How would spend £200K and £1400 per month to buy a bluewater yacht to liveaboard and sail / maybe circumnavigate for years to come?

[Rob44]

Hi there, I’m hoping to utilise the experience of the site for some ideas, based on the purchase of a live-aboard (for solo sailing), Class A yacht, purchased from, let’s say, around £200K from a house sale, and a guaranteed income of around £1400 per month. Intent would be to sail the oceans / circumnavigation perhaps, but more often than not to be anchored up somewhere interesting for days/weeks at a time and living reasonably frugally, given the limited income each month.

I was thinking of something like maybe a Moody 44 from the ‘90’s, maybe for around £130K(?) and set-up well, including for off-grid; so like lithium batteries/solar/water-maker/wind gen/auto-pilot/decent nav systems/original engine replaced/ sails in good order/electric windlass/rigged for solo sailing, and so on, with no seriously major work required. Also, would the shallow-draft versions of 1.5m be a significant issue for ocean crossings? I guess it would make more anchorage options available but what’s the thoughts?

I was also thinking of budgeting maybe £20K for the additional / inevitable work necessary, to get her up to scratch?

So with around £150K now gone, do you think departing with around £50K in the bank and £1400 per month to be financially reasonable long term? I guess there’s all sorts of maintenance disasters that might befall someone, but if the rough guide of 10% of boat cost per year for maintenance is used, that’s potentially only around 5 or 6, maybe 7 years of sailing?

Or should the initial purchase be less, maybe for around £80K with £20K for updating and with now £100K in the bank? I figure this would put a Moody 44 out of reach, so what else might be a good alternative?

Whilst I appreciate people do this in all sorts of boats, things like open ocean/off-shore dependability, solo capability, storage space, fuel/water capacity and live-aboard comfort to be quite high on the list of necessities.

Time, experience and ability to use to get a sub-standard boat up to scratch is also minimal.

In fact…I’ve very little sailing experience whatsoever, other than dinghy’s from over the years, but would (will!) at least do the 6 month (I think?) yacht master qualification and hopefully join a club for the opportunities to actually sail bigger boats and speak to experienced people and just learn as much as possible about the other necessities such as engine trouble-shooting, electrics, plumbing and general boat DIY.

I appreciate people may very reasonably query if sailing is actually for me, given my very limited experience, but I think I already know that answer, and I’ve some years of tropical living and also some limited cross-over skills from my current profession regarding the basics of aerodynamics/meteorology/navigation sort of thing (pilot).

I guess that’s a long post…but I’d love to hear of people’s ideas and opinions of roughly what they’d plan to spend on their boat and on what and why.

I know there’s no definitive answer, but maybe there’s some insight into some particular boats and some parameters.

Thanks so much.

 

[V1701]

Personally I'd go for late '30s ft, under 12 metres has advantages. I'd say £1400/month is a healthy cruising budget but then I don't drink, smoke or eat out a lot. Are you retaining a property in UK or somewhere else you can live full time?

 

[Rob44]

I had a size range in mind of around 38 - 42ft but the Moody 44 seemed better/more modern than earlier and smaller versions, although it doesn’t have to be a Moody. Are the advantages of sub-12m largely based on general cost of purchase/maintenance/mooring and manoeuvring as a solo sailor?

To raise the money to purchase I’d unfortunately have to sell, so it would all be rather committing to say the least. It’s a bit scary too, because I can’t think of enough reasons not to just go for it.

 

[mattonthesea]

Notes:

Your living expenses are related to how you live now. If you eat out 2x per week now then you are likely to continue to do that. If you live on rice and beans then the same

As a general rule prices in marinas jump on the 10 & 12m division.

Many couples live comfortably on 11.9m yachts.

Maintenance costs are not proportional to length!

I was advised: maintenance would be cost plus 60% for first year and then 10% per year thereafter. About right in my experience.

Hope that helps

M

 

[Rob44]

60% in the first year? Wow.
But if the boat was in relatively good nick upon purchase with pretty much all the necessary upgrades having already been done, and maybe around £20K of your own money spent on what might still need upgrading, wouldn’t 60% on maintenance in the 1st year be rather steep?

