The Cost of Owning a Boat - Is it Worth it? (Catalina 425)

Editors note:  This is a LONG blog post with a big introduction and lots of links... neither are actually needed for understanding.  Scroll down beyond the first 6 photos to get to the point.

Also, this refers heavily to our yearly summary of costs for 2020.

Taking delivery of Seas The Day 425 in Oct. 2019

The beginnings of this blog post go way back to a conversation I had with Gary, a guy who worked for me at the time, back in the early 2000s.  Gary loved to talk about fishing and I remember a conversation at the break table where the team started ragging on him about why he didn't have a boat.  At the time, he said that owning even an old boat was so expensive that he could do a bunch of charter fishing trips (I vaguely remember the number 8 or 10) for less than it cost to keep a boat and until he got to that number of charter trips a year, it just didn't make sense to him.  

I remembered that conversation many years later - specifically two years ago - when Vicky and I were down visiting friends in Florida over the holidays.  I wanted to share our love of sailing with our friends since the sailing season goes year-round down there.  Also, I was aware that the Kathleen D, the boat we originally took our sunset and fireworks cruises on (more photos here and here), was kept in the Tampa area over the winter.  It seemed a no-brainer that we would take a sunset cruise while we were down in Sarasota.

This is significant because our sunset cruise in Sarasota in Dec. 2018 (more photos here) was a bit of an eye-opening event for me.  We had a blast and shared sailing with our friend's family and another family of mutual friends.  

What was eye-opening was the cost... a little less than $800 (for a several hour long cruise in a 40' catamaran).  That's significant because throughout the ownership of Seas The Day 315 I had kept track of the costs and I was aware that it cost us about $1K for each day on the water, which was typically 4 to 5 hours of just sailing around our local bay (the same sort of trip).  

Even more... after that trip (that was $200 less than our typical day), I helped to dock the boat by precisely putting on one spring line, and then within 5 minutes of that moment we were shaking hands with the skipper and going our merry way.  No cleaning up, no boat chores, no worrying about bird crap, no nothing.

I had a repeat of that experience in the summer of 2019 when due to weather and time constraints, we took my cousin's family for an outing aboard Shardana in the Chesapeake Bay (where Vicky fell in love with the Catalina 425 - and more specifically with the foredeck sunpad).

Again the cost (less than $500) was noticed.  Again, we helped Andy dock the boat and then we were basically finished with boat work.

So during the week after this later trip, while we were thinking hard about trading up to the 425, I remember one conversation where we discussed the alternatives to how we could spend the investment we were on the verge of making.  If we made the purchase, we anticipated that our yearly costs would rise by 33% (it turned out they raised by more than 50%).  I remember at the time thinking that as alternatives, we could...

1. Purchase the new boat and move her to the Chesapeake (as planned).

2. Upgrade Seas The Day 315 with AC and move her to a dock on the Chesapeake

3. Keep Seas The Day 315 "as was" in Keyport harbor and invest the difference in charters.  With the proposed increase in spending we could easily get a number of charters to change up our sailing (e.g., a couple on the chesapeake, some off season ones down south, etc.).

4. Sell Seas The Day 315 and take all the money we would save and blow it on exotic sailing charters in all parts of the world.  We could easily take three or more week-long sailing excursions including airfare for the proposed increased costs.

Getting to the point

So... that is a very long preamble to this post.  

I now have my first full season tally of costs for Seas The Day 425 as she is based out of Rock Hall, MD.  As noted on that post, it works out that a "day on the water" is still worth about $1K and a night on-board is worth about $335 per night.  Another way to put it is it costs us about $1500 per weekend if we can use the full season.

Rather than focus on the options outlined above during our purchase decision, I want to look at alternatives to our current situation of owning a new boat on a dock at Osprey Point.

First alternative - older boat.

This comes down to the cost of the mortgage.  Instead of buying the 425, what would the effect be of getting a "good used boat" in its place?  Well... the mortgage comes to about $1K of that $1.5K/weekend cost, so one would say the resulting cost would be only $500/weekend.  

