Owning a boat, annual costs.

[watershed]

I can't afford wine because i own a boat( big aaaaah and violins please!).

[Oddfellow]

See, Jim. Buy a boat and you might not be able to afford wine or beer.

 

The cost of ownership, as has been pointed out, needs to take into account your travel to and from the boat which is a cost that will only rise.

 

You also need to remember that anything with the word "marine" attached to it trebbles the price (if not more). Let's consider a fridge. That one under the counter in my kitchen cost about £200 a decade ago. The one on Rambling Freedom was about £450 four years ago. The even smaller on on Spirit of Freedom will cost you at least £520 if you were to buy one tomorrow.

 

Also, a boat isn't always something that you can always maintain yourself. A 27ft boat isn't trailerable, so for any underwater work (which it will need at some point), you will have to pay a boat yard to get it in and out of the water.

[watershed]

Makes you wonder,doesn't it? Why the hire companies bother,that is.

[Mowjo]

Tell me about it Andy! we havn't even taken ownership of our new/old boat yet, Judi wants a new Cooker and Isotherm Fridge, Yup! just over £1000 for the two and that's without all the other bits she wants, I think last count it was around 2.2k,, but that's with a service and a few bits I want to change, I reckon my 8k boat is going to end up costing me another 4k to get it how I want it,,

 

Frank,,,,,

[BroadScot]

Frank,

 

Have you costed the Gold Leaf paint for the boats naming ceremony?  Seriously, just reading your figures, is a good way to see what items can and do cost a lot, same with Andy!

 

P.S. dinny look for Costa Lot in Spain, its in Norfolk!

 

Iain.

[Matt]

The cost of ownership, as has been pointed out, needs to take into account your travel to and from the boat which is a cost that will only rise.

Three words:

FREE

Bus

Pass

Alright for some ;-)

[Mowjo]

Iain! a lot of people buy a boat and use it as it is, as you know by now I'm not one of them, if you don't include my time actually getting a boat how I want it, I've managed to make a profit on my last six boats, and as I love doing the work I look on it as a hobby anyway, you can figure in things like Batteries, Fridges and Cookers, but in my experience the cost really shoots up with the odd £20 here, £30 there, I've just ordered some Vanish stripper, Varnish and various sand papers, £150 gone with a click of a button, needs new lights £100 plus to change, needs a new battery another £80 the list goes on and the Bank balance goes down, Judi reckons if I had a boat built to Order I'd change everything, all I can say is if your a get on and go boater great, but if your like me and like changing bits to suit your needs, be prepared to dig deep in your pockets, because it ain't cheap,,,,

 

Frank,,,,,  

[watershed]

Travel costs have to be factored in whether you hire or own,and whatever type of holiday you have

[Mowjo]

More so with a boat Watershed because you'll use it more, cost my daughter £70 most weekends to travel up to her boat and back to London every other weekend,,

 

Frank,,,,

[Oddfellow]

I am not sure that a free bus pass is valid on routes between Norwich and London.....

 

Makes you wonder,doesn't it? Why the hire companies bother,that is.

 

Well, I often ask myself that question too. At some point in the not-too-distant-future, it will not be worth it for some of the smaller operators. Just look what's been lost over the last decade. For most people already in the market, hire is what they do but if they didn't they wouldn't dream of starting now.

 

But that's another discussion that I feel that I won't be drawn on any further.

 

Back to topic - stay hiring, Jim, even if it is with Clive!

[Matt]

I am not sure that a free bus pass is valid on routes between Norwich and London !

You sure?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/10232924/Pensioners-travel-length-of-Britain-for-free-using-bus-passes.html

[Gordon]

you have got to be very aware of the costs and whether you can afford it. However if you can afford it don't get too bogged down in the comparisons between owning hiring or syndicate cos sometimes you just gotta let your heart rule your head

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Oddfellow]

You sure?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/10232924/Pensioners-travel-length-of-Britain-for-free-using-bus-passes.html

Love that news story - 28 busses over seven and a half days!

[JimG]

Freedom,

ha ha I don't ALWAYS hire with Richos. I hired Rambling Freedom last year and thought it was spot on!!!

When I'm on a short break however, I stay up north!!!

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

What a great thread, and with a selection of wine too.

 

Seriously though, the point was made earlier on, you have to justify the expense of ownership / hiring / or Syndicate ownership. This year we have bought into a syndicate, so we can have 4 weeks a year for the price of 1. If it does`nt work out for us the way we want it to, we`ll simply sell our share, and go back to hiring. With our regular constraints such as working five and a half days a week, and only 5 weeks holiday a year, and living so far away, i could`nt justify the cost of private ownership, especially when you think i`l need a new car at some time, but if i spend all the money on the boat, i could`nt afford a new car, so would`nt be able to get to the boat anyway.

 

However, if in the unlikely event my personal pension rallies and goes back to its original prospective value, we`ll buy our own boat, then use it for weeks at a time so we won`t be incurring huge travelling costs.

 

Graet thread this one.

[JennyMorgan]

You sure?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/10232924/Pensioners-travel-length-of-Britain-for-free-using-bus-passes.html

Just wish that buses had free to use ball hitches then I could trailer-sail my Drascombe across England!

[BroadScot]

 

Graet thread this one.

 

Ah SPEEDTRIPPLE has got my Finger Twitch

 

 

Iain.

[Oddfellow]

Freedom,

ha ha I don't ALWAYS hire with Richos. I hired Rambling Freedom last year and thought it was spot on!!!

When I'm on a short break however, I stay up north!!!

I know, Jim. It was a bit tongue in cheek!

 

Would be good to see you back some time. We always try to look after repeat customers.