 

[Tranona]

Welcome to the forum

Common dilemma. First off forget about the boat but consider how you intend cruising and where. Choices are in a sense more limited now than they used to be. For example sailing south to the Med is no longer practical for non EU citizens because of the travel restrictions. Full time liveaboard around the UK no longer easy because of the difficulty and high cost of finding berths that will allow liveaboards and the relatively short sailing season means that you need to find a winter "home". Avoiding most of that and heading west to warmer less restricted waters is very different and maybe not feasible in the short term starting from scratch as you seem to be. This does not mean these barriers can't be overcome but suggest they are more challenging than choosing a boat!

Next question is do you really want to get out of the housing market to live on a boat which is by its nature a wasting asset? What are you going to do afterwards when you have burned up most of your capital and have just your modest income left? If you scroll down this forum you will see your question comes up frequently and one of the constant bits of advice is avoid burning your boats and spending everything on the boat and your project unless you have many productive years left to get you back on course for a self sufficient future life.

Now the boat bit. You really do not need a Moody 44 for single handed or even two handed long term cruising . The sweet spot is 10-12m and the key to buying well is condition, condition, condition. Any well found modern cruising boat will do the job - you don't need a floating country cottage. As to whether you buy old and done up like the Moody or modern well maintained depends on condition and your ability to do work. The suggestion that your maintenance on an older boat in the first year at 60% of cost is not a bad guess. Remember such a boat bought new today would be well over £600k so everything you need to buy for the boat or labour for work is related to that - not the modest £100k it might cost you to buy. You may of course be lucky and find one like this boatshed.com/moody_44-boat-346307.html which seems to have all the hard and expensive bits done, but even then it is too big and complicated for a single person.

Anyway before you get that far do your sailing course, get some sea time, find out if you actually enjoy sailing. There is a big difference between living on land and on a boat. Boats of the type you are looking at are not designed for long term living aboard so you will need to adapt to the constraints, not just the living in confined spaces but how you interact with the rest of the world. Once you get some experience you will be in a better position to know what you want out of your boat. Most of us get through more than one boat before we get to the point of being able to know clearly what we want for a particular type of usage. You may well consider buying a modest sub 10m boat to start and have a couple of years experience of the full ownership bit before committing. Boat yards are full of failed or stalled dreams where folks rush in too quickly and too deeply.

 

[ylop]

I’d spend less on the boat, buy a cheap 1 bed flat somewhere unsexy and rent it out saving that money for the inevitable day you return. I wouldn’t obsess over someone else’s label of “blue water” boat until I’d experienced bigger boat sailing and worked out if I was actually going to be sailing across oceans singlehanded or like many world cruisers spend more of my time in sheltered locations where the ideal features of a blue water boat may be less attractive. I’d also decide on length after handling various boats during training - and imagining doing it with no crew. That would make finding a respectable example with enough left over for somewhere to live when the adventure ends feasible.

 

[potentillaCO32]

Find out if you like sailing first of all. If you hate it or get sea sick then that is game over straight away.
There is a well known youtube channel that started with 'sailing round the World' found they got sea sick and changed to 'exploring british south coast anchorages and living off grid' . Worked until damp, mould and health scuppered it all.

I wouldn't sell your property, or all of it as others also advise. You likely won't get insurance so you are one anchor shackle failure away from homelessness.

As others say, downsize, buy a 10m well found boat for peanuts and try it out by exploring south uk and european atlantic waters. See if you love it.

See what the bumbling sailor has done in a 10m boat for peanuts.

 

[Goldie]

+1 For staying at a boat of <12m LOA. My boat is 12.1m and that ‘0.1m’ has cost me thousands in more expensive moorings and haul-out fees over the last few years. In Portugal (Lagos) it placed me in a size bracket that was 12.00m - 14.99m so I was paying the same as a boat nearly 10ft longer. In the Med’, it excluded me from using some of the municipal marinas (e.g. Balearics) where the limit was 12m and yes, every marina and harbour scrutinises the registration document and being Part 1 registered there was no hiding for me.

For an example, I’ve copied and pasted the 2025/26 rates for TEPAI, the Greek cruising tax:

• 10m – 12m: €400 per year
• Over 12m: Calculated monthly (approx. €10/meter/month) or annually.
• 10-12m (Monthly): ~€33 per month
• 12-13m (Monthly): ~€96 per month

 

[mattonthesea]

Sorry: typo: first year 50%.

