Anyone know anything about boats? Been doing a lot of research since I figured out I could totally afford to save money up for a lower end ~20-40k Bayliner or so. Been looking at something like Bayliner 2855 and ones with equivalent sleeping areas inside: Something like that is completely within what I could get in a couple years by saving up. I could spend much of the summer living in it when I don't have the kids, hopping back to my apartment when I have the kids with me and so. I could get it cheaply wintered by renting someone's larger garage, plenty of them around here and it's an easy started boat class with a small trailer, small space requirements and so on. And the pre-retirement plan when the kids start moving out.... As in, in 10+ years the kids will move out entirely, start their own lives and I can if need be sell my house and sail to Cote d'Azur where my sister lives. And live in this kind of boat, like Fairline Phantom: It even costs less than any of the houses around here and in the capital you couldn't even get an empty lot for this price - around 200k. To put it simple, I've always dreamed of yachts since my sister started working on them ~20+ years ago. I always thought you had to be an oil billionaire to afford one but I was shocked to learn that even this last one is less than half the price of the houses down my street. In fact even apartments in these flats where I live in cost more. Sure it comes with it's own maintenance overhead, you need to fuel and get all manner of repair and maintenance done on it and all but also there's no lot tax, no house tax, etc., on it and I can save a ton of money if I stop paying 60% taxes for the money I earn. And face it, it isn't exactly free to get stuff like repaints, re-roofing, pipe work, electrical work or installing new landlines to a regular home. I absolutely love the sea breeze and the oceanic scenery. So indeed when my immediate responsibilities towards everyone else cease I will hop on a boat and tell everyone to go fuck themselves and I'll sail over the horizon. Frankly I've been done with this shit for a long time now but I've got these commitments that I need to see through so I'll make do with buying a smaller boat first for the summer seasons without debt after I've paid all my current debts away and I'll start by enjoying the short summers and saving up money for the bigger one. And I view this all as my 'retirement from bullshit' plan.
you hope they will move out. with covid apparently a large number of millenials in the states at least ended up living with their parents (the 30-40 year olds).
No one here lives at home until 30. As soon as school starts we kick them out the door, whether it snowed or rained fire and they're gonna either walk or bicycle to school. And if the house is sold then ain't nobody gonna be living there until 30.
I am 200% on board with this move. I recently became very lucky with my finances and am now semi-retired. I have been looking at buying a nice sized sailboat for some time, but have found insurance to be the biggest issue with buying and living on a boat. Either a company will not cover you if it is being used as a liveaboard, or they want an outrageous amount of money. Also marina fees can add up quick if you are not locked into a long term lease. There are ways around that for a sailboat but its more difficult for a power boat. Sail boats can be anchored out for weeks or months if you have solar/wind/water generators but power boats will frequently have to go back to a marina for fuel. (For example: SV Delos lived completely off grid next to an uninhabited island in the Bahamas for 6+ months during the covid lock downs, with only bi-weekly supply runs for food/canned goods.) Anyway, I have been looking at catamarans in the 44-50ft range, but covid has caused a huge surge in buying and caused the prices to soar. In some cases over $100k more than what they were at 2 years ago. I am also considering buying a power boat in the 40-50ft range just to live on until catamaran prices normalize. Also, there are several youtube channels about couples/families sailing around the world and frequently go into detail about the costs with boats. A couple of my favorites are Sailing Zatara, Gone with the Wynns, and Sailing S/V Delos. And for a little more party/fun orientated there is Sailing Doodles.
Should check some of them out. What I asked and looked around the annual costs for a ~12m boat seemed to be around 2-4,000€ depending on use and so, iirc. marina fee was ~400-700€, if you need to store it in warm indoor housing that was around 700€, insurance was probably over 1000€ but not for a liveaboard, then maybe 1000€ for fuel and some minor fees for paint, maintenance and so. Over here the property taxes for a simple lot itself can easily be in the same range plus more for the house. Also like many others I can literally work from wherever and now we have the Starlink adding to affordable high speed internet connections. I haven't decided against sails and I have to admit that some of them look mighty impressive. Many things will depend on what the things are like when I get there, such as my available funds and ability to maintain myself. Who knows by that time I could even manage to set it so that I didn't have to work as much. Become a Freiherr, Free Lord who sails about in the sun and does his own bidding.
