Pulaski

I've never owned a boat, but everything I've heard and read is that the day you buy a boat is the second happiest day of your life!

jibsymalone

B.O.A.T. = Bust out another thousand! Money pits, all of them

scrubbedexpat027

Absolutely. As are most things. Much better to die with a healthy bank balance.

scrubbedexpat027

Just realized I've spent $60K on rent in the 3 years since I've been here. Not exactly the cheapest of things.

Orangepants

We have a little 18ft speedboat and love it - time will tell whether it will bankrupt us! But I'd rather enjoy it now - as my Dad says, you cant take it with you.

King Gimp

Its actually not that expensive if you can do the majority of the work on the boat yourself, have somewhere to store the boat for free in the off season and are able to obtain a summer slip for a reasonable price.

If you cant fix your boat and you have to pay a marina workshop to do the work then be prepared to bleed $$$$ out of every orifice.

My boating costs are at most $2000 a year - that includes summer slip, boat insurance, fuel and maintenance items. Granted its a smaller boat at 24ft.

My wife was just grumbling about the slip cost for this year...I pointed out it seemed like much better value than the $3000 4 day ski trip she insisted we took in winter.

Yorkieabroad

He's wanting a sailboat he can live on, so off-season storage costs aren't an issue. I'd be amazed if could get the annual costs for a comfortable liveaboard anywhere near that sort of ballpark if he's doing any sort of provision for replacement costs for sails, rigging, hull maintenance etc, let alone finance and depreciation. Maybe its cheaper in Ca, but our local marina is 350/month for a 40 footer, plus 90/month if liveaboard, so that's over 5 grand a year before he's even set foot on it.

scrubbedexpat027

It's around $700 per month in Ventura. My apartment rent is $1600 per month. Of course you would then need to buy/finance the boat and add maintenance/insurance costs.

Yorkieabroad

Thought it would be a bit more up there...(most things seem to be), but I'm guessing its also considerably nicer than Galveston Bay

Yorkieabroad

If its a lifestyle choice - I'd say go for it (and be incredibly jealous!!)
If its a moneysaving exercise, I'd look for something else.

TopSec

Crumbs, if you think that is pricey, try paying for a 46 footer in Southampton!! We spent an awful lot of time on our boat there and loved it. Once we started to spend more time in the US it became a waste of money as it was sat there empty for weeks on end so we sold up - sad day

I would live aboard though, given the right boat, any day.

Yorkieabroad

We had a 33 and a 42 in the Solent, and yes, scarey pricey over there (the costs were just thrown up to show that I didn't think 2k a year was realistic). Fortunately when I say "we" I mean the club, which was employer subsidized, so my only direct costs were the annual 20 membership plus 10/weekend or 20/week per person usage......

We talked and talked about buying boat between 4 very close friends, but always came back to it not making financial sense for the use we'd get out of it, so used to bareboat charter together for 2-4 weeks at a time somewhere nice instead. It worked out a lot cheaper, we sailed in nicer (warmer!) waters and had more variety in both equipment and geography. I'd still love to buy a boat, sell up ashore and join one of the round the world flotillas, but given that my wife gets queasy on a cruise ship, I'm not really seeing it in my future any time soon....

scrubbedexpat027

I've made my decision. I'm going to continue with my sailing lessons to get my ASA 101/103 then bareboat charter a few weekends throughout the year.

I'll revisit next year about the liveaboard aspect. If it's something I still really want to do after that time, then I'll do it for a while.

I'll need to keep dodging any women who may want to tie me down in the meantime though

Trixie_b

Errrmmm There are plenty of women who like to sail. There are plenty of gold diggers in the posh marinas too.
I am a yacht master, and up until recently, I had a commercial endorsement. I would love to take my ocean master, I've done the ocean passages, but want to cross the atlantic, although I have a friend who's done it several times, the quickest was 11 days, the longest about 30 if my memory serves me.

lizzyq

Not into that sort of thing??