As a thought experiment, I could think about applying our down payment to an older boat so there would be no mortgage.  But what about maintenance costs?  Wouldn't they be expected to be higher with a used boat?  Looking at Yachtworld and keeping it within the Catalina 42 line, we would have to get a boat from the late 80s or early 90s to buy a boat free and clear with our down payment.  That boat is not going to be low-maintenance.

Obviously, I assume there is a sweet spot on the mortgage plus maintenance cost curve, and with a "newer used boat" it might be significantly lower than what we are paying now.  I chalk that difference up to the "pride of having a new boat".

Second alternative - local charters.

For this, I first looked at the next marina from ours where Haven Charters offers a same year 425 at these prices (from autumn, 2020).

It's clear the cost to charter for a weekend is significantly higher than my cost of owning Seas The Day for $1500/weekend.  Also, I would imagine a fair bit of schlepping would be involved... these are bareboat charters, so you get the basic boat and required safety equipment, but you'd have to bring towels, provisions, etc., for each weekend.

Looking a bit further, I looked up Shardana's excursion costs... this was captured mid-autumn, 2020.

This weekend cost is $2400... a bit higher, but Shardana is a crewed charter (it includes Captain Andy and or some other crew members).  This, too, is much higher than my per-weekend cost of $1500, but then I also noticed the full-day charter price, which compares favorably with my $1K for a day on the water.  What if I broke up the costs?

A full-day charter on Shardana, the exact same model boat from the same resort at $839 would save me a couple of bucks over my estimated $1K/day on the water.  Similarly from the Osprey Point website, their best rooms (as of late fall, 2020) are less than my $335/night estimate.  

THAT is eye-opening.  It means that (in theory) I could book a significant part of Shardana's season (31 days last year)  and fifty-some days at Osprey Point Inn, repeating the exact schedule we had this past year, and come out ahead!  

In addition to saving some money, let me emphasize... no getting on my knees to check batteries or the bilge, no cleaning the AC strainer, no standing at the dock filling the water.  No worrying about hitting another boat, no worrying about if we tied her up securely due to a tropical storm coming.

But also - and this is important - no great conversations with our cool dock-mates on B-dock.  Let's face it, we don't typically strike up deep conversation with the charter guests who are coming and going.  The camaraderie with fellow boat owners on the dock is a big part of the ownership experience (just like membership at the yacht club was with our first boat).

Also, let's remember that this was COVID Summer.  (That merits its own section below.)

But basically, the costs of owning new vs chartering new boat are comparable.

Third Alternative - Exotic Charters.

Let's dream a little... 

Let's pretend to book a charter with The Moorings using pricing today (12/26/2020) for let's say Spring Break (mid-March) this year to the British Virgin Islands.

A 7 Day charter on a 42' monohull (sleeps 8) is $7,148 including the damage waiver and taxes.

Round-trip airfare (United) for an adult looks to be around $1800 (so $3600 for me and Vicky).  Let's assume that any guests would pay their own airfare.  Note that I'm not including any provisioning because food and supply costs are not addressed anyplace else in this blog post.

Obviously I didn't do an exhaustive study of this... shifting to a different locale or a week or two here or there might result in higher or lower costs on either the charter or the airfare.  If we did this with another couple or family for guests we might split some of the costs as well.  Still, that means that by comparison a one-week BVI sailing trip would run around $11K for Vicky and me.

Another way to put it... for our $44K sailing costs this year we could have done 4 week-long exotic sailing vacations.  

THAT is eye-opening too.  

But again it was COVID Summer.

Which brings us to COVID.

The reality is that you can't discuss 2020 without mentioning COVID.  We kept a really restricted bubble all year and having Seas The Day at Osprey Point allowed us to extend that bubble safely.  We opened our bubble a little and invited some guests at the beginning of the summer as the numbers were dropping and tightened our bubble considerably latter in the summer when the numbers starting going up again.  

We would have NEVER taken a charter - either local or exotic - this summer.  We even avoided simply going into the bathhouse or Inn at Osprey Point.  

So as soon as you bring COVID into the picture, then buying Seas The Day (425) last year was a godsend.  And the answer to the main question is YES! It was worth it.

