11 ms·

The 'folly' of buying a fixer-upper yacht

101 points by smacktoward 7y ago

toomanybeersies 7y ago
They say the second best day of your life is the day you buy a boat, and the best day of your life is the day you sell it.
wrnr 7y ago
Can someone tell me what the phrase "fixer-upper" comes from? Is it a type of woodwork, or maybe refers to fixing and upgrading?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  It means you buy something unfinished with the plan to improve it after purchase. A lot of people buy houses that way in the USA, but it is usually stressful on the marriage, and banks require the house to be habitable before a mortgage is issued. Generally large boats are not in the same category, so it's a red flag here.
  - mturmon 7y ago
    > ... it is usually stressful on the marriage... So true. My wife and I noticed that several of our friends who had renovated their house on the way to a big showcase (e.g., to become one of the homes on a home design tour) ended up getting divorced right after the big showcase. They lost their focus on what really mattered.
- aliswe 7y ago
  Just means that you're supposed to fix it up.
aliswe 7y ago
I immediately thought about the guy who filled his boat with foam, in his quest to make it "unsinkable". Also, he made it fully autonomous. https://towndock.net/shippingnews/sean-d-epagnier-and-alexandra https://towndock.net/shippingnews/sean-d-epagnier-and-alexan...
lmilcin 7y ago
Fixer-upper is not a folly. 1. It is the only way for many people 2. It allows to trade your time for a huge discount which may be advantageous if you have relatively low wage. 3. It creates healthier market making boats cheaper for everyone because now low end yacht makers compete with used boats and because as an owner you can sell used boat making it effectively cheaper to own. Now... it is a folly if you have no idea what you are buying. Some kinds of damage is going to be too costly to repair properly. It is best if you have already spent some time sailing before you buy one.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
I met my wife when good friends brought her along when I invited them for sailing/whale watching. She loved boating, but I had a crappy little boat that I liked because it was so low in monetary value that I didn’t think twice about taking it to Mexico for fishing and general fun anchoring in Bahia de Tondos Santos. My wife didn’t particularly care for my crappy little boat but fortunately she liked the captain. Anyway, 35 years ago we found a boat we liked at a boat show but it was $45K new and would have needed another $5K of gear. We didn’t get it, but a year later we found the same boat used that had definite wear and tear, but at half the price. We enjoyed that boat for almost ten years, and sold it at a good price. I have always been grateful for how well that turned out.
achenatx 7y ago
On my honeymoon the resort had free hobie cats and lessons on how to sail. I immediately fell in love and bought a small trailerable sail boat when we got home. Launching and rigging was always a huge pain and took about an hour. While out on the lake I saw people on windsurfers sailing, it seemed so much easier to transport, rig, and sail so I took a lesson with a local club. After the first time windsurfing I sold my boat. Rigging the windsurfer took just 30 minutes and the equipment was so easy to load/transport. The stoke was pretty much the same and an additional benefit was all the core strength. I Windsurfed for a few years. I even bought my truck based on transporting boards. I picked my travel destinations based on the wind and availability of equipment at the destination. My friends had sprinter vans and dedicated trailers for all their boards/sails/masts/booms. The downside was the equipment was heavy and all dead weight. It was extremely difficult to travel (boards wouldnt fit in rental car) and even getting equipment to the waters edge sucked. And then I started to see guys show up in priuses with tiny boards and kites in backpacks. They could rig up in about 10 minutes and it was so easy to carry everything to the water. The boards/kites were so small they could fly as checked baggage at no extra charge, this opened up all the destinations with wind, but no equipment at the destination. I was in the philippines on a windsurfing vacation, but the wind was too light for the size sails they had. The kitesurfers were all out on huge kites, so I took a lesson and was blown away by how comfortable it was. Instead of a giant unwieldy sail, the kite flew itself and weighed nothing. When I got home I sold all my windsurfing equipment and have been kitesurfing ever since. The zen is still the same as sailing, plus you get the thrill of jumping 30+ feet in the air, or being able to surf awesome waves.
duxup 7y ago
I'm surrounded by boat owners who repeat the old adage: "The two happiest days in a boat owner's life: the day you buy the boat, and the day you sell the boat." I imagine a yacht is just that .. but more.
- JshWright 7y ago
  The other boat quote I hear is something to the effect of "the definition of 'boat' is a hole in the water into which you continuously throw money".
  - downerending 7y ago
    I've heard both of those, but as allusions to marriage.