Remember that, in your first year you will use the boat for probably the same use it has had in the previous 10 years. All those things that have just got by will start to break (everything on a boat breaks). If you want an example of that then watch some of Leo's latest videos. OK it's a different creature but the principle applies.

I was told: go small, go cheap, go now.

I did. And what I learnt about cruising, boat ownership and maintenance in a year would fill more than a book. It did: Calder, Cox for book and website plus this forum and the many people I met.

 

[ylop]

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Sorry: typo: first year 50%.

Remember that, in your first year you will use the boat for probably the same use it has had in the previous 10 years. All those things that have just got by will start to break (everything on a boat breaks).

There may be a lot of logic to budget big for "fixing" stuff that's been just good enough but is not in constant use, but it doesn't necessarily make sense that it would be a % of the purchase price? Consider three boats, all the same size:

- A very well regarded, well-maintained boat that was well built in the first place and has been kept "up-to-date", used regularly and costs £200K, its in ready to sail away condition, its owners loved it using it for family cruising.
- The same model and age of boat, but the most recent owner has somewhat neglected it over the last few years so its not actually been sailing for 18 months, is scruffy in places and hasn't had any significant updating for 10 yrs, and it costs £150K.
- A less well regarded, cheaper built boat that has been chartered hard all its life. The engine has done 3x the hrs the previous ones have but hopefully has been maintained regularly. The sails are still original and tired etc. It costs £100k.

Why would the top one cost double the first year "fix it" budget of the bottom one?

 

[Rob44]

Welcome to the forum

Common dilemma. First off forget about the boat but consider how you intend cruising and where. Choices are in a sense more limited now than they used to be. For example sailing south to the Med is no longer practical for non EU citizens because of the travel restrictions. Full time liveaboard around the UK no longer easy because of the difficulty and high cost of finding berths that will allow liveaboards and the relatively short sailing season means that you need to find a winter "home". Avoiding most of that and heading west to warmer less restricted waters is very different and maybe not feasible in the short term starting from scratch as you seem to be. This does not mean these barriers can't be overcome but suggest they are more challenging than choosing a boat!

Next question is do you really want to get out of the housing market to live on a boat which is by its nature a wasting asset? What are you going to do afterwards when you have burned up most of your capital and have just your modest income left? If you scroll down this forum you will see your question comes up frequently and one of the constant bits of advice is avoid burning your boats and spending everything on the boat and your project unless you have many productive years left to get you back on course for a self sufficient future life.

Now the boat bit. You really do not need a Moody 44 for single handed or even two handed long term cruising . The sweet spot is 10-12m and the key to buying well is condition, condition, condition. Any well found modern cruising boat will do the job - you don't need a floating country cottage. As to whether you buy old and done up like the Moody or modern well maintained depends on condition and your ability to do work. The suggestion that your maintenance on an older boat in the first year at 60% of cost is not a bad guess. Remember such a boat bought new today would be well over £600k so everything you need to buy for the boat or labour for work is related to that - not the modest £100k it might cost you to buy. You may of course be lucky and find one like this boatshed.com/moody_44-boat-346307.html which seems to have all the hard and expensive bits done, but even then it is too big and complicated for a single person.

Anyway before you get that far do your sailing course, get some sea time, find out if you actually enjoy sailing. There is a big difference between living on land and on a boat. Boats of the type you are looking at are not designed for long term living aboard so you will need to adapt to the constraints, not just the living in confined spaces but how you interact with the rest of the world. Once you get some experience you will be in a better position to know what you want out of your boat. Most of us get through more than one boat before we get to the point of being able to know clearly what we want for a particular type of usage. You may well consider buying a modest sub 10m boat to start and have a couple of years experience of the full ownership bit before committing. Boat yards are full of failed or stalled dreams where folks rush in too quickly and too deeply.

That’s clearly some good advice there Tranona, and much appreciated.

I’d want to go south and west for warmer/tropical climes, and something just shy of 12m makes perfect sense. I would hope to purchase after gaining experience and upon completion of courses. I figure the expense of an entire yachtmaster offshore course and then further oceanic would be money very well spent.