Even with a vaccine, I expect COVID will be with us for at least the beginning of the summer in 2021.

The world will at some point begin to return to normal.  (I read a while back that the airlines model getting back to previous flight patterns sometime in 2023 or later.)  As that happens, we look forward to using Seas The Day to explore farther out from Rock Hall.  Later in our sailing career we intend to take her on a larger excursion (down the coast for example... maybe a great loop or across to The Bahamas for a bit).  

And yes, at some point in time we may decide to trade in ownership for a variety of local and exotic charter experiences.  

Time will tell.

The Cost of Owning a Boat - "Seas The Day" (Catalina 425) 2nd Season Costs

Photo credit:  Wealth Management

First, for reference see last year's post for 1st season costs of owning a Catalina 425.

Second, a citation... we did this experiment with our Catalina 315.  Additional links to the costs over our ownership of that vessel are found on that page.

If you click on the 315 link above and go back to the first-year costs, I spoke about how we didn't approach buying a boat lightly and how we carefully researched costs and couldn't find specifics so I decided to share mine so others could understand the total picture.

Well... for Seas The Day 425... it's hard to say we didn't approach buying this boat lightly.  This boat was basically a spur of the moment purchase... we were at the checkout line and basically said: "oh look... they have 425s... let's put one on the belt".

Not quite... but close.  The story of the purchase is here.

As in the other cost-related posts, we'll group the costs into three categories.

ONE-TIME COSTS - costs of major equipment that we don't expect to have regularly.

RECURRING COSTS - Those costs that we expect to see regularly (yearly) as owners.

EXCURSION COSTS - We only had two excursions this year... our trip to Baltimore's Inner Harbor, and our trip up the Chester River to Chestertown.  The rest were just days sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.

Once again please understand that I'm rounding excessively.   If you're a CPA type, you're going to rapidly realize that things don't cross-check, etc.  The goal here is to share approximate costs to other potential boat owners, not to give an exact accounting.

ONE-TIME COSTS:

There were only three one-time costs.  Having them after the start-up season in our experience isn't normal, but as readers know from our post on issues and warranty experience, this wasn't a normal first year compared to our last boat.  The two main costs were $1900 to upgrade the three batteries to AGM batteries when our batteries failed early, and $1700 to convert the sliding companionway door (that kept trapping us inside) into a standard teak/glass door.  We also paid $400 to install a line cutter on our prop shaft back in the spring (I have no idea how long these last... it might be a recurring cost.)  So the total one-time costs this year rounds to $4000.

RECURRING COSTS:

When we purchased Seas The Day (425) I had to make a guess at how much the operating costs would increase relative to the 315... I had guessed $36K to $40K.  It looks like I was off by about 10%.

Our total recurring costs round to $44,400 (remember, everything is rounded).

The mortgage is $2500/month or $30,000.

Insurance for the year was $2500.

The marina clocked in at $5300.

Hauling, winterizing, spring commissioning, etc., came to $5000.

Maintenance (the 50hr engine service plus monthly battery charging over the winter) was $600.

Accessories (only the spare propane tank) was $200.

Finally the excursion costs were just under $800 (see below).

EXCURSION COSTS:

Our overnight trip to Baltimore Inner Harbor cost us $220 for the slip and a takeout dinner from the marina restaurant (The Rusty Scupper).  The overnight to Chestertown was $230 for the same.  Neither amount includes fuel costs (my guess would be $20 to $25 per trip).  Most of the rest of our days out were simple day-trips... motor out to the Swan Creek #3 buoy, then either raise the sails or motor to our "destination" and back.  Because of COVID, we were much more comfortable this year staying at our Marina than exploring the many offerings on the bay.

We don't normally include food on land in our yearly cost summary, but this year, our restaurant expenditures was greatly reduced (again due to COVID).  The only restaurant we visited by boat was Watermans and that only one time.  We maybe stopped at two other outdoor dining experiences and then did take-out from our marina's restaurant a few times, oh and picking up crabs for Vicky a few times as well.  This fact, probably saved us a few grand over a more typical year (last year for example, every trip included a significant restaurant meal).

