I sold my Catalina 28 at the end of last year and ordered a HDC. We are daysailors and don't need a larger boat with a big cabin. We had a great 9 years with the Catalina, and after selling it and ordering a new HDC, we walked away with a bunch of cash. I'm starting to add up the yearly financial savings:
Slip fees: $1200. Going from 35' slip to 25' slip
Winter storage: $2000. I can store the boat in a local barn instead of the local boat storage facility. Up north its good to store the boat inside.
Boat launch and stepping/unstepping mast: about $400. Crane vs launching on a ramp.
Yearly maintenance on engine: $350. Going from diesel inboard to electric Toqeedo outboard. I had a professional do the maintenance on the diesel; no maintenance on the Torqeedo.
About $4k savings per year! I like that.
Rob
You got it, Rob.
Although on a smaller scale, these are exactly the reasons I own my Compac 23. In the summer, she lives on a mooring here in the South of New Jersey, (free). In the fall she likes to hang out at a boat slip in a local marina which, because it's after the season, the cost is about 200 clams for 2 months. Plus I buy the owners a couple of cases of the beer of their choice. They do a haulout and powerwash for about 100 clams, place her on her trailer and then it's off to my mother in laws yard where, after I put her winter PJ's on, she goes into winter hibernation. I'm almost embarrassed to mention the spring splash fee: From my trailer to the water via travel lift: $30.00.
Total cost is never higher than $400.00 but this year, the marina owner wouldn't take anything for the fall slip fee. Yeah, I'm blessed and a cheapskate. Jack Benny should be my nickname. Although it would be nice to have standing headroom, I absolutely love my 23 and I can't beat the yearly cost. I do my own engine maintenance (8hp Nissan 2 stroke), my own bottom painting, and waxing.
Don't ask me where all the money I saved went...been looking for it...can't seem to find it. Honestly, if I was saddled with the typical marina fees, I wouldn't be sailing.
Bob23
Those are some great savings, however some pretty high costs to start with. My annual costs for dockage, insurance, registration and required maintenance is approximately $1800 per year for my 23. That is with the boat in a slip year round. The same costs on the Columbia 8.7 I used to own if at the same marina would be approximately $3400, providing I did all the maintenance on the A4 which I always did. The difference would be primarily dockage (marina charges by the foot), and periodic bottom job. I do my bottom on the trailer now, but the marina would have to do the bigger boat and it would be about $2000 done every other year.
Truthfully, I mostly sail singlehanded or with just my wife, so a smaller true trailer sailor that can be kept at the house would make more sense. Then use that extra money to do a bareboat charter in some pleasant place to be each winter. If I were staying here I would do that. However, I'm in the process of buying a lot on the coast and will defer that decision until I get to the new location. I may keep my 23, sell half interest to a close friend down there, lower the overall costs, and do the charter thing to boot.
My Catalina 30 was pretty cheap to keep, in a lot of ways. It was $1300 a year for slip. I did engine maintenance myself so I just had about $100 in cost in parts. I hauled out every 3 years and that was expensive. $400 for the haul and $200 in paint (or more).
This doesn't account for the fact that my sails were aging and the cost per sail was about $1800 and my bimini and dodger were getting older (about $4000 in canvas or $1000 if I did it myself).
Currently I am spending a bunch of money doing improvements on my Compac 23. I plan to slip it for a cost of $80 a month for about 6 months.
It is much cheaper and it will get even cheaper when I finish my main modifications.
My CP16/2 sits on a trailer in my back yard under a tarp. No storage fee. The tarp is replaced every two years for about $30. Launch fee is $5.00 to 10.00 per launch. Loss of gas mileage for the drive to the lake or river pulling the trailer is about 20%; hardly noticed. I do my own waxing and maintenance; no shop fees. Electric drive maintenance cost is "0". Electricity fee "0" when solar charged between trips; negligible when plugged in for a while at a marina. I sleep at anchor: no overnight marina charge. Yearly cost for day, overnight, and adventure sailing of several days at a time for one year estimated to be $300, not including food and refreshments. Total outlay including new sails, various small bits and pieces, wax, one can of varnish, and a paint brush about $3,000.
It just gets better and better. . . standing headroom under the boom tent with luxury queen size bed for under the stars romance; below deck when foul weather approaches. Ice box, cook stove, head, water, classical music; you get the idea.
You guys are getting great rates, don't price out fees on Narragansett Bay.....
Shawn
in the past 5 years, I sold my Catalina 34 and then my Catalina 25....for a CP16
Believe me, the savings are great (miss that 25 tho!)
Shawn:
I was gonna say the same. Even the cheapest marinas around here (NJ State) are considerably higher than the numbers above.
Bob23
We haven't owned our 19/2 long enough to figure any real costs, but at 19', even the bottom paint shouldn't be hugely expensive. The community we live in has slips, so for a $40 annual fee for the community and $150 annual for the slip, we seem to get away pretty cheaply, plus there is a ramp at the slips for no fee. There is certainly a lot to be said for trailerable, shallow draft boats.
