How much does your hobby cost?

[Sybarite]

This question is sparked off by a chat I had in Benodet with the owner of a 40 footer. He told me that his annual mooring cost about £7000 in the Solent.

It's clear that I would not be a boat owner at that level of costs - dinghy perhaps but not a cruiser. I am surprised that there is no concerted reaction. In France motor cyclists complained at their charges and so formed an association and created their own insurance company. The marina companies must have a concession from a public body to be able to operate and so there should be leverage.

In France here are some of my costs for a Feeling 920 (30'). This is in a marina in S. Brittany accessible at all states of the tide and centrally placed for cruising to the islands.

£1341 annual mooring including electricity, water and showers. Also includes free passes to about 12 other partner ports for 2 nights free moorings at each.
£ 576 insurance
Free - 48 hour haul-out for antifouling. Otherwise a lift-out would cost £184 (Mast £58)
£ 119 antifouling : labour £ 48 : product
£ 71 20m 8 cal anchor chain.

On the other hand, electronic equipment is generally cheaper in the UK.

How does this compare?

John

 

[Athene V30]

My boat cost less than this guys annual mooring! Cannot believe he gets equal enjoyment to me £ for £!

Annual fees for 27 foot
Pontoon Mooring 1 Apr to 31 Oct c £600 full access at Neaps probably loose 1 hour each side of LW at springs
Lift out, winter storage, lift in c£500
Insurance £150 (Brest to Elbe inc singlehanded)
Most of work is DIY.

 

[Fergus]

£500 for winter storage? I have to pay £300 per month!

 

[marksaab]

Welcome to rip off UK!

However I guess it will always be a case of supply and demand and willingness to pay, if people are willing to pay what seem to be very high fees for the South Coast then why would anything change?

I'm at Mersea, for our 23' boat I'm used to £ 1100 per YEAR incl swinging mooring, Winter storage and car parking and a ferry if we need it.

 

[FullCircle]

Well, here we go again. So many variations, its sometimes unfair to make comparisons.

I have a pontoon mooring at Bridgemarsh. 35ft all year in one price £1850 inc water plus electric.
Liftouts/Back in are expensive at £300, but the scrubbing deck and posts are free.

I will go to Rochford for winter though, which is only 14 quiid a week and about 100 quid for lift. Its nearer my house.

I could got to a well known Blackwater club and have a swining mooring, nearly all tide access inc winter storage, lifts and membership for close to 600 quid.

As usual, this will generate the Solent price statements to make your ears bleed.

 

[Danny Jo]

Welcome to rip off UK!

However I guess it will always be a case of supply and demand and willingness to pay, if people are willing to pay what seem to be very high fees for the South Coast then why would anything change?

It is not just yachties' willingness to pay that keeps prices high. Winter storage space near desirable harbours has to earn lots of dosh to have any chance of competing with what could be earned by selling out to developers of waterside residences. Sadly, not even far-flung places like north west Wales are immune, and those storing their boats at Bangor are living on borrowed time: the yard will be "redeveloped" just as soon as the property market shows signs of recovery.

So the problem may not be that we are being "ripped off", but that we are not paying enough to keep existing facilities, let alone develop new ones to meet the rising demand from yachties. (Demand not necessarily from more yachties, perhaps, so much as from the trend for bigger boats.) It is caused not by greedy yard and marina owners, but by a market which values waterside property more highly than inland developments.

 

[Koeketiene]

Don't ask questions like that The other half's started to take an interest in this forum.

Now I'm getting: 'Maybe we should add up what last year cost us'

 

[Tranona]

Comparisons, particularly between UK and France are always difficult. The "expensive" marinas in the UK are like that because they are usually in an area where there is intense competition for the shoreside land. This is why so many are now connected to housing developments. Waterside, many are built in the intertidal zone so dredging is the single major operating cost. You can see prices fall the further away you are from both attractive cruising grounds and centres of population - particularly if the marina uses redundant commercial shipping facilities.