I think such courses / qualifications along with ever increasing experience could make offshore insurance easier?

The “what after” is a bit of a headache. I’m not so old where I couldn’t go back to flying, but I would be likely too old for a mortgage, so it would be either work and rent, or somehow keep a small property to rent out in the UK whilst away.

And hopefully I wouldn’t want to come back permanently until I’m ready for the old folks home.

 

[Rob44]

I’d spend less on the boat, buy a cheap 1 bed flat somewhere unsexy and rent it out saving that money for the inevitable day you return. I wouldn’t obsess over someone else’s label of “blue water” boat until I’d experienced bigger boat sailing and worked out if I was actually going to be sailing across oceans singlehanded or like many world cruisers spend more of my time in sheltered locations where the ideal features of a blue water boat may be less attractive. I’d also decide on length after handling various boats during training - and imagining doing it with no crew. That would make finding a respectable example with enough left over for somewhere to live when the adventure ends feasible.

Some sound advice, thanks very much, but what might you decide on getting, having followed said advice?

 

[Rob44]

Find out if you like sailing first of all. If you hate it or get sea sick then that is game over straight away.
There is a well known youtube channel that started with 'sailing round the World' found they got sea sick and changed to 'exploring british south coast anchorages and living off grid' . Worked until damp, mould and health scuppered it all.

I wouldn't sell your property, or all of it as others also advise. You likely won't get insurance so you are one anchor shackle failure away from homelessness.

As others say, downsize, buy a 10m well found boat for peanuts and try it out by exploring south uk and european atlantic waters. See if you love it.

See what the bumbling sailor has done in a 10m boat for peanuts.

Sound advice, and I do appreciate it, but how might one increase the possibility of getting good insurance to cross oceans?

I understand qualifications, experience. proof of proper maintenance records, suitable equipment and a sound/safe itinerary might make such insurance possible?

 

[Rob44]

Sorry: typo: first year 50%.

Remember that, in your first year you will use the boat for probably the same use it has had in the previous 10 years. All those things that have just got by will start to break (everything on a boat breaks). If you want an example of that then watch some of Leo's latest videos. OK it's a different creature but the principle applies.

I was told: go small, go cheap, go now.

I did. And what I learnt about cruising, boat ownership and maintenance in a year would fill more than a book. It did: Calder, Cox for book and website plus this forum and the many people I met.

That’s really insightful for me and much appreciated.

 

[Tranona]

It is important to make a distinction between different kinds of expenditure on a newly purchased boat. First clear replacements of non functioning items, second preparing for its new purpose eg from coastal weekend cruiser to liveaboard, running costs such as mooring and annual haulout/antifoul. and discretionary expenditure - that is nice to have but not essential. A good example of this is the Moody 44 I linked to earlier which the current owner bought 7 years ago, and probably somewhere near your first and second category in condition and maybe even price. Reasonable estimate of the amount he has spent would be over £80k. The boat has decent anchoring gear, electronics, significant solar and a bimini which would be important if going to warmer places, things which are often needed to add UK based boats and might otherwise cost at least another £8-10k.

There seems a tendency for people to make the boat perfect before they go, or find that once they start fixing and replacing bits they find more things that need fixing so although you could argue that the costs in the Moody example average out over over the the 7 years at roughly 10% pa I suspect that anyone moving to liveaboard would have spent much of that in initial prep. There is of course still the annual running costs which in turn may then be less than10% pa in terms of replacement/repairs, but probably £10k more in mooring insurance, haulouts etc for that size boat.

These %ages are of course rules of thumb and the details of actual items of work and cost will vary from boat to boat, but it is important for people thinking of going this route to be aware that not only is the purchase price a down payment, but their choice of boat should be tempered by how close it matches the "ready to go, where I want it" state of the each option under consideration.

 

[Rob44]

That’s understood, and the smaller boat makes ever more sense, although I was thinking that if the boat was already set up for off-grid living/ready to go, there would be considerable savings by being anchored outside a marina, with monthly outgoings (less maintenance) being potentially sub £1000 on insurance, food, internet/phone, tender fuel etc? I figure diesel fuel could potentially creep up somewhat dependant on frequency of use, but with some frugal living which I’d be perfectly happy with, affordability wouldn’t necessarily be too high?