    - alasdair_ 7y ago
      >I've heard both of those, but as allusions to marriage. "If it flies, floats or fornicates, it's cheaper to rent than to buy." Is the phrase I've heard most often. Kind of a sad worldview, where in each of the three relationships described, the primary focus is to extract value in exchange for money, rather than obtaining value from the investment of personal effort.
      - aidenn0 7y ago
        I don't think it implies that worldview, but rather states a simple fact. Lots of people who say that phrase have still chosen to buy a boat/plane or get married, which would actually imply the opposite.
      - raverbashing 7y ago
        Airlines are the easiest way of turning a billionaire into a millionaire. I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for a machine where anything going wrong will most likely result in fatalities, which is usually what happens in general aviation.
      - 7y ago
robomartin 7y ago
A number of years ago we decided to get a boat. I've been sailing my entire adult life (through clubs) and love it. And yet, I am also good at math and have seen friends and acquaintances go through the realities of boat ownership. I had exactly zero interest in that. We bought a boat. It was in good condition. The plan was to enjoy it that summer and sell it a the end of the season. In other words, I bought a boat with the stipulation that we would not keep it after three months. That was not negotiable. We would potentially lose a little money in the transaction. I thought of this as a rental fee. This worked out great. We had a good time boating that summer. I did not spend a dime doing anything to the boat (I made sure of this by being careful during the purchase selection phase). We sold the boat for $1,000 less than we paid for it. With slip fees that was about $800 per month "rental". Perfect.
- hesdeadjim 7y ago
  I am of a similar mindset. My family has owned a small lake house in (very) rural Maine for close to thirty years. My parents have spent a small fortune to maintain and upgrade the property over the years. While I am incredibly grateful for the summers spent there as a child, the burden of ownership from a financial and time point of view had major consequences over the years. Because this property put such a strain on finances, it put my father through incredible strain at work. His health paid the price. My mother also had to weather the strain of raising three boys and working full-time to help ends meet. And because of ownership and these hardships, going to the lake became a requirement for every vacation we took. Even when we moved twelve hours away. I've carried this lesson with me for many years now. When the temptation has struck to make a big purchase like this, I remind myself that often our possessions end up owning us. You can rent practically anything you want nowadays, and in doing so do not need to face all of the hidden financial and personal costs associated with ownership.
  - robomartin 7y ago
    I put RV ownership in that same category. A bunch of my neighbors own RV's. If I had to guess I would say they are parked about 350 days out of the year, in some cases 365. So, at the best utilization rate we are talking about being parked 96% of the time. In some cases they have to park them off-site and pay monthly storage fees. I now people who have had their RV's for over twenty years. I can't understand the math. We've rented RV's three times in the last twenty years. The cost ranges from about $100 per day to a few hundred per day. That math I can understand. We even have a favorite RV camping spot we've been to where you can order an RV to be delivered and setup for you. You just show up and start your vacation, no need to drive an RV around at all!
david927 7y ago
As someone who knows nothing about boats, I don't understand understand why there hasn't been more breaking of tradition. Why we don't use modern materials and methods to create boats that are much more resilient to external conditions, solar power instead of sails, etc.? Edit: Thank you so much, everyone, for answering!
- 07d046 7y ago
  Re solar power: the short answer is that wind carries far more energy than solar. Tûranor PlanetSolar is a 31m catamaran with over 500 square metres of solar panels. I think I'm right in saying that its cruising speed is slower than any regular yacht. A big racing yacht is multiple times faster. What I'd be interested in seeing is if a big wind turbine could be put on a yacht, rather than sails. One fun advantage is that it should be able to travel directly into the wind.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  I’m quite excited about possibilities of 3D printing entire hull (especially Using SLA printer). You could make it entirely of different characteristic or particularly easy to maintain certain aspects...
  - RantyDave 7y ago
    I doubt the plastic would make a particularly good hull. Strength/weight ratios are a big deal in sailing.
