Hello,

If you want low maintenance, buy a new boat. If you want a low purchase price, buy an old cheap boat.

IMHO, to own a boat and keep it in good condition, you need either a decent amount of time or a decent amount of money. It isn't so much repairing things (normal routine maintenance should prevent things from breaking) as regular upkeep.

For example, my boat was recently hauled for the winter. I spent a day getting the boat ready to be hauled - remove sails and running rigging, remove boom, prep mast to be hauled. When the boat arrived in the yard I spent another day bringing gear home, winterized the engine and water systems, covering the boat, etc. In the spring the process needs to be reversed. Plus the bottom needs to be attended to - sand the old paint, apply new paint. Add topsides and deck maintenance too. So before I sail for a single minute there are 7 or so work days each year.

You also need to consider that gear wears out and must be replaced on a regular basis - sails last up to 10 years, electronics become obsolete, standing rigging must be replaced, lifelines, chainplates, etc, all must be maintained.

In short, a sailboat requires a serious commitment to operate. If you don't have or want to put the time in, you better have the checkbook to write some serious checks. Buying a new boat will make it a lot easier for the first 10 years or so, but then the real work begins.

Good lick,
Barry

 

Some of the new boats tout features that make maintenance easier. Better access to electrical panels, reduced teak etc.

Your Honda accord does not have:

• Six water systems
• Three electrical systems
• A kitchen
• A bathroom
• Two propulsion systems
• Two braking systems

and it does not spend most of it's time in a pressurized electrolyte like your typical simple 30' boat does.

If you get a 20' boat and eliminate many of the above systems it is easier to maintain.

I get to hang out socially with some of the marina workers. Some of the boats they work on get regular attention and maintenance is easy. Some get attention only when something breaks. It's often hard to fix and expensive.
I have been doing as many non-professional surveys as possible the last few months and I think I have learned something. No boat, that I have seen, is maintained 100% properly. There is always something that the owner considers too hard, not worth doing or dangerous or it just never occurred to him.
A boat can look perfect but if you look hard enough you will find the one thing neglected.
For example: Every few years the rig should be completely disassembled. If tangs are screwed or bolted on they should be removed and inspected for crevice corrosion and reassembled with Tef-Gel. How many rigs have you seen where the tangs have not been touched in 20 years. If they were serviced every few years they would last for ever. If left alone they will corrode and things break.
There are hundreds of these little things. I have never found anyone who does them all although I suspect it is not a 28,000 boat.

And don't even talk about bad repair jobs. Sailors are for the most part do-it-yourselfers. Many of them have non-mechanical jobs. I helped a guy move a boat today. He had just re-bedded a chain plate. He was proud of his repair because the deck was gone and he hooked out some rotten wood and forced some polyester crack filler in the gap. This was all done today with the temperature around 30 to 40 degrees. This is not the exception, it is the norm on the sub 30g boats I've been looking at.

Has anyone spend a lot of time looking at 50 to 100k boats. If so does the lack of maintenance and bad repair job deal go away?

 

What about steering? Wheel versus tiller? Synthetic versus stainless rudder post? It's astonishing to me how often sailboats have catastrophic steering failures. Can't someone engineer this properly?Martin

I think you will find that most catastrophic steering failures are not failures of engineering but of maintenance.
Proper maintenance of steering is hard to do. You have to be skinny and flexible and not afraid of cramped spaces. Do-it-yourselfers often do not fit the physical profile and are too cheep to have it done. They put it off.

 

Just to get things started here's some of my conclusions so far -- right or wrong (I have never owned a boat which is why I am asking):
1) Watermakers are high maintenance items
2) Saildrive versus shaft drive is equivocal, but easy engine access is a big plus
3) Epoxy is more durable than vinylester which is more durable than polyester.
4) Solid fiberglass below waterline is lower maintenance particularly on older boats than cored fiberglass
5) Teak decks -- or any exterior wood -- is a huge maintenance item
6) Wood cabin soles are high maintenance

1. Yes and add air-conditioning
2. Sail-drive is more exposed. I get the feeling the sail-drive is easy to install and appeals to racers. It is not a 30 year solution.
3. Yes but Epoxy has to be wetted out just right and cured properly. Lots of ways to screw it up. polyester is still going strong 30 years later.
4. Maybe but what exactly do you mean by maintenance. If you crack it, fix it. If it's cored it's solid, lighter, stiffer etc. and no-one screwed with it whats wrong.
5. Well yea but it looks nice do you want a boat or a clorox bottle. You pick.
6. Again, sure but they look great and compared to the rest of everything that is the least of your worries.