 

As for boat ownership and green boats (by that I mean boats going green through lack of use) you have only to look at my personal boats to see what I mean. I have a yacht in my garden that's so green now, it's virtually hidden in the trees, and a cabin cruiser on the hard at the yard that is in a pretty poor state now through lack of use. Would dearly love to use either, but I have no time due to work commitments. I suspect it's a similar story with boats on moorings everywhere...

[Mowjo]

Andy! we have loads in our Marina and it makes me sad and angry at the same time, I'm sad because I know they are usually in that state because the owner can't afford them or it could be I'll health or other reasons, but then I get angry because I think why keep them if your not going to use them, the average size boat must cost around £1500 a year just to have it sitting in the water doing nothing, I'm sure that most of the Greenies only need a bit of TLC to bring them back, and there are loads of first timers out there looking for a budget way to get on the Broads, I'm kind of lucky because I can see past the Crud and often think that boat could be a beauty with a bit of time and TLC spent on it, we often get asked how we manage to own and run a boat on a state pension, for me it's two reasons, first we only live half hour away so travel cost is minimum, and second every boat I've owned we've bought cheap, I've put time and effort into them and as little money as I can get away with into them, then sold at a good profit usually because someone had made me an offer it's hard to refuse, if we still lived in London there's no way I'd be able to afford a boat now, so I'm one of the lucky ones that lives localish and has plenty of time on my hands to improve what we call greenies, Frank,,,,

[riyadhcrew]

Frank,

 

Good on you and don't let anyone tell you any different!!!

[Mowjo]

Eric! I don't know if it's the way I was bought up, but one thing always sticks in my mind is something my Dad said to me when I first started work, it was "you'll soon learn in life that if you want something bad enough you'll have to make sacrifices" we had a little break from owning a boat for a few years, then I wanted to get back into it, I was working and we had a little savings so we could afford to buy a budget boat but not enough to run it as we lived in London, at the time I smoked 40 Cigs a day, I instantly gave up smoking and Judi gave up her couple of nights at Bingo, the money I saved paid for our trip to the Broads every two weeks, it was a struggle to get the boat how I wanted it, and it took me four years to do it, but I got there in the end, it was back in around 1987 and the boat I paid £5000 for I sold for £12000 five years later, I never do boats for profit, I do them because I love doing it, the upside is selling them all for profit has allowed me to have boats for the last thirty years, we have only lived in Lowestoft for the last ten years so most of it was done while I lived in London, I suppose what I'm trying to say is if you want something bad enough, you can often do it if you want it bad enough,,,, Frank,,,,,

[riyadhcrew]

Frank,

 

I can't argue with that and I don't think anyone else can either.

[Rincewind]

A few years ago I set up a multi-page spreadsheet Ship's Log into which I posted all boat-related expenses...from moorings and river tolls to new shiny bits. I checked the total at the end of a season and almost passed out from the shock! Let's just say...that particular ill-conceived, masochistic record-keeping exercise has been sidelined ever since. We now only log miles, time and estimated fuel consumption and only do that because we have no fuel gauge.

 

My good lady and I work hard and spend lots of time and money on our old boat but all the expenditure and hassle is worth it in the end. We no longer have foreign holidays nor do we visit the local hostelries and restaurants as much as we used to but, as Frank's father wisely said, "if you want something bad enough, you have to make sacrifices". Never a truer word said.

[Mowjo]

Sometimes when someone says to me how can you afford it, normally non boaters I have to add, I'll say, do you go away for your Holidays? do you go out for meals? do you smoke? do you go away for weekends, do you go to shows or football matches and quite a few more do you's? they normally say Yes to at least three or more, then I say to them I don't do any of them, I have a boat 52 weeks of the year, case closed,,, 

 

Frank,,,,,

[LondonRascal]

I only think it becomes close to financially viable to owning a boat when you reach and then exceed the estimated costs of annual ownership through hire fees.

 

This year I have already spent in hire fees the equivalent of a mooring in Wroxham for a year, my Broads Toll, Insurance and some left over for fuel costs.  However I have only had a few weeks worth of actual ‘boat time’.

 

There are a couple of ex hire boats up for sale at the moment, that were only sold last year. Whoever bought them clearly found the reality of ownership did not live up to the dream. 

 

Because I don’t drive my ideal way of owning a boat would be a mooring in Wroxham, I could book train tickets in advance each month buying the next months travel - that would mean about £32.00 return and then simply walk to the boat from the train station.  I’d have Roy’s on the doorstep for food – Norfolk Marine just along the way too and being the ‘Barnes side of the Bridge’ would not need to worry about the type of boat being able to get under Wroxham Bridge. 

 

Of course, the privilege of such a mooring costs more than at other locations - £64.00 per foot a year.  But let us say you saved money and moored in Stalham, I’d need to get a taxi there and say that was £15.00 each way and if I was to (as I plan to) spend almost every weekend on the water, that taxi fare would mount up – at 35 weeks use out of a year the taxi would cost me over £1,000!

However you look at it, boating is not a cheap thing to partake in.  What actually gives me a lot of annoyance is the many boats that are moored out there not being used but taking up valuable marina space – this in turn means those who do use their boats find getting a mooring harder (and because of demand for those moorings the marinas can charge a hefty sum).

 

I think therefore many owners have found they like the idea of boating, the getting away from it all too – but they only want to do that part every now and then, and in fine weather.  So their boasts sit idle for long periods of time, such owners would surely be better of selling the boat and reverting back to hiring.

 

The other point is because many of the boats don’t get used a great deal through the year, the mechanical parts gets forgotten about too, you only need to look at some photos of rusty battery terminals, oil covered engines and the like in some sales particulars to know the boat would not have spent her time cherished by her owners – and you buy straight into likely problems just to get things up to standard.