    - dzhiurgis 7y ago
      It all depends on plastic. Most important if you can build safe enough boat for the masses for 10th of a cost - that would destroy rest of manufacturers wasting money on manual labour. Racers will keep using carbon fibre.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  > Why we don't use modern materials and methods We do. One of the main points in the article is that this particular yacht is old, was made using materials and techniques that aren’t in general use anymore, and thus the skills needed to maintain it are gradually dying out.
joeblubaugh 7y ago
Oh my is that a beautiful boat. I love that fiberglass has made sailing more accessible, but those timber hulls really have something to them.
slowhand09 7y ago
35 years of racing sailboats(mostly other people's) ranging from 14-80ft have taught me a lot. You can do more than you thought. You can get in deeper than you ever imagined and still get out. And this sounds deep. The coolest thing is mentioned in the article. Sailing on and participating in this adventure changes lives. And saves more than you might know. Over the years I've known many people young and old who have died, by natural causes, or their own hand, or at the hand of another. Of hundreds of sailors I've known personally, I recall only one who took his own life.
- satori99 7y ago
  I have been racing and sailing other peoples yachts for a similar time frame. I grew up in the Southern suburbs of Sydney. It is a place surrounded by waterways -- Botany Bay, Port Hacking and the Tasman sea. When I was young, during the 1980's it seemed like every young person spent their free time sailing and boating. Numerous sailing clubs had weekend fleets numbering in the hundreds of vessels over multiple classes. This has all but vanished today -- The clubs have either disappeared or are struggling. I'm not sure what children do today instead, but sailing isn't it anymore.
  - brownbat 7y ago
    > I'm not sure what children do today instead, but sailing isn't it anymore. We solved distraction as if it were a game of perfect information then we put it in everyone's pocket.
bobbyd3 7y ago
“Go small, go simple, go now” - Larry Pardey
- GrumpyNl 7y ago
  Just rent a boat for those few days.
cjlars 7y ago
>Financially, it was a foolish decision, which cost us at least double the original estimates. But being in a syndicate has meant sharing the losses and the workload. Two good lessons. (1) Restorations are almost always far more expensive than just buying a similar boat that has been well maintained. (2) Group boat ownership is often a good idea, you can share the finances and no one actually ends up using the boat as often as they think they will.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >Group boat ownership is often a good idea, you can share the finances and no one actually ends up using the boat as often as they think they will. That works well if you're all the type to just putt in a circle outside the harbor. If some of the owners are the type to beat the vessel up doing what it was intended to do and more and some of them aren't you will wind up with hard feelings when things break.
  - sybarita 7y ago
    Would you expect the other owners to pay for something you broke?
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Because often things don't break right away. They just wear out prematurely or repeated abuse eventually gets them. If you have multiple people with varying use cases odds are someone is abusing the boat because they are trying to shoehorn it into a use case it really isn't well suited for. If you are trying to bounce off 6ft surf (emphasis on "off" rather than "through" in a tri-hull) that will eventually come back to bite you in the form of tearing the vessel apart at the seams. If you are constantly beaching something with a deep V you can only go so long between events where the prop/lower unit unexpectedly finds the ground (and eventually that will get expensive). So you either share the cost of these repairs with the understanding that that's just the cost of doing business (because simply based on your varying use somebody will have to be more abuse to the vessel) or you all get your own boats that fit your use cases.
hprotagonist 7y ago
Ship, (n): A hole in the ocean into which money is thrown. (this shouldn't necessarily deter you from owning one: just, go in with open eyes)
- haecceity 7y ago
  What if you live in it?
  - hprotagonist 7y ago
    not much changes in terms of money. Unlike land and houses on that land, ships (and trailers, vans, etc) typically don’t appreciate in value: upkeep costs are just costs, you’re not usually “paying into” something which you can “get your money back on” later. Arguably that’s true for property too but we like to believe it’s not. there are many factors beyond monetary value that ought to influence decision-making.
    - yardie 7y ago
      Houses don't appreciate in value. The land they are on appreciates faster than the building depreciates.
      - bretpiatt 7y ago
        Structure can and do go up in value if replacement cost increases from higher material costs, labor costs, building code and permitting costs (that just add cost, not directly to buyer utility), etc.
      - hprotagonist 7y ago
        ... sometimes. And sometimes it even outpaces inflation!
    - ben509 7y ago
      Land will appreciate in value if more people move in to the area. So the downside to a boat is you have no neighbors. On the upside, you have no neighbors.
swiley 7y ago
IMO it's surprisingly easy to build small boats on your own. Easy enough in fact that I wouldn't bother buying one until you at least get into the $1k+ range.
- rebuilder 7y ago
  Any resources on that? I assume we're essentially talking rowboats here, given the price range. I was going to say I'm very skeptical it's as easy as you make it sound, but after a quick mental rundown of material cost, I'm suddenly curious and maybe would like to build a boat!
