Powerboat vs Sailboat cost of ownership ...

I have owned several sailboats and powerbaots. curently own a Searay 320 with twin 5.7 liter engines, generator, a/c and all the luxuries of home on the water. It burns 30 gph at 25 knots at 3200 rpm which translates into $150 an hour in fuel last time I bought fuel in Newport Beach, CA. If your on a budget I would go with a single screw newer boat to offset repairs. The older boats are less expensve but can nickel and dime you to death potentially. This is bad for a marriage too!

I keep my boat on a triple axle trailer in a storage facility at the Marina.
That runs $265 a month and the insurance is $800 a year from Boat US
another $150 a year for Vessel Assist covers the fixed costs.

Get s survey from a qualified surveyor before you buy anything.

I was on Lake Mead yeserday in Nv on my friends brand new Searay 180 sport. we cruised at 3200 rpm and at 28 mph for 3+ hours and the thrifty 3.0 liter burned less than 15 gallons. 4200 rpm gave us 42 mph indicated.

The two boats mentioned are really not fair comparisons but they will give you some idea in direct operating costs.

The 18-23 footer can stored on the side of your house for free. assuming you have room and no CC&R to prevent that.

Sailbaots have been far less $$$ to operate and maintain for me especially compared to power boats. The systems in the 28ft sailboat and smaller are far more simpler than the equivalent powerboat. Simple DC electrical versus DC & AC systems with battery chargers and inverters for the power boat.


by the way they are not called strings they are called sheets, halyards and lines depending on what strings your referring to. Most sailboats use leverage with winches. No hydraulics to worry about.

If sailes are propery cared for and maintained they will last many many years.
They are stowed usually away from the elements either furled or in a bag in a locker.

If your serious try joining a sailing club and renting some power boats and get a feel for them. There are some good online boating courses that can help you in operating safely whatever you decide on.

Good luck and be prepared.

Paul

 

DGS.... The sheets do not lead to the mast, they lead through the traveler to the boom. Your thinking of halyards. Leaving a halyard unsecured so it can bang against the mast all night in an anchorage is no way to make friends! TurboQV is correct, there are no strings on a sailboat and there is only 1 rope (the boat rope, in the luff of the sail and used to pull the luff tight). The rest are lines and most have a specific name that goes along with a specific purpose. Seems daunting but its actually pretty simple and very easy to learn.

Sailing is not rocket science and it is tons of fun. I enjoy power boating a great deal and I also love to sail. Its not an "either / or" situation.

Still, any way you cut it powerboating is a great deal more expensive overall. That said and as I said when this thread was new, you cannot make this type of decision based purely on finances.

A comment on catamarans. They do not sail to windward better than most monohulls. Cruising cats actualy dont point worth a damn (racing cats are whole different ball game). They are also not that much faster than a monohull and if heavily loaded they may be slower. You can load a monohull to the gills and barely effect performance while a Cat is very weight sensitive. Cats will give you a great deal more room inside for the same size length but the huge beam brings issues of its own such as docking and hauling out Cats do not roll in an anchorage, there is no heel. Each has its advantages. I prefer a monohull but largely based on costs (cats are very expensive) and aesthetics. Cats are butt ugly.

I am planning on leaving with my family on 1/10/2011 for an extended cruise.(they say if you dont set a date you will never leave) We may go for as long as 5 years. We will go on a 45-55 ft, 3 cabin monohull (I am in love with the Tayana 55). We will home school the kids and if all goes well I hope to circumnavigate. We are planning this trip now including building sailing experience and learning all we can. My kids will be 12 and 8 then which I figure is about the perfect age. Before they are teenagers and hate your guts, but they are old enough to remember and to help.

The goal is an adventure of a lifetime for the kids during their formative years and the opportunity for our family to truely be close and build the best family relationship possible. I want my kids to learn about self sufficiency and individual responsiblity. I cannot think of a better way.

Here are some good links:

http://www.bumfuzzle.com/

That one is a young couple who one day decided that sailing around the world sounded like fun. So they signed up for a one day school on Lake Michigan, decided this was enough experience, went to Florida and purchased a boat and headed out. No joke. They were 1/2 across the Pacific before they figured out the winches were two speed!

http://old.cruisingworld.com/ithaka/

http://sailingdreamcatcher.com/

http://sailingdreamcatcher.com/

http://www.latsandatts.net/

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/

http://www.livingaboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?category=1

http://www.hackingfamily.com/


That should get anyone started on being hooked on sailing and cruising! My wife and I chartered for a week sailing in the BVI this past April. IT was amazing. I cannot wait to get back out there!



Terry


PS: My 2001 Sea Ray 340 Sundancer is for sale....

