[TSOJOURNER]

I recently bought my first sailboat and have been lovingly shelling out cash ever since, which is mildly unpopular with the wife. A good friend from Mission Bay Yacht Club has lit a candle, rather than curse my darkness.

He told me I should adopt the "BOAT UNIT" form of currency to lessen the shock of another essential bit of hardware coming aboard.

Simply put, 1 BOAT UNIT equals $100. When I told my wife a new handheld VHF was only 1.5 BOAT UNITS, she chuckled at the stupid currency conversion, rather than the usual eye roll associated with US Dollar expenses.

VOILA! I had turned her attention away from the boat and its expenses, and focused it squarely on my sanity, which is a permanent topic anyway!

P.S.- this may not work with college educated women

 

[paulk]

You may want to sit down with your moneylender to discuss the value of your Boat Units and where the decimal point goes. The expenses you mention sound like .15 BU''s, not 1.5.

 

[Jeff_H]

Paul''s right. According to the United States Currency and Exchange Commission, article XXXVI, one Boat Unit = $1000.00 US. The actual quote from Everett Dirksen was "A boat unit here and a boat unit there, and eventually you are talking about real money."
I believe that you are spending actually spending Deci-Boat Units which are only useable on vessels under thirty feet. People with larger boats that thirty feet are not even allowed to bend down and pick up a dropped Deci-Boat Unit that has fallen out of someone''s pocket in the West Marine parking lot. 8^)

Jeff

 

[TSOJOURNER]

I was under the impression that the BU was a recently minted coin, however my MBYC pal seems guilty of blatant plagarism.

And thanks for the conversion correction.
The good news is I can''t wait to tell the wife my handheld VHF is actually 10 times cheaper than I thought, and West Marine has put a refund check in the mail for 135 DeciBUs.

 

[TSOJOURNER]

Sorry, I made a conversion error...West Marine just called and my refund check is actually 135 CentiBUs, not 135 DeciBUs as previously posted.

In defence of my MBYC pal, the club is mostly one design racing (thistles, snipes, lidos, etc.) so the DeciBU must surely be the currency of choice, hence his error in suggesting the BU ratio of 100-1 applied to my 35 footer. Most MBYC club members are not familiar with boats you have to step up into, so I''m sure even the MilliBU is actively traded.

Art

 

[paulk]

Art is correct; milliBU''s are actively traded in many of the remote anchorages visited by people like Slocum, Moitissier, and the Pardys. World Bank publication #428-a83.529 deals with conversion rates in zones 4, 7, and 12, which would fall into these areas. Their offices in Washington can probably provide more detail if needed for your next trip.

 

[TSOJOURNER]

thanks

What a great thread. I still haven't told my wife about the Icom M72 handheld VHF I just bought. I was thinking that putting "safety" equipment on the credit card didn't really count as an expense. I know I'll eventually tell her though, but now it's only .2 boat units! whew.

Luckily I don't have a boat and my club fee is a flat .2 units a month. I think that will keep me from spending too many units on this new hobby.

Ray
www.seattlesailing.com

 

[Gene T]

In referring to BU's it is generally acceptable to round off expenses to the nearest BU. Hence your recent purchase should just be ignored.

 

[mike dryver]

and if the wife sees the invoice on the card just tell her to ignore because you did!!!!!!!

 

[TSOJOURNER]

John Vigor introduces a new currency in his book The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat: The Fiscal Beer.

What with inflation etc, he figures quoted costs would soon be outdated but most of us would know the current price of a beer so he figures costs in Fiscal Beers, the unit being $2.50 now but subject to going up will still, he says, be comparable.

Are sailers becoming the next Cargo Cult ?