Year on year expense of 50ft motorboat

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The Badger

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Hi

Probably been discussed a million times but up to date info would be greatly appreciated.

My parents had boats my whole child hood and now in the business of buying a boat myself. Last time my dad had a boat was 11 years ago so id be really interested to understand the costs in the modern world!.

I really fancy a Targa 47 or if I'm honest id prefer a Princess V53.

Excluding berth costs, how much should I budget for servicing and maintenance of a 50ft ish sports boat? Ill copper coat it first lift so do not intend on yearly antifouling. My dad is a marine engineer so in theory we could service ourselves but it would not carry a Volvo or Cat or whatever receipt. and anyway id rather just pay an engineer to service it and not have the hassle!

Id kind of expected costs to be between £5000 - £8000 (Excluding any major engine dramas) a year but I've read on here one chap budgeting £100k for 3 years? Am i dreaming with my budget?

All advice greatly appreciated.
 
I would say £8K excluding berthing cost is not far off. If you're looking at boats from the mid 2000's then some maintenance costs might be approaching. I have a 2003 Phantom 43 and am spending around £5k-£6k on average per year. This year was higher as a couple of large ticket items came up but they won't need attention again for a long time.
 
Richard.C said:
I would say £8K excluding berthing cost is not far off. If you're looking at boats from the mid 2000's then some maintenance costs might be approaching. I have a 2003 Phantom 43 and am spending around £5k-£6k on average per year. This year was higher as a couple of large ticket items came up but they won't need attention again for a long time.
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Excluding a major break fix that sounds about right.
 
We have owned a (2010) V42 for 18 months now and, exchange rates aside (a couple of years ago €1.40, this year €1.12), I estimate :-

Regular costs for D6 370s on legs (servicing main VP dealers in Spain):-

£500 Crane out, chock up for 7 days, and relaunch
£2,300 Servicing x 2 engines & Inspecting legs etc (no bellows needed this year - so expect to add a further £500 next year)
£500 Generator Service (first one under our ownership so I asked for everything to be changed)
£500 Polish hull to rubbing strip & Anti-foul
£800 Insurance


When we were berthed in Torquay, a local guy serviced the engines for less than half the cost of VP main dealers...

Exceptional Costs this year

£1500 Strip and descale Heat Exchangers and Oil Coolers - we were expecting this cost as VolvoPaul picked this up on our survey,

Depending on the age of the boat, you may be looking at some "nice" (?) to have costs. We were fortunate in that whilst our boat was an ex-Med boat, Burton Waters did a great job of replacing all the cockpit upholstery and we purchased new mattresses for the cabins before she was shipped back to the Med. I have no idea how much the cockpit upholstery would have cost us, but the mattresses cost c £1,700.
 
Elessar said:
A daft yardstick.
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+2
The cheaper the purchase price, the higher the likely yearly costs.

It's very difficult to transfer yearly costs from one to another.
Servicing depends on size of engines, do you hire an engineer or do it yourself? Do you pay someone else to clean the boat? What mileage do you cover in the year? What speed do you travel at?
When you fix something do you replace with the best available or the cheapest alternative.
How much work will you do yourself?
 
Richard.C said:
I would say £8K excluding berthing cost is not far off. If you're looking at boats from the mid 2000's then some maintenance costs might be approaching. I have a 2003 Phantom 43 and am spending around £5k-£6k on average per year. This year was higher as a couple of large ticket items came up but they won't need attention again for a long time.
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Thats reassuring, thanks
 
Andy Bav said:
We have owned a (2010) V42 for 18 months now and, exchange rates aside (a couple of years ago €1.40, this year €1.12), I estimate :-

Regular costs for D6 370s on legs (servicing main VP dealers in Spain):-

£500 Crane out, chock up for 7 days, and relaunch
£2,300 Servicing x 2 engines & Inspecting legs etc (no bellows needed this year - so expect to add a further £500 next year)
£500 Generator Service (first one under our ownership so I asked for everything to be changed)
£500 Polish hull to rubbing strip & Anti-foul
£800 Insurance


When we were berthed in Torquay, a local guy serviced the engines for less than half the cost of VP main dealers...

Exceptional Costs this year

£1500 Strip and descale Heat Exchangers and Oil Coolers - we were expecting this cost as VolvoPaul picked this up on our survey,

Depending on the age of the boat, you may be looking at some "nice" (?) to have costs. We were fortunate in that whilst our boat was an ex-Med boat, Burton Waters did a great job of replacing all the cockpit upholstery and we purchased new mattresses for the cabins before she was shipped back to the Med. I have no idea how much the cockpit upholstery would have cost us, but the mattresses cost c £1,700.
Click to expand...

That break down is very helpful, thank you.

Did you truck the boat out to the med? if so, would you mind if i asked at what cost?
 
We trucked her, but was part of the deal with Burton Waters. However this is our second boat we have trucked, but depending how far south you go, time of year and flexibility with times (and of course assuming you can truck a Targa 47 or V52) I would allow c£5000 ± £500
 
Including berth, which is your higher expense I would say a 15-16 meter motor boat has an expense of about 15-20k Euros a year.
The bigger difference will come from the berth, which can vary in the Med to costs from 5k a year for berths in not so famous areas to 15k a year in a very desired marina.
A marina has its desire factor with two things; distance to nice cruising anchoring spots and facilities modernity of the marina.

This average excludes fuel and cost to cruise, guest marinas, part-time crew (if needed) etc etc
 
So we have an old (1994) 50ft flybridge boat and have done for about 3 years. The costs over each season are pretty much the same so I’ll list this years to give you an idea:

Mooring: €4500
Insurance: £459
Engine, Genset, gearbox service: €2800 (every 2 years)
Other mechanical work: €800
Antifoul hull/props: €1450

Our total bill year to date for running the boat excluding fuel but including some upgrades and all repairs is €11,800
For us that’s a heavy year as our engines need a full service every two years so next year it will be a few thousand euros cheaper.
 
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