Compare with France - particularly the Atlantic coast. Remote area with low density population, extensive waterside locations, strong tidal systems to scour moorings or tidal sills to create minimum water levels. Tourist area where economic well being relies on visitors. Touch of the subsidies so municipalities do not always have to recover all costs of the facilities. Bingo costs 50-70% less than UK.

However, go to the Mediterranean coast, either France of to an extent Spain where none of these favourable conditions exist and costs are comparable to South Coast UK or higher.

Straight economics really!

 

[tross]

Not everything is expensive in the Solent. Annual mooring on Lymington River £590.00

Lift out and in with 6 month winter storage in Christchurch £560.00.

OK only 23ft but even so..............

 

[gregandginas]

A Jeanneau Sun Odessey 32 sailed up the Yare yesterday. Could have moored on our Dyke and have had year-round access at all states of tide for somewhere in the order of £300 / year

We store at home (trailer sailer)... but get the impression some/many Solent sailors would be better off paying for a second home elsewhere as an overwintering / maintenance base: could hardly count as a hardship to have a week's sailing to get too and from your summer stomping ground on the Solent if your chosen hobby is cruising!

 

[glashen]

Not everything is expensive in the Solent. Annual mooring on Lymington River £590.00

Lift out and in with 6 month winter storage in Christchurch £560.00.

OK only 23ft but even so..............

Yes there are moorings in Poole, Christchurch and Keyhaven for that sort of price, most do have waiting lists though.

Best solution find a club with good facilities like winter storage and you can bring the cost down even further. Best not to be too obvious about the low cost being the main attraction when joining.

 

[alahol2]

Club membership can make it sensible. Full tide mooring, winter storage, dinghy storage, secure parking, family membership all for less than £500 pa in Portsmouth.

 

[sailorman]

I dont have a Hobby

Boating is an Obsession

 

[sailorman]

Don't ask questions like that The other half's started to take an interest in this forum.

Now I'm getting: 'Maybe we should add up what last year cost us'

tell her to get back into the kitchen & get you a Bier

 

[jason -and the arguenauts]

Sybarite - you're making the usual error of comparing somwehere like Britanny with the Solent when the more direct comparison (weather apart) would be somewhere like Nice against the Solent. In other words somewhere that had high demand for the country concerned.

Against your mooring in Britanny, mine in the Bristol channel is £1450 pa for a 36 footer again on a pontoon with leccy and free showers in a very pleasant club house. I'm sure there are lots of other places in the UK, away from the Solent, that are sensibly priced too.

In confirmation of this ( if the demise of the "its cheaper here on the continent" posts doesnt suggest it already), we have three members of our club whop have returned from the med during the last year complaining about the costs of running a boat there.

As for my costs, well thanks to a helpful forumite I recently transferred all my financial records on to a new system. A sad byproduct of this was the ability to find out my total boat costs over the 12 years records that I have. The answer ( I hope SWMBO doesnt read this) was £32, 450 excluding the costs of the boats and any depreciation on them.

 

[Koeketiene]

tell her to get back into the kitchen & get you a Bier

B's comment: 'I see why you two are friends'.

 

[Koeketiene]

excluding the costs of the boats and any depreciation on them.

I don't get this 'depreciation' - it's something artificial for accountants and not something real people should concern themselves with

When you buy a boat, you're not in it for the money.
Are you worth (much) less now than when you were born just because you're older?
How much a good sail?
No matter how bad the weather, no matter the hardship... every landfall I know there was nothing else I would rather have been doing.
It was (sort of) fun, and above all - it was worth it!


It's much more than a hobby (I cringe every time I hear that) - it's a way of life.

 

[jason -and the arguenauts]

just as real a cost as any other cost. as it happens, only one of the three boats I have sold has depreciated. the others went up a bit in currency terms.

 

[sailorman]

just as real a cost as any other cost. as it happens, only one of the three boats I have sold has depreciated. the others went up a bit in currency terms.

my Hobby costs a few .20 pellets now & then plus an Air bottle re-charge every 2 yrs or so

 

[Koeketiene]

just as real a cost as any other cost. as it happens, only one of the three boats I have sold has depreciated. the others went up a bit in currency terms.

I should not have bothered - you obviously are an accountant