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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.
We installed a new anchor wash down pump and sprayer at the beginning of our season. This cost $1600 and allows us to wash down the mud when we are raising the anchor.
Our 2nd one-time cost was to replace the bilge pump at the end of the year. I noticed after a big cold rainstorm while Seas The Day was in wet winter storage, that the bilge pump was activated, but not pumping (always do weekly checks with wet storage). A new pump was $680.
Thus we had a total of $2280 in one-time costs this year.
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 $6300 (including electric & pumpout tokens).
Wet winter storage was $900.
Commissioning, winterization and maintenance came to $5300.
Safety items (Navionics renewal) total was $25.
Finally the excursion costs are summarized below.
EXCURSION COSTS:
We did one main excursion during this year, a vacation in June that lasted 9 days, but I must confess that I did not track the costs this time. (My best guess is it was around $1500 including food, marinas, etc.)
We don't normally include food on land in our yearly cost summary. This year, our restaurant expenditures were probably lower since we tried to cook in the galley most weekends. 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.
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.)
SUMMARY:
This was an abbreviated season for us this year. When I look at my weekend log, I see a lot of "No Sailing -..." entries. My son got married and weekends were lost for showers, planning and the big event and a niece got married as well. We also lost time in May while in China visiting with Vicky's family. Finally, we also lost some weekends to "Boatominium Weekends" (it was too hot to go out sailing, so we stayed in the AC cabin and watched TV). So although the April 15 to November 15 "season" had 32 weekends and although we sailed as early as the beginning of May and as late as the end of October, we also had two months without sailing late in the season. All told, we were on the boat for 11 weekends plus the 9 day vacation in June (which included 2 weekends) for a total of 13 weekends.
So then $45,000 divided by 13 weekends means each weekend have cost us $3462. That figure could have been as low as $1400 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 28 days interacting with Seas The Day - anywhere from a watching movies from the salon without going out to a vacation out on the water.
We had 22 days of active sailing. Most of these were day trips. We spent 28 overnights (some with as many as 5 guests) on board. And finally, we shared her with 31 other people... mostly repeats from last year but a handful of new faces as well.
Clearly this is a drastic drop in use relative to last year, which was a drop from previous years. Realizing this was one of the reasons that led to our decision to sell Seas The Day. We clearly have moved to usage that makes the Charter/Owner scale tip towards chartering. With the news that grandchildren are on the way and other life decisions ahead of us, our usage will only drop.
She has not yet sold... we'll keep using her until she does.