How much does it cost to own a boat?
The question is often asked by folks interested in buying a boat, but not having any experience of owning one. It is, of course, impossible to answer definitively, but it is possible to conjure up a working budget. This post is intended for the prospective boat-buyer as he or she ponders the possibility buying and maintaining a first boat.
My limited experience tells me that the more expensive unknowns are not what many prospective boat-owners think. The costs van vary widely, depending on whether the thing that is bought is really appropriate for the task that it is bought for. Also, it really helps if you know who to turn to to get what you need, be it someone who can do boat electrics, or someone who knows how to service marine diesel engines. The mounting costs of these two issues alone prompted me to part ways with Bolero, but a more experienced or connected owner might have successfully rescued the situation for fewer dollars (and I truly hope that was the case with Bolero’s new owner).
The harsh reality is that boats do indeed reach the end of their serviceable lives and it is worth lodging the fact immovably in one’s field of view when presented with a seemingly irresistible deal on an old boat. End-of-life occurs in a kind of mythical parallel time-space continuum that has some vague connection to the one inhabited by our boats. Theoretically, it occurs when the work required greatly outweighs the value of the boat but it commonly gets shunted back into its parallel universe by as much sentiment as much as putting the old family dog to sleep.
Many GRP boats are now 30 to 40 years old. Contrary to the promises of vendors and agents, they are not indestructible, and the problems begin to compound, especially when subjected to the kind of cack-handed maintenance that I lavished on my boat following, it seems, the tradition of most of its previous owners. Such abuse became apparent in the myriad of different size screws and screw-head-types that were holding the windows to the hull, as if one of the previous owners had a jar of every screw that had been left over from every DIY job imaginable and then used a random-number generator to select them for insertion into the holes in the window frame that, incidentally, were widening at different rates according to the level of contact between the dissimilar metals of the aluminium frames and steel screws. The rats’ nest of wiring, where some wires were simply twisted together and covered with self-adhesive insulation tape was, frankly, jaw-dropping. I was willing to sort through the 12-volt electrics, but it would have been another project on top of all the other projects that could have occupied all my weekends for the rest of my days on earth. I was grateful that the new owner took the boat off my hands knowing the scale of the work ahead of him.
The following table has a rough tally of dollar costs that I spent in owning Bolero. I trust it might be useful as a guide to how much it costs to own a 40-year-old 28-foot sailing boat. I am sure I missed some items, like the the anti-fouling and repair to the rudder. My sums worked out at a little under AUS$1000 per month, which sees a reasonable working estimate budget for someone considering a boat of a similar size and age. There is no such thing as a cheap boat.
| Date | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2019 | $20,000 | Initial purchase |
| Oct 2019 | $685 | Surveyor's fee |
| Jan 2019 | $1,940 | Slipping |
| Oct 2019 | $2,647 | Marina fee |
| Oct 2019 | $2,704 | Batteries, propellor, depth sounder, slipping |
| Aug 2020 | $365 | Boat registration |
| Aug 2020 | $80 | VMR Marine Assist |
| Aug 2020 | $513 | Yacht club fee |
| Aug 2020 | $605 | Repair to boom bag, replace anchor chain and mainsail halyard |
| Aug 2020 | $780 | Insurance |
| Feb 2021 | $704 | Sundry parts for Bukh Diesel Engine |
| Aug 2021 | $2,762 | Marina fee |
| Aug 2021 | $565 | Yacht club fee |
| Oct 2021 | $307 | Upgrades for category rating for St Helena Cup |
| Nov 2021 | $929 | Sundry parts for Bukh Diesel Engine |
| Dec 2021 | $3,410 | Recondition Bukh Diesel Engine |
| Dec 2021 | $689 | Replacement engine exhaust elbow, thermostat, misc parts |
| Jan 2022 | $597 | Make a new engine bay floor |
| Aug 2022 | $555 | Yacht club fee |
| Aug 2022 | $12,000 | Gross sale price |
| Aug 2022 | $4,400 | Agent's commission, including GST |
| Aug 2022 | $7,600 | Net sale price |
| Total costs | $40,837 | |
| Net costs | $32,837 | |
| Number of months | 35 | |
| Cost per month | $953 |
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