boat is your home, and rule may be broken for short periods - eg "trip of a lifetime". But the 10% rule does allow you to sleep at nights and walk away from the toy without threatening the rest of your life.
 
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