 

Rigs - carbon vs. aluminum? Rod vs. cable standing rigging? Furlers? Autopilots? Multihulls? Cat-rigged monohulls?
Martin

Carbon vs. Alum
http://www.gmtcomposites.com/files/CARBON-MAST-MAINTENANCE.pdf
I'll ask my rigger about that but I doubt if it makes much difference.

Furlers: Needs service every year. What else you going to do. Hank on?

Autopilots: The top requested upgrade of all time. Do without and suffer. Buy it and take care of it.

Mulitulls - Cat Rigged mono-hulls:
Are you really going to pick a boat based on a few hours difference in maintenance.

So you are about to plunk down $250,000.00 on a boat. The price of a house in many parts of the country. You honestly expect us to believe that you are going to buy a boat that saves, theoretically, a few hours a year in maintenance rather than the boat you like. Ya Right.

 

Folks, I really appreciate the feedback, keep it coming! This is very useful.

So you are about to plunk down $250,000.00 on a boat. The price of a house in many parts of the country. You honestly expect us to believe that you are going to buy a boat that saves, theoretically, a few hours a year in maintenance rather than the boat you like.

Absolutely. The cost of money for a $250,000 boat at current rates is something like $20,000 a year for 20 years. From what I've read I can easily spend $10,000 a year in maintenance over the long haul for a boat in this size range. BarryL suggests 7 days a year for which a local yard would charge $5600 plus materials. I would do some of the work myself, but my own time is commensurate in value. That's just routine annual maintenance, not major repairs or refits.

Whatever the number, it's likely that lifetime maintenance raises the TCO of the boat by a significant factor. In the example above, reducing maintenance by half would save as much money as a 25% discount on the boat purchase. For an older, used boat, maintenance cost completely overshadow financing cost. So why wouldn't I make it a major criteria that may even influence the basic geometry of my boat? Money talks, and I just want to go sailing.

Martin

 

The only maintenance free boat is the one you do not own.

All the rest require work.

 

Charter.

 

To take you analogy a little farther The Honda Accord is low maintenance, but when maintenance is required, you better have an obd-ii reader, new injectors when the old ones die, etc.

The VW bug requires constant maintenance, but a 12 year old can do it. (At least, thats how old I was when I started, I trust there are younger somewhere) The engine is accessible and simple. The parts are readily available, and everything that can possibly go wrong has been well documented in books, on the Internet, etc.

In many myths the ocean is known as the great womb and tomb, from which life comes and to which it shall return. It beats mountains into sand. If you want a low(er) maintenance boat, get a trailer sailor or find a place that will store it on the hard for you. Both are going to be interesting dilemmas in the size range you mentioned. Anything left in the ocean will be constantly under attack. Personally, I'm a fan of something I can easily work on.

Beyond that, many of the questions are ones of how things break.
Fiberglass tends to wear better than most things, including steel, when looked at weight-for-weight. Rigging? Stainless is less likely to corrode, but it doesn't fail in as predictable a manner, nor with as much warning as traditional rigging.

When you mention watermakers, we can broaden the scope easily. EVERY system you have will have it's own maintenance schedule, required set of spares, documentation to memorize, store somewhere safe, and then store a copy of on the boat. Your head, refrigeration, engine, generator, solar, wind, any power winches (any non-power winches) stearing, any nav gear, all the electrical, radios, phones, etc. If you want 0 maintenance, then find systems you can live without, and take them off the boat. That might sound horribly cynical, but when you start really simplifying like that, it's kinda cool how much fun sailing is when you remove everything unnecessary. Beyond that, it's a question of finding what works for you, and finding out what each system really needs to be bulletproof. How often do you want to rebuild your marine head? it's not fun, but doing it on a schedule works so much nicer than realizing a gasket failed and it won't pump right after someone used it, and rebuilding in those conditions.