Finally, I'm guessing a total of about $150 in pump out costs (I'm including tips here), and approximately $200 for fuel.

All these costs are included in the recurring costs above... I expect excursion costs will increase a lot next year after a COVID vaccine is available and we relax about that.

SUMMARY: 

We had an abbreviated season this year... 23 weekends rather than a typical (4/15 to 11/15) 30 weekends.   So $44,400 divided by 23 means each weekend cost us just shy of $2K.  In a more typical year with 30 weekends, but similar costs, it would be about $1500 per weekend.  (Of course, counting weekends alone isn't a great picture as we had 3 weeks of vacation on-board this year as well.)

What did we get for that?

We spent 54 days interacting with Seas The Day - anywhere from a brief nap or an hour troubleshooting the dead electrical system to a full day on-board including staying the night before and following night.

We had 31 days on the water.  Most of these were day trips.  We spent 40 overnights (one with two guests onboard) on board.  And finally, we shared her with 20 other people... mostly repeats from last year but a handful of new folks as well.

So how do we gauge this?  I'm planning a subsequent "Was it worth it" post, but based on our experience with the 315, we have 5 years of data telling us that a day on the water costs us $1K  Let's use that as a basis to break this all apart on the new Seas The Day.  Thirty-one days on the water is $31K, leaving $13,400 for the overnight costs or about $335 a night.  That's not bad for a private (floating) condo at a high end resort... Osprey Point certainly qualifies as that.

The End of the Season

The end of the season came suddenly (and surprisingly) for me.  The weekend of Nov 7 & 8 was going to be incredible... bright and clear with the temperatures in the low to mid 60s.  John and Jess were going to come down to Newark for a visit on Sunday so I had Saturday to make an attempt at single-handing again.

So with boat bag in hand, I arrived at Osprey Point marina, parked and confidently walked down to the dock and glanced across to B-dock and saw this...

No boat! (my slip is the one with all the bumpers in the center)

Thoughts flooded my mind...

"As I'm getting older, I do tend to mis-place things, but really, George"

"I'm pretty sure I kept up with the payments."

After standing there and surely looking like I felt (like a dumb idiot) for a few moments, I had a vague recollection of putting Nov 1 on the paperwork for when Gratitude Marina should haul her.  (Last year we had her hauled on Nov 15 - the official end of the season.)  

After a quick half-mile drive, and finding their manager, Wade, we found Seas The Day on the hard.  No sailing today.  (Thankfully, I had not invited anyone to come along for a sailing trip.)

Out of the water, it's easy to inspect the prop and line cutter.

Part of the plans for the day included pulling the last of the bedding and liquids off the boat, but since I didn't have my ladder with me, that had to wait.  Instead,  I went back to Osprey Point and flew the drone for a while.

Osprey Point Marina (with Haven Harbor at the upper left)

Osprey Point Inn

Looking west towards Swan Creek Marina.
(Gratitude Marina is at the upper left, near the water tower.)

A week later, I headed back down and pulled the bedding, etc.  I also opened all the doors and drawers to minimize mold and mildew.  Gratitude had already winterized everything and were well on their way to removing the sails, detuning the rig and stowing the Bimini... all that remains is for them to install the winter cover.

Yes... that was a job we used to do on the 315.  But with John still in Keyport and Vicky in China, there was no way I was taking that on alone.

I did have the drone with me again and got some nice shots of Seas The Day in her winter home.

Close-packed boats!

Looking back towards Osprey from Gratitude

Gratitude Marina

That's pretty much it for the season.  The bills for the hauling and winterizing are still coming in so look for our financial summary in the next month or so.

Thanks for reading!

Editors note... a few weeks later, I received this photo from Wade (from Gratitude Marina).  She's all put away and sleeping nicely.

A Quick Post Mortem on the Battery Issue

Editors Note:  This post is for my future self to remember and read the next time I arrive at a dead boat.

