Costs of Owning a Boat - "Seas The Day" (Catalina 425) 3rd Season Costs

Photo Credit:  Wealth Management

First, for reference see last year's post for 2nd 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 about boat ownership.  Purchasing the 425 was less researched, but still the total costs figured large in our brief discussions.  For that reason, and to be able to project from year to year, we are continuing this tally.

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 yearly as owners.

EXCURSION COSTS - We we did more multi-day excursions this year and we'll address those specifically below.  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:

We only had one one-time cost this year... our anchor upgrade which included a Mantus M1 anchor, S1 swivel, bridle, bungee & a bunch of chain.  We also installed anchor markers and made up a secondary bridle.  The total cost for all this including installation was $3000.

RECURRING COSTS:

Recurring costs are the costs for running the boat for the year assuming we never did anything other than take day trips and anchoring out in the northern Chesapeake area (e.g., no marina costs).

Our total recurring costs round to $44,000 (remember, everything is rounded).

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

Insurance for the year was $2600.

The marina clocked in at $5800 (including electric & pumpout tokens).

Spring commissioning (including bottom paint), & Winterizing (storage in water) etc., came to $5000.

Maintenance (monthly battery charging over the winter) was $300.

Safety items (just my Navionics charges) total was $100.

Accessories (none this year) total was $0.

Decor & Comfort (new pillows for the salon) totaled $125

Finally the excursion costs are summarized below.

EXCURSION COSTS:

We did two main excursions during this year.

My solitary June vacation week around the Chesapeake Bay - $1616. 

Our September vacation two weeks around the bay - $2589.

We don't normally include food on land in our yearly cost summary outside of the vacation costs.  This year, our restaurant expenditures was still reduced (again due to COVID).  I did try to eat weekly at the Osprey Point Inn each week to support them. and occasional breakfasts at Java Rock and Muskrat Alley.  Oh... we can't forget the regular sandwiches from Rock Hall Liquors.  But all that aside, we did much more cooking in our own galley, which is something we want to try and do more of next year.

Finally, I'm guessing a total of about $100 in pump out costs (I'm including tips here, but not counting the tokens at the marina), and approximately $200 for fuel.  (Neither fuel or pump out is included in the recurring costs above.

I expect excursion costs might increase next year as we try to go farther afield.

SUMMARY: 

We had a longer season this year... 28 weekends (4/25 to 11/6) which was not quite the typical (4/15 to 11/15) 30 weekend season for this area.   So $44,000 divided by 28 means each weekend cost us $1571.  (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 all that money?

We spent 73 days interacting with Seas The Day - anywhere from a watching movies from the salon without going out to a two week vacation out on the water.

We had 34 days of active sailing.  Most of these were day trips.  We spent 60 overnights (one with two guests) on board.  And finally, we shared her with 25 other people (and one dog!)... mostly repeats from last year but a handful of new faces as well.

So how do we gauge this?  Well, we could do different things with this money - even sailing related.  Our "Was it worth it" post from last year pretty much stands as written since the numbers haven't changed all that much.  In the end, were paying $44K for a full-season private (floating) condo at a high end resort (Osprey Point certainly qualifies as that) and it's a deal we'll continue to take for next year.