I genuinely don’t envisage myself eating out often, I enjoy cooking, I don’t smoke, don’t tend to drink excessively, and whilst I realise there will always be some general boat maintenance and repairing work to do, I still see a lot of free time to just wake up and do nothing other than go for a snorkel and read a book, or take the paddle board somewhere, and so on. Spend lazy days figuring out where to go next, away from or with the weather. It’s this freedom that hugely appeals.

I figure an important aspect would be how to earn essential money whilst away, maybe because of a lot more unexpected upgrades and replacements being required, and so on - and less working online remotely - there doesn’t appear to be many legitimate / obvious options for work whilst abroad.

Maybe, with having done the courses/now “qualified”, and having gained mileage and experience from ocean crossings, you could stow the boat away in a safe and cheaper marina to then do yacht delivery? Probably initially as just crew for no pay, less travel / basic food expenses, but with the intent to eventually do deliveries as Captain for some pay?

 

[Trident]

We bought a Snowgoose 35 (catamaran) as our first boat with zero experience and did a week sailing course, a few weeks practice and then sailed to the Med for 5 years. Cat's are great to make truly self sufficient as they have lots of space for solar etc. We had solar for all our power, a water maker and lived comfortably on £500 a month (including a winter berth for 5 months a year) - this was 2012 onwards.

My wife and I had incomes (remote working) but came back with considerably more in savings than we left with, despite silly costs for internet etc in those days before Starlink. It's all very doable and not difficult with careful study and planning . The boat then crossed to the Caribbean and I bought a much bigger cat there after a hurricane, fixed it up and have been on that for 7 1/2 years now.

I would say look at a catamaran, older Prouts are tough as nails, very safe and spacious for all the cruising needs but you can get a good one for under £70k, some as low as £40k in reasonable condition. If your house is rentable maybe get a mortgage to buy a cheaper boat like this and the rent should more than cover the mortgage and any empty months - that way you keep the foot on the property ladder and have options. If it's not somewhere with a reliable rental income then maybe downsize, rent the new place and the difference will buy the boat but you can live safely, inexpensively and very comfortably on a Prout 34, 35 or 37 and many have circumnavigated several times.

 

[ylop]

Some sound advice, thanks very much, but what might you decide on getting, having followed said advice?

I’d go sail on as many different boats as you can during your training to see what you like, find essential, discover is not as useful as it looks. You’ll get dozens of opinions on the “right” boat for your trip. But I would say that step 1 is to define in very rough terms that trip. Where you want to go, how far you want to travel each leg, who might join you on the trip will all be factors.

Sound advice, and I do appreciate it, but how might one increase the possibility of getting good insurance to cross oceans?

I think the biggest challenge is insurers don’t like singlehanded sailors on multi day trips.

I figure an important aspect would be how to earn essential money whilst away, maybe because of a lot more unexpected upgrades and replacements being required, and so on - and less working online remotely - there doesn’t appear to be many legitimate / obvious options for work whilst abroad.

Oh, this sounds like a change from the OP? I assumed you had some sort of annuity or existing recurring passive income stream. Earning money will be hard - many visitors visa’s will not allow it. Even if you can find work you will likely be at the bottom end of the pay curve - when the “easiest” travel comes when exchange rates / economies play in your favour.

Personally I’d say this is a much more crucial question than how much to spend on a boat.

I think you also need to be realistic about doing maintenance, life chores (everything takes longer afloat), working and still having time to sail. Some people manage but I honestly think I’d struggle to do all that solo even without doing multi day passages.

Do you have any options that would let you say, buy a place to rent as an Airbnb in the summer, go sailing whilst it generates you money through the season with someone else going cleaning etc, then return to live in it and earn money in winter before repeating?

 

[Rob44]

Thanks Trident, some great info there. The space on a cat and its shallower draught really appeal. And the speed and stability. Just a bit unsure of how much its general lack of robustness and self-righting abilities in a very rough sea appeals though, and extra expense.

That said, I will most definitely have a look at your suggestions and give it some careful consideration; I really appreciate the idea you gave. I had this general belief cats would be just too expensive for me to consider, with of course the naive paranoia around their supposed tendency to capsize in rough seas…