First, for context, our previous boat, Seas The Day (315), was set up to be on a mooring ball.  So I rarely used the plug in charger (maybe once or twice a season).  She had a small flexible solar panel that kept up with the daily battery drain and all her systems were usually kept "off" when we weren't using her.  As a result, her battery switch was usually kept in the 1+2 position so that the alternator would charge both batteries when she was under power.

Seas The Day (425) has two banks of batteries, a generator and of course shore power, so her electrical system is a lot more complex.  Here are some photos...

The battery switches are located in one of the starboard hatches.
Note the little circuit breaker between the circular switches.
(It feeds the power to the main panel.)

The main panel in the Salon.
Battery and bilge are at the left.
DC section in the center and AC section at the right.

The battery charger showing output voltage and current
(This was reading 0 and 0.)

The Problem:  

I'm guessing I had left the boat with the battery charger switched off.  (Editor's note, we have since had the dock pedestal looked at... we're pretty sure there was a bad connection in one outlet that probably caused a breaker to trip.)  The refrigerator and freezer were running, which drained the batteries.  Once the batteries drained below a safe point, the panel breaker between the circular switches tripped shutting off power to the DC distribution panel.  At that point, the batteries were below the voltage where they would be recognized by the charger.

Of special note is the fact that the charger manual DOES NOT MENTION this possibility... I probably would have returned the charger or purchased another one if not for the Facebook 42/425 group and Andy's response.

Solutions:

My solution (after some internet research) was to power cycle the charger and quickly (by pressing the up arrow within 7 seconds) put the charger in PS (power supply) mode.  This outputs power to the system (intended to power the boat without any batteries installed) but DOES NOT MONITOR BATTERY CHARGING.  I left it in that mode for 30 min to put some voltage into the system.  With the voltage up above 11 V, I switched it back to BC (battery charger) mode and resumed charging.  Note that it took overnight to reach full charge from this state.

An alternate solution would be to remove the house battery hatch and using a portable (book-style) jumper pack, jump the batteries so that the charger sees a usable voltage... then power cycle the charger and leave the jumper pack on the battery for the first hour or so.  

From the Owner Manual:

For quick and easy reference next time this happens, here are some diagrams from the owner manual that pertain to Seas The Day (425).  Note that we do not have the dedicated starting battery option, but we do have the generator.  Note that there's a difference between system drawings and schematics.

Discussion:

Some key points...

The output of the charger is independent of the battery switch position!  The output of the charger always is available to both battery banks.

Battery switch position 1 feeds the forward (single) battery bank to the distribution panel.

Battery switch position 2 feeds the house (double) battery bank to the distribution panel.

The battery switch position DOES determine which batteries are charged by the alternator while underway.  For that reason, NEVER run the engine with the main battery switch in the OFF position.

Watch for the little circuit breaker between the circular switches... if the main panel is off, this is the likely culprit.

The bow thruster and windlass are independent of ALL switches in the salon... they are only controlled via the small panel under the right edge of the forward berth.

My Thoughts on Best Practice:

Leave the battery switch in position 2 while at the dock.  If you end up with a discharge, you can switch to position 1 and still go sailing with use of bow thruster, etc.

Switch to position 1+2 while underway... that way the alternator keeps the forward battery full and ready for the bow thruster and windless.

A Weekend Lost to Electrical Troubleshooting

 Editor's note:  The following is about the experience of this past weekend.  I gathered all my technical thoughts for future reference in this subsequent post. 

First, a quick note... Vicky has safely made it back to China and is doing her time in quarantine.

I had great plans for this weekend.  I was all packed for a 3-day stay with plans to do some boat projects and try my hand at single handing again.  I finished up work and left right at the end of the day to make it there just after sunset.  And what a sunset it was... as I was driving southwest into Rock Hall, the sky just LIT with the sun illuminating what seemed like the entire sky.  I was in a great mood as I walked out on the dock.

I went below and started to switch on the lights... and nothing.  Nothing would light.  There was no voltage displayed on the electrical panel.  Just a little green LED saying that the AC power was OK (but no voltage shown).

