Is boating in a death spiral?

Bouba said:
Neither has 99.999% of the world’s population.....I’m just saying, if you want to go boating in a far off holiday destination then renting or chartering a boat is an option....the fact you have a boat at home just means you are a keen boater
Click to expand...

That still leaves 8,141,918 people that charter, which is quite a lot really. There are around 14000 yachts available for charter on an annual basis. Your figures suggest a very healthy charter market.
 
RunAgroundHard said:
That still leaves 8,141,918 people that charter, which is quite a lot really. There are around 14000 yachts available for charter on an annual basis. Your figures suggest a very healthy charter market.
Click to expand...
You are not supposed to correct man maths 😡......there are charter boats moored next to me...forty something foot catamarans....and they are usually charted by large parties....not necessarily a couple and lots of kids...but by several couples. I think this increases the chance that one of those people is either a present, future or in between boat owner.
So you need to recheck your maths.....and of course don’t forget those 14000 boats are charted for usually two week slots....
 
Rivers & creeks said:
Having just been through the sale of our boat and looking for another I can’t get over the harsh realities. Boats that would have been £10,000 pre-Covid are now un-saleable at £3,000. Brokers tell me they have a number of clients who would give away their boats AND pay the £1,000 brokers commission.
Marinas are now so insanely expensive, people in their 20’s and 30’s trying to claw their way onto the housing ladder would laugh at the idea of boat ownership. A humble swinging mooring is still £2,500 a year with lift in/out, winter storage, maintenance and insurance.
Some youth sailing programs are thriving, our local club is. But that’s no longer going to lead on to boat ownership. The over-priced marinas will cheerfully turn themselves into the waterfront housing developments they’ve always wanted to be and the trades that support boating will dwindle.
High end stuff will still be made and sold and they’ll be a thriving hire market but as for the days of families going sailing in their own boat - that’s going fast 🙁
Click to expand...
Yes, in a nutshell. Sadly, with the odd geographic exception, it is a way of life only for those with excess disposable income can afford and/or only for those who live aboard because the yearly costs are grossly excessive vis a vis the utility or necessity of the boat. There continues to be a lack of supply of marina berthing ( keeping prices over inflated) and lack of competition in the market place too.
 
Over the last few years, despite being a boat owner, I have chartered in Scotland with friends, and twice in Thailand on my own. Why? Because I occasionally want a change of scenery, and working full time makes it impractical on my own boat at the moment. My brother, also a boat owner, has chartered boats with friends on a number of occasions for the same reason.

I am often asked by friends, and colleagues at work if I want to join a charter as they could do with an experienced skipper or crew, and it is the availability of enough time off work that is the limiting factor.

I consider myself comfortable rather than rich, and once you start stuffing 8-10 people on a large charter boat, then the individual cost is not much different to a week in an AirBnB for a couple.
 
Last edited:
One of the advantages to downsizing to a smaller and cheaper mobo apart from reduced berthing costs marginally is capital released to charter with family in a few more far flung locations outside Med say such as Thailand/BVI etc We haven’t reached that stage yet but certainly merits some further research as to prices of a charter out of say WI or Thailand etc to see roughly how many such holidays ignoring inflation etc such an approach would fund.
 
ashtead said:
One of the advantages to downsizing to a smaller and cheaper mobo apart from reduced berthing costs marginally is capital released to charter with family in a few more far flung locations outside Med say such as Thailand/BVI etc We haven’t reached that stage yet but certainly merits some further research as to prices of a charter out of say WI or Thailand etc to see roughly how many such holidays ignoring inflation etc such an approach would fund.
Click to expand...
Cost for us as a couple to do Thailand this year was €1K each for flights, €200 for the transfer to the charter base, and the boat was €2K a week for a 40 foot Sun Odyssey that was quite old - we went in early Feb. Sure it could be had cheaper, but we wanted to do the East side of Thailand, near Cambodia, and there wasn't much choice of charter companies or boats. It was an island chain from Koh Chang to Koh Kood. No facilities, (marinas, harbours, buoys) just anchoring and you had to get the tide right to use the few piers available with water, or carry water aboard in containers. An excellent destination IMO but we've done it twice now and seen pretty much all it has to offer.

Our charter boat is in the bottom right.

1761823548701.png
 
Boats are like holiday homes....they limit your horizons. Chartering and hotels allow you to break those restraints
 
When I was in my 30s I decided I would like to drive too / in every county in the UK it took me until I was in my 50s to do it by which time I had forgotten about it till I was sitting in a hotel in N Ireland.
 
ashtead said:
One of the advantages to downsizing to a smaller and cheaper mobo apart from reduced berthing costs marginally is capital released to charter with family in a few more far flung locations outside Med say such as Thailand/BVI etc We haven’t reached that stage yet but certainly merits some further research as to prices of a charter out of say WI or Thailand etc to see roughly how many such holidays ignoring inflation etc such an approach would fund.
Click to expand...
We are in the process of doing this.

My Sun Odyssey 349 will be sold by the end of November. I envisage replacing it with something along the lines of a First 27,7 and investing the balance.

This was motivated in part because the lease on my berth comes to an end on 31 December, and my position in the waiting list is such that while there is a sub 10m/3,2m beam berth available for me in Saint Quay there is not room for my current boat (10,7 x 3,44). The other factor is that both of my daughters now live in the far east, one in Sulawesi, the other in Hong Kong, so our attention is drawn that way.

We have done charters out of Langkawi and Phuket. The sailing my wife and I do on our own boat involves pottering around the North Brittany coast, sometimes with a couple of friends. For what we do the smaller more basic boat will do the job just as well.
 
I’m sure keeping a boat at St Quay would substantially reduce our berthing costs 🤣I have visited a few years ago and recall Trevor of the marina staff was a character. It is another take on idea of course to have a small mobo in Brittany and use it from there for harbour hoping.
 
Poignard said:
I haven't seen the programme but my question would be - "Why don't the Italians want to live there?"

Might it be that there's no work there, nothing to do, no entertainment, nobody interesting to meet, &c?
Click to expand...
France or Spain, the locals have all gone into town.
Why would you want to live in damp cold pile of rubble that your granny probably passed away in miles from anywhere, when you can have a modern warm dry and practical house near to just about everything you are likely to need ?
I blame Driving over Lemons.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top