Elk River
I think a lot of people who get into a larger boat don't realize the true costs involved. Example: My uncle had, in the late 80s, a Bristol 43.3 sloop that he had custom built. $250K, out the door. He told me that the monthly cost of the boat, on the Chesapeake Bay, not including monthly payment for the loan, was $1000, A MONTH. That was everything you could think of to keep a very heavily varnished 43' boat it mint condition. 25 years ago. He could afford it and understood what it would cost. I could not afford something that big, unless I lived on it. Not my style. I could get a boat bigger than my Eclipse, but do I really need it? Not yet.
The expenses, as most of you know, increase exponentially as the boat gets bigger. He also told me that he only spent about $50 a year on diesel. I think I'm under $20. So there's that.
Vectordirector
wow, i think that i am going to become elk river's new neighbor! I was easily spending 3k a year at shore point marina in tom's river.. i "justified" it in a number of ways but finally came to the point where i could no longer believe myself! :) It seemed to be RELATIVELY reasonable - given the associated costs at nearby marinas - until the last year when i decided to bring the boat home and they charged me $325 per month for May and June just for the boat to sit in the parking lot till my trailer was finished.. kind of left me with a sour taste in my mouth.. jt
Bob,
Yeah, but your haul out cost is fantastic. The couple of times I had the marina pull Serenity (with power wash and lowering the mast) it was a $300 bill.
The slip I have (really well sheltered with great access) is $107 per foot per year and I could leave the boat in all year if I wanted to. The big marinas (Brewers) are more like $150 per foot and that may be seasonal, not yearly. To rent a mooring in the town I am in is $75 per foot. To get a town mooring is a 25+ year wait list, with that the cost is a couple of hundred per year. I'm on the list but have a long way to go. I've found a couple of other marinas in the bay that have slightly less slip costs but they aren't as protected as where I am and my parents live a couple of hundred feet away from the dock.
Winter storage (haul, power wash, store, relaunch in the spring) in that town for the Sabre would have been about $1400. Heading up the bay I was able to find a place to store the Sabre for a little over $900. That is mast up. To raise/lower the mast it was something like $12 per mast foot EACH way.
Compared to Serenity my slip cost increased by a little over $500 and I have the additional need for winter storage. On the flip side I no longer need to keep a trailer registered which saves around $130 and I don't have the maintenance costs of the trailer or the need to have a vehicle with the towing capacity for the boat/trailer. Still moving up was a *big* expense. Though not nearly as large as when I moved from the Flying Scot to Serenity.
Shawn
My slip in Milwaukee for 6 months (25' slip) will be about $1700. Big savings over a 35' slip that I used to have.
The thing that I am really looking forward to is minimal maintenance. A 28' boat has a lot more maintenance!
Rob
Shawn:
The marina owners (Vinnie and Vinnie) like me. We hang out and gab and I buy them a case each of the beer of their choice. I really don't know why they are so cheap although they both love the 23. I guess, like when a really pretty woman walks by, you can loose all sense of reason. Maybe Koinonia winks her pretty eyes, the just go gaga and forget about $!
If I had to pay some of the high slip fees like the ones above, I would own a smaller boat.
Bob23
i dont think i would be sailing if i couldnt keep my boat in the garage. we dont have mooring fields on my lake and 2000 bucks a season to have a slip is pretty steep for us.
I am fortunate in South Carolina. I belong to Western Carolina Sailing Club located on the 56,000 acre Lake Hartwell. Our membership dues are $616/year, mast up boat on a trailer charge is $83/yr, a slip is $416/yr, or mooring at $248/yr. http://www.wcsc-sailing.org is the link tto the club. For about $1000/yr I get to party, drink, and tell lies with like minded sailors and keep my boat in a slip.
BobK
I have to agree with Citroen/Dave, having owned larger boats and enjoyed them, the cost became prohibitive. We recently purchased a CP16 which we intend to camp/cruise. I'll have to invest a bit to outfit her for this purpose, but the savings in marina fees and maintenance is substantial. We're both 67 but still enjoy car camping and canoeing, it's more about being on the water that matters. We see folks with big fancy pusher RV's and larger boats, which I'm sure they enjoy; it's like taking your house with you. But for many of us who are on limited fixed incomes, going smaller is not so bad. We can be quite comfortable camp/cruising and staying on the hook for a few nights. Then we can seek a marina, get real showers, re-stock our supplies, eat a nice meal, even do some laundry, and off we go for another few days. We considered moving aboard a larger boat, like many have done, and just cruise. A Dana 24 would be my choice, or something similar. Living aboard is a unique life style, full of adventure and challenge. People make Atlantic and Pacific crossings all the time in small sailboats, some of the youtube videos show their craft to be in questionable condition for these adventures, but they manage. But this is a bit extreme IMO. Sailing a well behaved small sailboat is just as rewarding as a larger boat, camp/cruising on a small sailboat has it's own challenges and rewards. It all boils down to what you can afford. The old saying, "bigger isn't necessarily better" has merit. But we are just the two of us, no kids or grand kids. Obviously if you carry a large crew, you need a bigger boat. Fair Winds and Blessings...John and Joy