But hey, I had recording studio technology class in college and that remains the best course I ever had since it taught me a very logical approach to troubleshooting a system.  I went out (several times, it turned out), and started at the dock pedestal... breakers on...  blue lights on the smart cables... LEDs on in the cockpit locker where the electric enters... and of course the green LED saying AC power is OK on the main panel.  But nothing would power up.  

The photo below was taken with the iPhone flash and makes it look much brighter.  I did have the LED candle going but nothing else.  

After a few trips through it all I noticed that the battery charger was on and showing 0 volts and 0 current going out to the batteries.  The breaker for the main panel was also tripped.  Clearly the batteries were dead.

I heard a voice outside and it turned out Captain Gary was on Simple Pleasures II (across the dock) and stopped by to help troubleshoot.  I was a little bummed he couldn't get it started right away. (But also kind of glad he didn't just walk in and fix it - personal pride, etc., etc.,)

I finally decided that the most prudent course of action was to just go home.  No DC power on a boat means no water pressure, no flushing of the electric toilets, and no lights.  With it only being an hour or so drive, that's what I did.

But first, in a stroke of genius (if I do say so myself)... I posted the issue to the Facebook "Catalina 42/425 Yacht Owner's group".  Then I started driving.  An hour's drive gives one time to mull things over and I realized that the zeros on the battery charger probably were key.  And sure enough, the Facebook group came through (it was actually Captain Andy who gave me the lead).  The battery charger must have reset because the batteries were too low and there wasn't a simple reset button on the charger to restart it.

Overnight, I read and researched on the Net... in the morning when it was light out, I hightailed it down to Rock Hall and switched the charger to "Power Supply" mode.  This put voltage into the batteries (and turned on all the boat systems), but it doesn't do any monitoring of the charging process.  I left it like that for 30 minutes which brought the battery voltage up a bit while not being long enough to cause any issues, then switched it back to "Battery Charger" mode.  Now it was outputting the expected voltage and current.

My new batteries are AGMs and so it took a slow approach to bringing them up to charge.  

I passed the time during the morning by filling in the screw holes for our hatch support (discovered to be very loose during our last day trip) with marine epoxy putty.

I couldn't go out as by early afternoon it was only up to 25% charge... not enough to guarantee I could start the engine.  

So I took a nap.  A few dock mates commented on their ability to hear me take a nap (I left the CPAP packed).

I turned off all the systems and returned home to let it charge overnight.

I came back down to Rock Hall on Sunday afternoon to check it.  The battery voltage was up to 13.3 V and the charger current was in the auto maintain mode.  

I left it sit like that for 20 minutes (to get a stable reading) and quickly took out the drone for an early fall color session...

That was the weekend... no going out, no overnight, but a chance to learn a lot about my electrical and  battery system.

The Thousand Dollar Nap??

No photos this weekend.

In fact, not much of anything.

Vicky is heading back to China Monday evening and this weekend was spent helping her get ready for the trip.  We did manage to get down to Seas The Day, but that was primarily to pick up some things she wanted to take back to China.  We went down, packed up a few bins of stuff (I was glad she helped with off-loading some of the liquids), and then ended up taking a nice long nap.

I don't have full costs for the season yet, but with mortgage and everything, I expect they will be significantly north of a grand per weekend of the season (more on that will come later).  

So this was a thousand-dollar nap!

Just a Quick and Simple Day-Trip

 

This weekend was another quick and simple day-trip.  Friday was my birthday and we had some friends over so after lounging around Saturday morning, we left late and arrived at Seas The Day just in time to eat lunch.  Lunch required a nap and we headed out mid-afternoon.  

Weather was cloudy with nice winds in the 12 - 15 kts. range.  

The photos pretty much tell the story... motored down to the #3 buoy and then sailed in some circles to keep us in practice with sail trim.  We arrived back a little before sunset, tied up and headed home.

Avoiding crab traps.

As close to wing-on-wing as you can get with a self-tacking jib.

There were a lot of places on the bay where the fish (and therefore birds) were very active.

I'm clearly the luckiest guy!

And... there's still some issues cropping up.  This is yet another place where fasteners are pulling out of the fiberglass.  Never Never Never buy a stock boat that's been used heavily in a showroom for a year.