Financial advantages of a small boat

[rbh1515]

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

[Bob23]

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

[brackish]

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.

[HeaveToo]

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.

[Citroen/Dave]

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.  

[Shawn]

You guys are getting great rates, don't price out fees on Narragansett Bay.....

Shawn

[hinmo]

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!)

[Bob23]

Shawn:
   I was gonna say the same. Even the cheapest marinas around here (NJ State) are considerably higher than the numbers above.
Bob23

[Elk River]

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

[Vectordirector]

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

[jthatcher]

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

[Shawn]

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

[rbh1515]

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

[Bob23]

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

[kickingbug1]

   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.