Owning a Boat is EXPENSIVE!

[Yamsailor]

Well,

I know a lot of Xers who work 60-70 hours a week and have to save for their childrens college educations, retirement and pay the bills. Of course these are the ones that still have a job.

As I said earlier and based on one of your statements I think you agree with me--there needs to be opportunities to 1)) Join a fractional sailing/ownership arrangement OR buy a 28-30 foot used boat for day sailing and charter where ever like OR 3) join a community sailing club where you can sail at a much lower cost.

I do agree with you with regards to tastes-in-interests. These people do need to be exposed and I agree we all have a responsibility to that AND the entire sailing community (private, public, business etc) need to make it easy for these people to become exposed to the sport.

[seawitch1906]

I'm very much agree with you on that ..and yes we all know people who work all the time , and yes responsibility and all ..but we also know those happy people who take those kids get a boat and cast of for years ( no better education than that)

the willingness is the key .. this subculture of of the "chic geek " generation, do more harm to the soul then any other I believe

we all had hard time one way or the other, baby boomer ( like myself) had our challenges, but we read, we sailed we had callus on our hand and we can live with a rabbit ear TV (for now) .. priority is the key

You being a charter skipper ..must seen a lot metamorphosis on some charter folks..

exposure , and love of the way live as a sailor .. what people missing out on

[RAGTIMEDON]

He's right in omly one line -- boating is expensive. What pleasure in life is not? Wife is expensive - kids are expensive - but could I or most of the rest of you imagine life without them? The only good thing I see in his advice is to charter a few times. No, that won't be cheap either, but you will learn whether or not sailing is somethingon which you might want to spend your money. When you decide you love it, buy the best boat you can afford, knowing full well that your annual cost will be double what you estimated. If you don't love it, buy a bigger T V and become a couch potato! LIVE!
My experience is that the bigger the boat, the more it costs with an exponential increase! The keelboat I now have not only is not trailerable, I can't even get it out of the water in our marina! She weighs 21000 lbs, the marina has a crane with a lift capacity of 15000. 8 miles upriver there is a power boat marina with a 60 ton travel lift. They can't lower my mast, it has to be done by the crane in our harbor. We had a lousy year for sailboats here last year, due to two floods, so we only used her 5-6 weekends. But I would not be without it!

[Moonfish]

Originally Posted by djodenda

The reality is that boat ownership isn't expensive or inexpensive, it's PRICELESS. I can't imagine being without one.

David

David, that's the wisest thing that's been said in this thread (though I haven't read it yet to the end - my apologies to any other wise ones out there... )

[sailingdog]

Rick—

I've got an old Andersen Jacobsen 110 baud acoustic coupler around here someplace...

Originally Posted by N0NJY

Anyone remember what a "dialup" modem is, running at 300 baud?

hahahaha

[tweitz]

I agree that owning a boat is expensive. I also agree that it is priceless. I usually plan things out with care, but one thing I learned early on is that I never try to make a spreadsheet which calculates my sailing cost per hour.
We went to the boat show in Annapolis a couple of years ago and fell in love with a boat. It was a lot of money to me, and I hesitated, and my wife, bless her soul, said "If not now, when?" We spent more than I could have imagined, and it was some of the best money we have ever spent. We get more pleasure out of "just messing about with boats," than almost anything else. The OP is right, newbies can naively mistake the purchase price for the cost of owning a boat. But if you have the great luck of being able to afford it, sailing is wonderful and I love the fact that our boat is really ours.

All that said, our biggest cost was buying and maintaining the house whcih provides us the dock. Makes the boat look pretty cheap.

[merc2dogs]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

Rick—

I've got an old Andersen Jacobsen 110 baud acoustic coupler around here someplace...

I remeber moving up from one of the old couplers to a hayes 300, made a huge difference in making a connection and seemed like it was just plain FAST.
Now I look at some of the stuff I download just to check out, that would have taken a couple months of full time downloading back then.

Ken.

[Yamsailor]

Generally,

I have found the change in the 45+ crowd. There are a few people who get interested in sailing who are 20 and 30 somethings however they represent a small percentage.

From my sailing instruction experience, I have found approximately 20% of the students to be under 40; The rest to be 48 and over. I seem not to get a lot of students in the 40-48 yo range. I do not know why that is --it just is.

[camaraderie]

Yam...I'm sure your %'s are close on those who go for instruction. I am thinking that most "youngsters" who get involved are cash strapped and more inclined to buy a copy of "sailing for dummies" and just get out there and learn with friends on their own. I am thinking of those under 30 at our docks here and I don't believe any of them have ever taken a formal lesson...yet they are out there sailing and working on their boats.

[JimsCAL]

Sailing can be expensive, but there are ways to reduce the costs. I figure my basic costs (yacht club dues, winter storage, insurance) run about $3000 for my 30 footer. I do almost all my own maintenance. Last season I was on the boat over 60 days including over 25 days cruising overnight. On my annual 2+ week cruise I anchor out (no slip fees!) and total out-of-pocket costs were under $300 for fuel, ice, meals out etc. Where else can you go on vacation for that!! Since the boat was bought used, and I've owned it for almost 20 years, depreciation is only a few hundred dollars per year. Not bad.