The cost of running a Squadron 58 - first season ...

Bouba said:
At €640 a night it doesn't take long for a Seakeeper to pay for itself
Click to expand...

In the seas I was sitting in there was no roll but a very very large amount of pitch so sadly a SK would not help!

Ibiza is a popular Island with only 3 marinas ( Ibiza town has several but i call them one) so berths are very difficult to find and they can charge what they wish. Formentera has 2 marinas ( located in the the same place) and they are circa E500 a night - but you can go in for E15 per hour for water and supplies.

Do bear in mind that the figure that large was a one off!

Next closest contender was San Antonio at E280 and then mallorca which per my last post is mostly between E120 and E170. Exceptions are Portals, Andriano and strangely Soller given the moorings are a a concrete wall in the middle of nowhere ... they were I think E200 + IVA + elec + water. I just anchored in Colobra which is nicer and free!

HENRY - if we boated based on money we wound never do it. The appeal of the south of England in a boat is to be honest nil - they could make it free and i would not keep my boat there. Mallorca is a holiday. Sun, warm sea, nice food, beaches and mostly excellent service in the marinas. I have never come across any hint of bribery so I am not sure what that refers to.
 
Last edited:
henryf said:
€640 per night to moor up is the part which puts me off Med boating. That and the though of having to bribe people the price of a British mooring (or more) just to be able to pay the exorbitant charges.
Let's see what the future brings in 5 or 10 years time......
Click to expand...
Well, it's not like Med boating necessarily means all that...
Besides, waddumean by let's see in 5 or 10 years?
Are you expecting the global warming to make the sea around Britain Med-alike, sort of? :D :cool:

Though in a sense we are thinking along the same lines...
I always say that the problem with the global warming is that it's too slow, because the only thing which I miss in the Med is the possibility to dive in a coral reef, which takes time to build up.
Maybe in 100 years there will be some, courtesy of global warming, but we won't be around with our boats to enjoy it... :p

PS: thanks jrudge for taking the time to put together a very interesting report! :encouragement:
 
Last edited:
Nice thread .
Yes I would say pretty light ish , running costs if you take out the tender like some berth nights I would say that's discretionary .
Not bad for the 1st year .

Although you can,t plan the timings of a fault to fix and sometimes needed to hire help ,just goes to show that being 1/2 handy with DIY ,as well as saving it means the show carries on .
Running an old boat once you are in the mindset of fixing things then a certain % of the pleasure is actually maintaining it .
Balance made up of using it .
Med makes useage a huge pleasure and of course in a man maths way time .
By time I mean if you are retired ( from 9-5 stuff ) and can go as often as you like ,The more time the more dilute the bills / week can .
Autonomy is the key --Geny , water capacity , fridge capacity ,tender , big fuel tanks .
 
jrudge said:
I have never come across any hint of bribery so I am not sure what that refers to.
Click to expand...
J, I think H refers to something which was mentioned in other occasions ref. the need to bribe some marina folks to get a berth - which does happen, in places.
But I'd call that a very restricted exception (restricted both geographically and timewise, i.e season peak), rather than the norm.
 
Really interesting, thanks!

As Portofino mentioned too, being handy with tools is virtually imperative if you are running a boat - in my first season with the boat there were a number of small issues that were easily dealt with by me, but would have been a pain if I had needed to rely on a contractor for each item. Plus, most of the time the fixing is pretty enjoyable!
 
petem said:
I think the bribing stuff is more prevalent in France, according to what I read here.
Click to expand...

The only discussion I recall related specifically to St Tropez, and I think even that may have changed with the new management there. I've not paid a bribe in 10 years boating in SoF. Visitor berths are also sensible, typically around 100 euro for Sq58 size. You could even (tongue in cheek) argue that berths are much cheaper than the UK, as the weather out of season in SoF is similar to high season in the UK, and I've paid under 30 euro in Nice in April :cool:

jrudge, interesting numbers. The one that stands out is polishing, 300E for the topsides?? I usually employ casual labour to polish mine at 15E an hour, and it still costs 800E in labour by the time they're done.

The main cost missing from your list is annual servicing, typically about 3,000E, as I guess you haven't needed to do that yet.

The other, of course, is one off failures and replacements, and it's best not to think about those! :encouragement:
 
The E300 was just for the top, the hull was done out of the water for another E300 - popular figure!