As far as cored decks, if you want "performance" anything, then cored decks/hulls are going to be lighter and stiffer than solid decks of anywhere near the same thickness. The only time coring is an issue is if someone put something through the deck/hull without doing it right (drill, fill, drill) This can be checked for and remedied fairly simply if the deck's not already screwed. Further, modern boats are often cored with high tech materials which, unlike plywood which was the classic coring material, are much more resistant to water damage. They're still no substitute for overdrilling, filling with epoxy, and then redrilling, but they can keep things solid for longer if the previous owner did something stupid.

Regarding any system. Saildrive vs shaft, gas vs diesel, atomic 4s are horrible, atomic 4's are awesome, etc etc etc, it seems to me, and this is just my observation, as I've only owned one boat, and crew on a few, I'm not an expert, but from watching everyone talk about it, and from my limited personal experience, it seems that it's really just a question of knowing your equipment, and keeping up to date on maintenance. If you do that, everything else should take care of itself.

There will still be emergencies, that's what the oceans there for, but a well maintained boat is a thing of beauty, and if you take care of her, she'll probably take care of you through just about anything you're willing to take her through.

Hope that helps.

-- James

 

I'm back on water systems again.
1. Fresh water for engine
2. Raw water for engine
3. Hot fresh water
4. Cold fresh water
5. Gray water (sink drains etc)
6. black water (holding tank)
7. Black water (macerating)
8. Bilge water
9. Misc. drains (shower, ice box, air conditioner)

So I have 9 water systems. Notice I'm not counting physical devices as there are often multiple bilge pumps and multiple heads and sinks on many boats. I'm, arbitrarily, only counting conceptually different water paths as separate systems.

Did I miss any?

 

Low maintenance requires a boat that's been well maintained. And continued preventive maintenance. Fewer systems means less maintenance. You never have to fix your water heater, freezer or air conditioner if you don't have one. Also, the smaller the boat the less work and cost.

 

With that said, the actual reason multihulls and cat rigs came into my head was the only two boats I can think of offhand where ease of maintenance got top billing in the marketing materials:

Wyliecat Performance Yachts: Wyliecat 39
Chris White Designs Explorer 44

Wyliecats in particular make a compelling case. No standing rigging whatsoever. Less than half the running rigging. One third as many winches. No bowsprit, no chainplates, no genoa tracks means few stressed deck fittings. No brightwork whatsoever. Counting against it perhaps is the semicustom nature of the boat and a vanishingly small owner community. Yet, it seems entirely plausible to me that this boat would cost half as much time and money to maintain as a J/120 or an X-119 or a C&C 115. What do you think?

BTW, I am not expecting a mid-30' performance cruiser to be as easy to maintain as a Honda Accord. My point is that before the Japanese started building cars, nobody thought that a car could be so easy to maintain. The Japanese gave reliability top billing at the cost of more traditional features, put some smart engineers and managers on the problem, and threatened to put the rest of the world's automotive industry out of business before they could figure out how to compete on reliability. As far as I can tell, few people have even tried to do that with sailboats. If they have, I was hoping someone would know who it was and point me in their direction! I have trouble believing that it's not possible -- merely that we don't have enough imagination.

Martin

 

No exterior wood is a good start....what little I have I wish I didn't.

 

I'll second the no exterior wood nomination. Every boat that I have looked at has had exterior wood that looks like poop!

In addition, I would add Stainless Steel framed port lights (i.e. New Found Metals). The old plastic Beckson ports leak and suffer from UV degradation.

Minimal maintenance for steering means a tiller. Wheel steering has more stuff to monitor. For some people, a tiller is the only way to sail. For me it isn't. This is a compromise that you have to make for yourself.

RE: Watermakers, if you are spending a lot of time in clear salt water the watermaker can be invaluable. However for most coastal cruisers, even if you make an occasional offshore run, the membrane will get clogged, and you'll wonder why you bought the damn thing. If I lived aboard in the Bahamas, I'd want one. Because I live in a house in New England I don't.

Refrigeration - frequently needs service, and IMHO not worth the effort for your intended use - "daysailing, coastal cruising, and fun racing." If you want cold beer, or "dark and stormy," buy ice.

Galvanic corrosion - I have yet to look at a boat with a galvanic isolation transformer. Frankly, I would not plug my boat into a dockbox without one. I think that all the other solutions to this issue fall short. Without one aboard, I would keep the boat on a mooring.

Wood cabin sole - do you have wood floors where you live? I may be wrong, but I don't see this as a major issue. Take your shoes off when you go below.