 

Good luck on your cruise. I had planned on the same thing with my first wife.We saw the movie Dead Calm and she changed her mind about boating completely. I had to get another wife of course. Still have not done the extended crusie yet.

Tayana 55 is a nice boat for such a thing.

Paul

 

has the new wife seen dead calm ?????????

 

Oh yeah, She suggested we carry some shotguns on board which we do.

New wife is an angel, she wants a bigger boat! That is a rare find.

Cheers


Paul

 

Oops. (It's been a while)

And all those Hornblower novels really confuse you after you learned Marconi rigs. (Fore top stay sails? Huh?)

Yards crossed?

 

Unless you've got a few hours, do NOT open that site!

 

I know owning a boat, any boat, any kind of boat to be good practice for owning a Ferrari (or any other exotic car). There is absolutely no such thing as a cheep boat to own. If you don’t pay a lot to buy it you will pay a lot to fix it up. If you pay a lot to buy it you will spend a lot to maintain it. If you use it a lot you will spend a lot to fix what you break and if you let it sit you will pay a lot to get it back in the water or ready for sea. Just like a Ferrari you pay $ X 3 for anything that goes on a boat just because it does. The only thing I know that costs more to own than a boat is an airplane. The next time I feel the need to pi$$ away a lot of money I’m going to buy an f-car and park it in the drive way and watch it depreciate.

 

I guess you do not read the Ferrari Market Letter? They might disagree with the last of your ramblings. Perhaps you need to piss away a few dollars on the FML and get informed on the current state of affairs of Ferrari ownership in regard to appreciation versus deprecaition as you so eloquently stated.

 

Yo Homes! Check it out dude. According to the 17 June 2006 FML asking price index, fully 1/ 3 of all the model’s Ferrari ever built are stone money losers. Now if you go by total # of cars produced it gets way worse man. Yea guy way over 75% of all Ferrari’s ever built are tubing it dude. So like I’ll stand by what I “so eloquently stated”,
If your totally down with pi$$ing away money, Ferrari is a great way to do it. Like if you gonna be a pi$$er be a F’ing high class pi$$er . Man I crack myself up! ROFLMAO

 

Find another board to bash Ferrari. That seems to turn you on since you crack yourself up doing it. Perhaps If you owned one, your comments might be different? It seems to me that your just another poser who does not own a Ferrari who contributes nothing here but negative diatribe that serves no purpose except the attempt to infuriate others. Thank you for your informative assessment of Ferrari ownership. My current issue of the FML indicates that quite a few cars seem to be in the black which contradicts your blanket statement of "buy a F-car and park it in the driveway and watch it deprecaite." Hence my reply to you posed in a question. Not all of them are depreciating.

Another Ferrari basher on F-chat. Now that cracks me up.

Love the jive talking slang too.

 

Jim...

I drive my Ferrari a couple of times a week on average. Its been rock solid reliable for the 3 years I have owned it, tons of fun to drive, makes noises like no other car and is jaw dropping gorgeous.

It is today worth something like $100K MORE than I paid for it.

Do you like apples?




Terry

 

Aloha Terry & Paul
Let me say first of all, I couldn’t agree with you more. Any Ferrari is a thing of beauty, a joy to behold, and their sound when properly unmuffeled is the sound of angles. I dare say I’ve “lost“ more money on toys of one kind or another that a lot of people ever see. I bought them all as just that, toys and I accepted the fact that I would “lose” money in the pursuit of fun and the only reward I expected was the pure joy of owning and using that particular toy. True I don’t own a Ferrari and I never have. That doesn’t mean I never would or will. The whole reason behind joining this board was to learn as much about Ferrari’s as possible. I thought I knew a lot about them when I joined and quickly found out that I “didn’t know diddly” as the commercial says. In short what did I find out? I found out that between the depreciation of the car and the cost of insurance and the cost of maintenance not covered by warrantee and the cost of all the necessary goodies to get the car to look and sound just right, that most of the people who buy Ferraris loose money! I learned that not one owner out of a thousand sells their car and comes away one penny to the good. I learned that there have been more Ferraris built in the last 20 years than were built in all the years before. I learned that people who love Ferris will pay ten of thousands of dollars to buy a “new” used Ferrari and spend tens of thousands of dollars to “upgrade” it only to watch it plummet in value as soon as the next new model is announced. More importantly what I didn’t learn here is what I already knew, when you love something I doesn’t matter, what it costs it only matters what pleasure and joy it gives you to own it and use it.

Terry I think you are a very lucky guy, ENJOY! I think both you and Paul need to come to Maui and hang out with me for a while and “chill”. Lastly the only apples I see around here are the horse apples you two are chunking at me.  LOL
Jim

PS. Sorry Julien for high jacking your thread.