I think servicing will be about that by the time you add in IVA, Oil etc.

Was serviced last September. I will get it done when finished at end October.
 
jrudge said:
The E300 was just for the top, the hull was done out of the water for another E300 - popular figure!
Click to expand...

That is a VERY reasonable price for a polish.

I noticed that fixing the electrical windows wasn't on the list. Did you find access to the motor and did you fix it yourself?

I hope you don't mind my curiosity, but how does the crew thing work. Does the crew member live with you on the boat and is he/she more or less available 24/7? The cost you mention seems pretty reasonable.

Thank you for the numbers. Very interesting insight to owning a bigger boat.
 
scubaman said:
That is a VERY reasonable price for a polish.

I noticed that fixing the electrical windows wasn't on the list. Did you find access to the motor and did you fix it yourself?

I hope you don't mind my curiosity, but how does the crew thing work. Does the crew member live with you on the boat and is he/she more or less available 24/7? The cost you mention seems pretty reasonable.

Thank you for the numbers. Very interesting insight to owning a bigger boat.
Click to expand...


2 windows were fine. The third has no obvious means of access and .... it has stated working a little so I will free it off next time I am down. I discovered it by accident when I pushed the button as opposed to the light switch!
 
scubaman said:
That is a VERY reasonable price for a polish.

I noticed that fixing the electrical windows wasn't on the list. Did you find access to the motor and did you fix it yourself?

I hope you don't mind my curiosity, but how does the crew thing work. Does the crew member live with you on the boat and is he/she more or less available 24/7? The cost you mention seems pretty reasonable.

Thank you for the numbers. Very interesting insight to owning a bigger boat.
Click to expand...

That is very reasonable cost to polish.

My Sealine S28 cost £300 for the hull and £500 everything above the rubbing strake. The top bit was cut back and coated with an equivalent A-glaze product but even so!
 
jrudge said:
2 windows were fine. The third has no obvious means of access and .... it has stated working a little so I will free it off next time I am down. I discovered it by accident when I pushed the button as opposed to the light switch!
Click to expand...

Original post: great read. But I was exhausted by the end of it. How did you find the time to fit all that in and use the boat? :encouragement:
 
petem said:
Thanks J, all very interesting.

Did I read this right "E640 for a night at anchor"?
Click to expand...

Yup, I was quoted the equivalent of £475/night in a Ibiza Town marina in 2009. I declined the offer
 
Interesting post J. Must admit I'm surprised how cheap some of those items are. However to people reading this thread in order to get an idea of the cost of running a motorboat, you've omitted the biggest non discretionary cost of them all and thats depreciation:eek: Of course you only get to know that cost on the day you sell
 
henryf said:
€640 per night to moor up is the part which puts me off Med boating. That and the though of having to bribe people the price of a British mooring (or more) just to be able to pay the exorbitant charges.

Henry :)
Click to expand...

I will probably create a new thread sometime but we were in Mallorca and Ibiza this July / August and didn't go into any marinas.
That isn't because we didn't want to - when bad weather came in, we tried - there was nowhere that would take us - even if we COULD afford to pay those kinds of fees.
So all we could do was to find somewhere safe and anchor.
Thankfully, we did find somewhere safe - whilst boats were being blown ashore in Saona - only 11 miles from us.

So, 640 euros would have been a small price to pay if you couldn't find anywhere else to go.
 
Super informative thread. You are always within reasonably a safe cruising distance from a safe anchorage on all the islands when needs must. Its one of the islands biggest boating benefits. July and August in Ibiza marinas is rarely going to be on the list for budget berthing. Still go anchor or marina it is an absolute must and does not have to cost the earth.
 
In my situation we have our regular mooring for which we have a lease. But it's only good for the summer because it's in a river mouth and the flow is too fast in the winter to be used, so we decamp to another port for the winter. If we go on a winter cruise and stay in another port, then we have paid for that night three times over. I'm too afraid to do the man maths
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

S
How much does re-upholstery cost?
Replies
15
Views
654
Mr Googler
Mr Googler
cyberkryten
We finally bought a boat - Merry Fisher 895s2
2 3
Replies
41
Views
1K
Cathy*
C
ari
What is your lifejacket policy?
3 4 5
Replies
86
Views
2K
Greg2
Greg2
O
South Coast - Cheap boating option
4 5 6
Replies
107
Views
3K
Boathook
Boathook

Share this page

Top