I think that davidpm has the right idea about your Accord analogy. Ther are many more systems on a boat. These different systems are operating in a far more harsh environment than any Accord. The result is that the systems will need maintenance (heck, even the Accord needs Oil, Filters, Brakes, Tires, Fluids, eventually a new Battery, and an annual vacuum, wash and wax.) Keep the number of systems on the boat to a minimum of those that you: NEED, those that you understand, and those that you can maintain, and you will find it far less expensive in time and money.

Ed

 

Below are the most maintenance free systems I know of. Anything more complicated requires maintenance of some sort - but if you don't go wild with air conditioning, generators, watermakers and icemakers it's manageable.

 

Below are the most maintenance free systems I know of.

Nope - you gotta clean, and fill, all of them!

 

To reduce maintenance maximally, get a 32' (your minimum or less, even better) with as few systems as possible that has been VERY well maintained. Think sub-30' if you really want low maintenance. Remember that when a boat gets longer it also gets wider and deeper which makes maintenance costs vary more by the cube of the length; although, initial construction costs are best judged by displacement ... I wonder if this is a better judge of maintenance cost? Since you mention performance, it is worth noting that performance boats are usually driven harder and subjected to higher stresses and therefore have higher maintenance.

If you REALLY want low maintenance, get a boat without an engine or any electrical systems. Learn how to scull and use portable devices for your minimal electrical needs. Get one that has no through-hulls and simply use a porta-potti or a composting head. Yes, you can still use kerosene for your lighting. Just how much are you willing to sacrifice for maintenance??

Plus, removing all that weight will up your performance....

 

Time Share?

Aren't there Time Share services out there? Can't recall the names of them.

 

Aren't there Time Share services out there? Can't recall the names of them.

Sailtime is one... Freedom boat club is another... You could also join one of the numerous smaller sailing clubs with a fleet of boats. Any of these options will run you from $3500-$8000/year.

However, in all of these scenarios, the boat is not yours. You can't leave your stuff on it, you take the equipment that it comes with, and you can only use it when someone else isn't. And, stuff still breaks, and you still need to clean the vessel to your, or the admiral's , maintenance standards.

I learned to sail in one of these clubs in Boston. The boats in the fleet were ridden hard, and put away wet. I met some great people though...

 

Look for a well kept newer boat that's not loaded with toys. A 35' boat with simple systems, icebox, simple water system, reliable diesel, and basic electrical system and go sailing. They all require work to maintain but if you don't have it it can't break.
Problem is, most boats have a lot of toys, especially the newer ones that aren't a project. Most boats have a wheel if they're over about 30'. But I did find one, a J105 with a tiller and fairly simple systems, Yanmar diesel. Quick boat too.
2000 J Boats J105 Tiller Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

 

The single most important thing you can do to reduce maintenance is to use the boat a lot.

Yes, this is counter-intuitive and it is more likely that you are simply keeping up with maintenance rather than causing any significant reduction.

But there there are things that go wrong that cause a big mess if you don't catch them early. If you use the boat often you'll find those things and put them right before they cascade into something more serious. This can easily offset the amount of wear caused by the extra usage.

 

Hey guys, this is great. Thanks!

Definitely reconsidering refrigeration thanks to this thread. I don't really need it but I had just assumed I'd want it.

I think composting toilets are nifty, faced with nasty sewage repairs I imagine my first impulse would be to rip it all out and buy an Air Head. Not so good for resale value though.

J/105 is right in my sweet spot, except I do want standing headroom, I have a hard time calling any boat a "coastal cruiser" or even "weekend cruiser" without standing headroom. Is this a misplaced priority? I know my wife is not a big fan of the J/105... ahh compromise. If I were to make my peace with poor headroom I'd might look for a WylieCat 30 -- very hard to find though.

J/105 is also where I got my concerns about wood cabin soles, I have heard several complaints of water damage and frequent repair or replacement, but perhaps that is due to shallow bilges as much as anything.

Going below 30' seems implausible for coastal cruising in the sense of living on a boat for an occasional week or two. I know people have circumnavigated on such boats but most likely out of financial necessity or perhaps masochism. I am not looking for a low maintenance boat out of necessity, but rather out of a love of sailing combined with a dislike for maintaining sailboats.

Right now I am liking the looks of C&C 99 -- any thoughts?

