Seas The Day 315 - Final Costs of Owning a New Catalina 315 for 5 Years and 6 Seasons

Photo Credit:  Wealth Management

We traded in Seas The Day (315) our Catalina 315 that we owned for the past 5.25 years (6 seasons).

With that action, I can try and summarize this experiment about what owning a new sailboat cost us.

First some citations... this has been a roughly yearly effort and here are the links to each year's costs.


Here is Year One (Covering roughly from April 2014 to April 2015).  Note that you'll want to read this one for the WHY we are tabulating and sharing the costs.  It's basically to fill a knowledge gap we couldn't seem to access when first considering the purchase of Seas The Day.

Here is Season Two (Covering roughly April 2015 to December 2015).

Here is Season Three (Covering from January to December 2016).

Here is Season Four (Covering from January to December 2017).

Here is Season Five (Covering from January to December 2018).

And Now we're at Season Six... and we'll quickly review this season's costs and try to get a total below.


Once again, some ground rules... for you accounting types, you're going to go nuts.  I'm doing a LOT of rounding and estimating.  I'm not super anal about costs at this stage so I'm sure there's an occasional trip to West Marine or the Liberty Landing chandlery that has been missed.


SEASONAL COSTS

- Mortgage was $8,000 (we round the mortgage payment up to $1000/month, but only paid 8 months this year).
- Insurance was $640 for the abbreviated season
- Maintenance was $3,750 (New Fuel tank, New water pump & some bottom cleaning)
- Mooring & Storage was $300 (Mostly getting the mooring ready... no haul because we traded it.)
- Safety equipment was $60 (Replenishing the seasickness kit.)
- Accessories were $0 (I'm sure I missed something.)
- Yacht Club expenses were $2,100 (Everything except for 4Q dues.)

That's a total of $14,900 (be nice... I'm rounding), which is a lot less than last year.  But again, we traded it in 3/4 of the way through the season.  Still, we had 15 days on the water this season, so we're spot on the $1000/day estimate.


EXCURSION COSTS

For excursion costs, I try to estimate the cost of the typical excursion be it a day out and back from the mooring in Keyport, or a longer endeavor.  I try to include actual marina costs, any special provisioning, a guess at fuel and any tips to the launch drivers.  We basically had two types of trips this year.

First is a 4 hour day on the water - starting and ending at Keyport, NJ.  A rough guess for this trip is about $45 it's really not that expensive beyond the cost of ownership.  Note that I do NOT count the costs of meals consumed on land in Keyport (or drinks at KYC).  We had 11 days like this for a total cost of about $495 (again, these are guesses).

The second type of trip was our 4-day trip to Liberty Landing Marina.  This was a bit expensive including marina costs ($~800), provisions and lots of eating in restaurants (we took a couple of day trips into NYC).  Unfortunately, I didn't record exact spending (it was vacation, after all), but my best guess is it was about a $1500 trip (we eat really well and used Seas The Day as a NYC-Based hotel room while exploring the city).



THE TOTAL FOR 5.25 YEARS AND 6 SEASONS.

Here's the summary...

Startup Costs - $51,660
1st. Year Recurring Costs - $23,432
2nd Season Costs - $20,709
3rd Season Costs - $21,125
4th Season Costs - $22,121
5th Season Costs - $20,558
6th Season Costs - $14,860

That gives a total of $174,465 over six summers that left our wallets.

But!  We traded her in... We were given a trade in "allowance" of $150K and still owed ~$103K, so that gave us roughly $47K back that went towards the down payment on Seas The Day (425).

I had to look up her original "price", which was $179K (including tax).  In fairness, and in caution... I'm pretty sure the dealer identified us as "trade in buyers" and the trade (and purchase price for the new boat) may be a bit higher in light of that.

So... $174.5K - $47K = $127.5K as the net cost for 5.25 years of ownership.

And we had 120 days on the water (I keep track of the trips for my sea time).  So we're still at approximately $1K per day on the water.

My dealer promises me that with all the great features on the new boat, we're going to want to spend so much time on her (especially with the extended season in Rock Hall) that the costs will drop to $500 per day on the water.

I think he's bullsh!tting me.  There's a LOT MORE COST on the new boat.  And yes, we will spend a lot more time on her.  I just don't see it getting down to $500.  (I should have asked him to guarantee that.)


Final Thoughts 

Each year when I think about these costs, I think of a boat named "Canvasback" that was at Winters when we were shopping for Seas The Day.  She was a Catalina 309 that was 5 years old.  I don't know exactly what she ended up selling for but her asking price was roughly 60% of Seas The Day's list price.  To me, she looked like a brand new boat (and essentially the same as Seas The Day) except she had a vinyl floor that looked like the teak/maple floor in Seas The Day and that vinyl floor was curling in one corner.  That detail was enough to fail Vicky's specifications and we ended up going with Seas The Day, but I wish I could crystal ball what costs her new owners experienced over the ensuing 5 years.  We obviously took a depreciation hit, but I expect that they took a larger maintenance hit.  Beyond that, I have no way of doing the comparison.  I will say that owning a new boat was a huge rush, generated a lot of excitement among our guests (even 5 years hence), and gave us tremendous satisfaction.

How else can you sail your own new boat in front of the Statue of Liberty, go see a ships graveyard with young kids, have many many interesting conversations, spend quality father-son time or time with Vicky's family?

I'm sure there's other ways, but that's how we did it...

So we are very glad we Seas'd The Day.