I have been having 2 other big issues with finding a boat. One is the interior headroom. I am 6'5" or almost 2m tall. I don't mind having to duck to go thru a doorway, but would really like to be able to stand up inside the boat I would be living on. Many older boats were just not built with that much headroom inside, or if they do have it, its only in the main salon area. Thankfully, there are plenty of newer sailboats (2010+) that have been coming down in prices, because everyone is selling them for a catamaran. The other issue I have been running into during my boat search has been finding a quality used boat. There have been several that I have looked at that were reasonably priced, but needed a lot of work. I am not afraid of a little hard work and getting my hands dirty but I would rather be able to move onto a turn key boat or one that only needs minor work to sail away, instead of months of refit/upgrades.
Just how much would it cost to tow the boat to a group of professionals to just you know, work out the engine and so? But indeed it's always that thing - you can save thousands by doing work yourself but that means you've now got to do work yourself. I'm definitely planning to include any retrofits and maintenance to the cost estimates and using my sister as help who has worked 20+ years on yachts. I'm not a mechanic. I can work through the electronics, lighting, computers and such but I'm not doing power mains, generators or engines, none of those. Takes too long and with lack of experience something's going to catch fire or a critical failure while out at the sea. And speaking of fire, carrying 900 gallons of diesel and catching fire while on a plastic boat is certainly one kind of a retirement plan. And indeed you can bet that if a boat costs 20,000 and the next one of it's type costs 40k that it's going to require a full overhaul and that has to be factored in the cost - might just as well take a small loan for the gap but definitely going to save up as much cash as possible to keep any debt to minimum. Just in case I actually need to take a debt so I'll have no debt to begin with and if I'll need a new engine then I can get a new engine. Or more likely get it just fixed by someone with the skills so it actually runs again. And speaking of retrofit, I agree that most boats don't come with very good layouts and so. There's often things that needed changing and then there's the whole issue of incorporating a sauna. I see a lot of steel boats here that allow for great customization and even a couple of steel frames where you can literally just build the interiors into from scratch.
The cost of towing depends on how big the boat is and how far you are going, but it will not be cheap. I have a friend that wrecked his 45ft power boat on an unmarked sand bank a few miles from the marina, and it cost $30k to get towed back. Sometimes insurance will cover it but it depends on your coverage and many other factors, and they are looking for any excuse to deny paying the claim. Most good boat engine mechanics will come to you if you are in an easily accessible place, like a marina or private dock at a home. Volvo and Yanmar provide most of the inboard diesel engines for sailboats, and you can find certified mechanics all over. Caterpillar has most of the engines for small to medium power yachts, and their mechanics can also be found everywhere. In Europe there are a lot of small/medium sized boats with IVECO or MANN engines as well. Finding a certified mechanic is usually easy, but labor rates and parts are expensive. It may seem like a lot of boats do not come with a great layout, but they were designed by people who do that for a living and probably have some kind of degree and experience in it. The designers have many things to account for when making a new layout, such as weight/electrical/plumbing/performance/safety...etc. So usually things are where they are for a multitude of reasons. Minor/cosmetic changes are usually fine but I wouldn't start ripping walls down, since they usually double as bulkheads. If you are feeling motivated and have plenty of time and money on your hands, absolutely buy an empty hull and go for building it out however you want, but there will probably be a few extra roadblocks when it comes time to register it with whatever country you are in and insure it, since it will be a "custom" boat. In the US, you will have an extremely difficult time getting it insured afterwards if do you not have proof that all the electrical, mechanical, and plumbing done by certified people. Which just leaves the inner construction of walls/flooring/cabinetry for you to install. Registration requirements/laws/insurance are probably similar in Europe. However, there are still many people who build their own boats from nothing/blank hulls. There was a huge movement back in the 70/80's where people were building their own boats out of cement/ferrocrete (aka reinforced concrete).