 

Fair enough Jim


Here is the key (at least for me): Buy used, older models that you can work on yourself. Fix them yourself including fixing them up and making them better than when you purchased. If you buy right up front, your likely to get your investment back out.

I cannot afford at this point in my life to be putting money into a toy and losing 75% of that invested over a 4-5 year period. Particularly if its 5 figure money or more. But I (and many many others) have figured out that playing with neat cars neednt cost you anything. I didnt buy my Daytona as any investment, its appreciation has been blind luck. But I'll take it. The downside is I now cannot afford to buy a clapped out rough Daytona to build into a Comp Coupe replica.

I have no idea what your budget would be or if your even all that serious about possibly getting a Ferrari, but there are lots of really sweet older cars out there that you can own and drive at very little risk. Its cheaper overall IMHO to run a 308QV over a 5 year period that is to run a brand new Honda Accord for the same period. Remember, that $30K Honda wont be worth $12K in 5 years... the 308 will be worth the same. Maintenance is always cheaper than depreciation.

This arguement can also work well with the wife.....




Terry

 

Jim

You cannot put a price on the pleasure a Ferrari can give its owner or the person you just gave a ride in one for the first time. It seems to me based on your bashing that your down on Ferrari ownership? That is a shame. Take the plunge and live a little, you seem to be an expert on "spending more money than most people see on toys." Should be a drop in the bucket for ya? You might be surprised how much pleasure it might bring to you and others.

FYI- My insurance is less on the Ferrari than any of my cars. Once again, not all Ferraris depreciate. Terry pointed that out very clearly for you.

We are not "chunking" any apples, just a good dose of reality

Paul

 

2005: Thread started

2006: Most recent comment.

2013: Until today, as thread is # 8 on Google search results for; sailboat vs powerboat.

 

Wtf was I thinking in 2006 when I wrote this?? Lol - just stumbled across this thread and saw my post. Man - I would never own a boat; my life is all about de-stressing and simplifying....

Kevin

 

Lets bump it up



Is Google a self fulling prophesy ?
List it high. Get more hits which bumps the listing position.

 

As a new an used yacht dealer in the San Francisco Bay area, I will chime in. The smallest boat we sell is 35ft, has a pair of 8.2 liter V8's and at cruise (25 mph) burns 23 gallons an hour. The largest we inventory, a 63ft with 2 X Volvo 1300's with IPS will burn about 35 to 40 gallons per hour at the same 25 mph cruise. Unless you are heading to Monterey or up to the delta, you are likely to only be on plane and at that 25mph cruise for about an hour or so on any given boating day. Most of your time you are just at or above idle, enjoying the sceenery and loafing along at "sailboat" speed just sipping a bit (3-5 gallons per hour) of fuel. Dont get me wrong, I love sailing a Hobie Cat, Laser or J Boat, but its much easier to just turn the key and go. Its not cheap, but the experience for friends and family is priceless.

 

I am completely opposite.
I remember as a young kid our family getting invited on a 40' (IIRC) sailboat to bomb around Lake Michigan Chicago area. What fun; pulling up the sails, tacking, and leaning as WE caused the boat to move. We were involved.

Power boats (even Cigarettes) dont compare.

 

Power boats are very convenient. Fire them up, point them in the direction you want to go and you are on your way. But I must say that there's something about the point at which you shut off the engine, heel over and enjoy the peaceful calm of listening to the waves and wind, rather than the droning engine. One additional advantage of sailing for those with a tendency toward queasiness is the boat rocks less.

 

If you are slipped in a marina, like we are, we get the best of both worlds....
Made sailboat friends on our dock, and we sail all the time with them...

As a matter of fact the 2 people we like the best on the dock are sailors, one Brit couple sailed around the world, the stories they tell will captivate you for hours.
Use our power boat to fish with, the guys go out with me, have a portable bait tank, win win deal for all.

On the OP question, impossible to answer, each boat has it's own pros and cons, the modern
sailboats are not that hard to sail and the newer power boats pretty trouble free if maintained.
Fuel is costly in big power boats, but you can get a trawler like someone said-
Main thing is that sail boating and power boating are so different that OP needs to find
out what he enjoys, usually "snail boat people are not stink pot people, or the other way around.

We own a power boat because ours is a floating condo, and use it as such, primary purpose is comfort, room, and light. We use about $100 of fuel a month...so not a whole lot-
I am actually looking at buying a 16 foot runabout to have fun with......

 

I burned 10 gallons of gas last year.... But a full set of racing sails sets me back about 15k.


It's not about cost of ownership, it's about what you enjoy doing.
When we touch 20 knots because we have everything set perfectly we're all smiles. But we don't run across the Bay for lunch like having a powerboat.