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| Photo Credit: Wealth Management |
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 had two different one-time costs this year.
Our RayMic 2 (the cockpit handheld radio extension) had a bad pin and had to be replaced. This was $300.
We also discovered on our cruise with the power squadron that our batteries had died when the boat lost power over the winter "in-water" storage. Those had to be replaced (even though they were only a little over a year old). The prorated cost for that was $1100.
Thus we had a total of $1400 in one-time costs this year.
(Note that since we never replaced the drone we lost during our June vacation with the Power Squadron, we won't count that here. It's a photography expense, anyway.)
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 additional marina costs).
Our total recurring costs round to $45,000 (remember, everything is rounded).
The mortgage is $2500/month or $30,000.
Insurance for the year was $2300.
The marina clocked in at $5800 (including electric & pumpout tokens).
Spring commissioning (including bottom paint), & Winterizing (storage in water) etc., came to $725.
Maintenance (an electrical check in January and securing a check valve over the winter) was $200.
Short haul and waxing the hull in June (after in-water winter storage) was $1716
Safety items (Navionics charges & PowerSquadron courses) total was $490.
Accessories (Fishing Licenses) total was $65.
Haul out and Winterizing costs (currently an estimate based on 2020 costs) are $3700
Finally the excursion costs are summarized below.
EXCURSION COSTS:
We did two main excursions during this year.
We don't normally include food on land in our yearly cost summary outside of the vacation costs. This year, our restaurant expenditures were probably higher since we weren't as worried about Covid. I did try to eat weekly at the Osprey Point Inn 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 still did a lot of 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 $300 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 about as long a season this year as we could at Osprey Point. By storing in the water, we got out to see the Ever Forward on Saturday, April 16th. Our last day out was Saturday, November 6th. That means our season was 30 weekends. (If we had sailed right up until the Nov 15 "end of season", there might have been 31 weekends, but 30 is the typical number for our area.)
There is one thing that was different this season. We didn't actually go to the boat every single weekend as was our previous practice. We missed a couple of weekends in June due to a niece's law school graduation and my son wanting to do something different for Father's day, and one weekend that was just TOO HOT. We missed some weekends in July due to a friend's knee problem keeping her from the boat, a weekend in August (again due to the heat and getting ready for a long vacation), and a couple of weekends in September due to me renewing my interest in theater organs and then for hurricane Ian. Finally we missed one weekend in October so I could try out the organ at Longwood and one weekend in November because of the cold. That's a total of 9 weekends we missed. That means we had 21 weekends plus the 3 weeks of interacting with the boat.
So then $45,000 divided by 21 weekends means each weekend have cost us $2143. That figure could have been as low as $1500 if we hadn't missed all those weekends. The difference in those numbers is significant as you'll see below.
What did we get for all that money?
We spent 65 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 35 days of active sailing. Most of these were day trips. We spent 51 overnights (some with as many as 5 guests) on board. And finally, we shared her with 23 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 two years ago pretty much stands as written, since the numbers haven't changed all that much. In the end, we're paying $45K 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.
What has changed is this year is that we started exploring a spring/summer/fall with other activities than sailing. We have both realized that there is an "opportunity cost" if you will, with sailing each and every weekend in that there are many other ways to spend a nice weekend. However, the less time you spend on the boat, the more that each weekend effectively costs. That raises the question of is it still cost effective to own a new boat vs. chartering. (See the bottom portion of the "Is it worth it?" post.)
I looked up the current prices (Dec 2022) on Dilly Dally at Haven Charters. She is another Catalina 425 from the same year as Seas The Day and charters for $3579 for a week and $2739 for a weekend from the next-door marina. So if we had rented Dilly Dally for 3 weeks and 18 additional weekends, it would have been more than $60K. We saved $15K by owning Seas The Day and using her for those weekends.
It's also pretty easy to see that the break even point is 3 weeks and 15 weekends which (assuming 3 of the weekends were part of the 3 weeks) would be a little over $44K. So if we ever get to the point where we are using the boat for less than half the roughly 30-week season, we need to look closer at costs of charter vs ownership.
Note that Dilly Dally is a bare boat (you get the boat and essential safety equipment). If you're willing to have one of their very professional captains as part of your charter, then something like Shardana or Sol Searcher offers much cheaper and shorter options (more like some of our days on the water).
As always, there's lots for the two of us to talk about over the winter.
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