Oh yea, there was a program iirc. during WW2 to build more carriers and use ferrocrete as material to "quick and dirty" get more carriers. Could be remembering wrong. It turned out to be not all that great of an idea anyway. Over here you are not legally allowed to play with electricity beyond a certain point without being a certified electrician. I could have taken the course last year but I figured out I can afford an electrician the few times in my life I really need to and actually just focus on bumping my own salary prospects to be better able to do so. For 30k I would rather swim to the shore, rent two rubber boats with engines and rig them into a tug But indeed the maritime law is interesting. My sister told me that if you honestly put out the SOS signal then your boat can be salvaged by the rescuer or so. Not really sure if that's true but then SOS does kinda legally require you to immediately rush to the scene. The one thing I didn't like about the steel hulls was that they don't fit my aesthetic. And if you're spending the worth of a townhouse on a boat then that too counts, if it counts. Also for the layout, bigger is simply better in everything else except if you need to actually get it out of the water. Then smaller is way, way better. But I could truly well imagine having the boat either for summers or through year in some place like Riviera. After all I've got family there too and connections with the local yacht crews in the region so it would all be quite doable. Certainly can't keep a boat here for around the year and that's why almost no one here has any larger ones anyway. The sea freezes and a boat that spends all those months in some warehouse and costs a decent amount of money to get there and from there is just not as much fun - also if I have my own floating apartment in Riviera... where I could also remote work... Why would I freeze my ass here?
A common issue I have found with sailboat layouts is the location of the master bedroom. Most newer boats put the master stateroom in the front, which is fine if your boat is a dock queen, but if you actually make passages of more than a night or 2, good luck sleeping in there while the boat is moving. My preferred layout for a monohull sailboat is a 2 or 3 bedroom setup with the master in the aft of the boat and the guest cabins in the front. I really like the Beneteau 57, or several of the Amel boats, which have that layout. I am looking to get a catamaran with the "owners layout", which has 2 beds and 2 bath in the left/port hull and the right/starboard hull is the owners suite, which has a large bed, sitting/desk area and a large bathroom. For brands, I like Sunreef, Lagoon and Foutaine Pajot, which are know as floating condos. I don't really care for the faster/performance brands like Outremer. I don't mind going slow and in comfort. Especially when you compare the numbers and on average the "floating condos" get you there almost as fast as the others. Most 40-50ft catamarans go 6-7kts unless the winds are very light. That is about the only time the performance boats really go faster, but you can just turn on the motor and keep up.
Speaking of transits, it would be quite easy to rig an automatic stop and evasion for when the sonar picks up a random shallow in front. As in for the autopilot mode. Haven't looked at what the systems are like so I'm not actually sure if it integrates neatly which is another thing but certainly to just turn off the autopilot and execute an evasion maneuver - quite doable. And yes, at the front all of the ship's mass punching against each wave. BAM BAM BAM Speaking of the sailboats, I really like the aesthetic of the big sails. Many of these can be automated to quite a degree too so one wouldn't need to be running across the deck for each minor change. And that extended open deck area of catamarans... That's just otherworldly when thinking of boats. Indeed, might take 30% longer to get there but you're getting so much for it in turn. If you're in a rush you could always carry along a tender (proper term? small skiff or so).