Martin

 

Wood cabin soles are not a large maintenance item - unless you ignore them for a decade or two as some owners have. They also add a warm look to a basically plastic boat. Heads can be low maintenance. Install a Lavac. The simplest most durable head made. No pump is attached to the head - the pump is a diaphram mounted above the head and it can be manual, electric, or both. A properly done holding tank system is pretty low maintenance as well. Composting heads are larger and some boats will have issues with space. If you're weekending with the occasional longer trip an icebox is fine. Standing headroom is sorta nice too.

 

I haven't read the responses to your post Sparohok, but I will read them when I get the chance. The obvious answer to your question of how to keep maintenance to a minimum is to keep the boat simple. Every system you add to a boat makes it more complicated and increases the amount of maintenance. You mentioned water makers, right, if you add a water maker then you have to maintain it, but that is true for every system on the boat. If you add anything, a windlass, or an auto pilot, anything, then you add maintenance. When you add enough systems you can get to the point where all you are doing is maintenance and you never go out and sail anymore, at which point most people seem to go out and buy a second boat that they actually sail because the first one is too expensive to sail and requires too much attention. That is really the test, as soon as you catch yourself looking at boat advertisements for a second more simple boat so you can just go out and sail then you know you've gone too far ...

 

I haven't read the responses to your post Sparohok, but I will read them when I get the chance. The obvious answer to your question of how to keep maintenance to a minimum is to keep the boat simple. Every system you add to a boat makes it more complicated and increases the amount of maintenance. You mentioned water makers, right, if you add a water maker then you have to maintain it, but that is true for every system on the boat. If you add anything, a windlass, or an auto pilot, anything, then you add maintenance. When you add enough systems you can get to the point where all you are doing is maintenance and you never go out and sail anymore, at which point most people seem to go out and buy a second boat that they actually sail because the first one is too expensive to sail and requires too much attention. That is really the test, as soon as you catch yourself looking at boat advertisements for a second more simple boat so you can just go out and sail then you know you've gone too far ...

Dang Wind...that's so close to home its scary...ben looking at Olson 30's lately...In my case I'm just tired of not having a boat to sail period though..

 

Oh, and before someone jumps on me - the original poster asked how to minimize maintenance, not how to make life on the boat as easy as possible. Big difference! Not having a water maker means less maintenance, but changing filters and things might not seem so bad when you are carrying water containers back and forth every day.

 

access to hidden areas

obviously most boats are designed with easy (or at least acceptable) access to the thru-hulls, keel bolts, engine etc, which is mostly what strikes most peopel when we're snooping around before making an offer.

but, i have found the most unexpectedly frustrating thing to be access to "hidden" areas behind/under floorboards, berths, panels, lockers, setees, storage areas etc through which ducts, hoses and wiring must be accessed and to all compartments of the bilge.

as might be expected, much of it seems to be designed to be easily built, but not easily inspected, modified or repaired.

 

ArgleBargle
My boat (CS27) has the same issues. The head section from the aft end of the v-berth to the main bulkhead is a drop in module. While I can get behind it to either side the wiring for the light over thehead is inaccessible. The bilge is reasonably accessible, good over the keel bolts, but the hose for the manual bilge pump could use replacing after 32 years but seems to have been installed before the liner. It will not budge in either direction. I'll be cutting part of the liner out to do this and reglassing it after. This won't be visible as I'll be epoxying a wood sole over the liner. Behind the curved settee back to port is a 6 foot section of the hull that's totally impossible to get to, liner attached on all sides, so I cut a hole to see what was there and installed a removeable beckson plate for access. When I replaced my fuel tank I also replaced the vent near the top of the transom. Because the cockpit goes right to the transom almost I know the original fitting was installed before the deck was put on as the gap is only 2" or so and the vent couldn't have been installed any other way. There is now an access plate on the inside of the well where the vent is.
The problem is almost all boats are built this way. Stick built boats are few and far between and usually much more expensive like Morris. I have seen many worse than mine. Any older boat from Columbia or Coronado for example have full liners from bilge to seatbacks with lousy access in many places.

 

You know another solution to the maintenance problem would be to buy a lovely daysailer/racer with minimal systems that would be really easy to maintain. It could even be a smaller one. Then, charter for that occasional week or two cruise and get a nice big boat with all the amenities.