Most come with radar and autopilot, while AIS is optional, but should be purchased. Many countries are trying to make AIS mandatory. AIS is a transponder that provides the vessels name/speed/heading/location via satellite, and it can be view on the ships chartplotter/whatever app you are using for course plotting/route planning. Many people use an Ipad/tablet and one of the many chartplotting/mapping apps because of the cost of new marine electronics from the major manufacturers like RayMarine/Garmin/B&G. Only larger/super yachts would maybe have sonar, just because of the cost and complexity. So when autopilot is on, it works with radar and AIS to determine how close you are to other boats/objects and will sound an alarm to alert the crew if the boat gets closer that a preset distance, usually 5-10nm. The latest versions add the ability to either stop the boat or make course corrections to avoid it, if the crew doesn't respond. Those versions are very expensive so almost no boats have it. Of course not all boats have AIS, especially fishing boats in poorer areas like Asia, and radar cannot detect every little thing floating out there, so you still need somebody sitting at the helm almost all the time. This is especially important in areas that do a lot of fishing and use devices know as FADs (fish attraction devices), because they typically do not show up on radar and are really hard to see. Same with the floating markers for crab/lobster pots. In some areas its just easier/safer to only travel during daylight. Unless you are going to be living at a marina/dock and only doing day sails, you will need a tender/dinghy. The boat is your house and the tender/dinghy is your car. Many people semi-jokingly say to buy the tender you want then buy the boat that it will fit on. For the catamarans I am looking at, most can fit a 3m tender on the davit system that suspends the tender in the air between the rear two hulls. The engine sizes vary from 10-80hp, with the most common being 20-30hp. Many are getting the new versions that have a small center console in the tender. The bigger the tender you have the more range/safer/cargo capacity you have.
I've seen sonar equipment for sale ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. It seems like a relatively hassle free thing to integrate the sonar data to a computer responsible for the navigation etc. While at it I could make a simple machine vision thing for the near object detection. That's a little bit more annoying than the sonar but then having a couple of sonars or a wider beam could provide some info if there's stuff under the water. Might not be a bad idea to completely retrofit the electronics and electrical system to be controlled by the ship main computer with a terminal in the master bedroom for controlling stuff like power relays, battery levels, electrical output, appliances, lighting, nav system and so. Also switch in RGB led lighting to replace the regular lights and so and get RPC alerts to your cell phone as well as on the speaker system. You know, if people were ready to pay for it I could design and build shipboard systems, even incorporate robotics to it all.
I know a thing or two about boats. They float. (most of the time) I don't have one. I think that's about it. XD
This is true, however before you buy make sure you do research on how much it costs for harbor fees and hookups, unless you just want to float forever. Yeah you can anchor off shore, but odds are you gonna want to come on land at some point. I'm not suggesting they're more expensive than anything specific, just be real about your costs so you don't end up screwing yourself with the nickels and dimes you didn't count.
The upper end of costs is roughly 4000€ a year, you can make do with 1500€ or so if you go through some effort. For example one guy made a contract with a local farmer to keep the boat in his barn for 100€ over the winter, the farmer also helps lift the boat out of the water with his tractor and tow it to the barn as well as bring it to harbor and lower it for the cost of a liquor bottle. Now everyone's not going to be able to make a deal like that but the 4000€ a year on the other hand includes a heated warm storage for winter for a 12m boat where you can visit the boat and includes the full maintenance of the outer hull. The 4000€ also includes the diesel fuel refill etc. for a decent amount of use. But yes, if you are overly optimistic and drag it all to the very edges of your limits you're going to have to let go of the boat. You need to leave in a decent amount of buffer in addition to what you feel you're ready to spend for the boat. Now in future I might consider just living on a 12m boat since it has everything, including a real living room etc. Might also at that point change my nationality to a tax paradise etc. so the sheer tax reduction itself would more than pay for the boat's maintenance fees anyway. But we'll burn that bridge when we get there.
I am in the process of doing that now. Moving from Illinois to Florida. No more state income tax will pay for several months of living at the dock and fuel. Also, many US citizens don't know this, but if you stay out of the US for 330 days of one year, you are tax exempt up to about $107,000. The number changes each year but usually goes up by a few hundred or a thousand. That was one way I saved a lot of money while working in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is easier to do than most people think, especially now with being able to work remotely. Just island hop from one Caribbean paradise to another. Before you know it, a year has gone by.