  - swiley 7y ago
    The cheapest is skin on frame style boats (like the original Inuit kayaks.) You build a frame with wood and then wrap it with canvas and paint it to keep the water out. People have even made small dinghies this way. The easiest (maybe, SoF is pretty easy) are probably plywood boats. A lot of people like "stitch and glue" but the "glue" is usually epoxy resin which is a human carcinogen so I've never tried it.
geocrasher 7y ago
Anyone who enjoyed this article will likely enjoy watching the rebuild of Tally Ho, a 110 year old wooden sailing yacht. He's replacing everything and his series is amazing to watch. http://sampsonboat.co.uk/ http://sampsonboat.co.uk/
- zstiefler 7y ago
  This reminds me of the paradox / thought exercise of The Ship of Theseus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
  - smacktoward 7y ago
    They address this very question in one of their updates: http://sampsonboat.co.uk/ep58/ http://sampsonboat.co.uk/ep58/
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
  Not everything. The lead keel, some of the decking and hardware, some of the side planking, etc. are all being kept. Certainly most of the ship is being replaced, but not all.
- PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
  This is one of the best YT "series" I've encountered in, oh, maybe forever. Relaxing, engaging, fascinating, full of subtle wit, hard-earned knowledge. My wife thinks it is utterly boring, I could watch it for hours at a time (and have).
  - theossuary 7y ago
    Try project binky, fantastic series
zelienople 7y ago
All yachts are fixer-uppers, even (especially, sometimes) new from the factory. Source: former owner of Hunter, Hylas & others.
- MrFantastic 7y ago
  If you think there is nothing wrong with your boat, there is something seriously wrong with your boat.
purplezooey 7y ago
The article is about a sailboat. A real yacht is powered by two engines. :)
- soneil 7y ago
  We use the term differently in British English. It’s a yacht if it has a cabin, a dingy if it doesn’t. We really don’t use “sailboat” at all (it sounds like “wingplane” to our ears).
sammyo 7y ago
There are a lot of folks out on the water in "ugly" boats that are not costing the arm&leg but safe and a lot of fun. Get a 100 foot boat, that is a boat that looks great from 100 feet away. Sailing is totally possible for anyone, do all the maintenance yourself, also a really good idea to deeply know every line and turnbuckle when out in the ocean days from a mechanic. OMG they bought a wood boat, the only way to keep a wood boat is to start a foundation or be a billionaire.
- trhway 7y ago
  >OMG they bought a wood boat, the only way to keep a wood boat is to start a foundation or be a billionaire. absolutely. On the other hand, buying an old, requiring a lot of restoration/etc, boat is practically the only way to get such a beautiful wooden boat as they don't build them anymore for a couple of reasons: 1. those beautiful graceful lines were designed to "hack" the mid-20th-century CCA racing rules - the short waterline of a free standing boat becomes longer when the boat is heeling during actual sailing. Half a century ago the IOR rules de-facto replaced CCA and thus all those fat boats of 197x-198x which in turn seem to be more and more replaced during the last couple decades by the boats designed more for the downwind planing. 2. the introduction of mass produced fiberglass resin boats in 196x completely killed the economics of wooden boats at both stages - building as well as maintenance. A mildly related sidenote just for visual pleasure for anybody who loves the boats - i think it is just magnificient how smooth and fast this Draken is sailing https://youtu.be/XORSpUUy0lQ?t=168 https://youtu.be/XORSpUUy0lQ?t=168
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    That's an incredible boat, definitely not one for those who are easily seasick. Also a nice testimony to how good the shipwrights and carpenters of that age already were. It is almost skimming across the waves in some shots. Thank you for posting this.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  My Dad bought a wooden boat when I was 14. I was (happy to cooperate) slave labor maintaining that boat: it was kept in San Francisco Bay and I put on my SCUBA gear and cleaned the bottom every month, with my Dad I learned how to care for a wooden boat, etc. It was a 22 ton monster that we sailed often between SF Bay and Northern Mexico. I was fortunate that my Dad paid for all of my college expenses but I worked 20+ hours a week in summers maintaining that boat. When I graduated from college and got a job my Dad sold that boat within a month and replaced it with a Passport 40 which was made of fiberglass. So, the secret to owning a wooden boat is having a son who loves sailing and boat maintenance.
wheaties 7y ago
Wow, read this and thought, "this is like airplane ownership."
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Maybe, if the hangar is on a salty, wind-blown beach.
aj7 7y ago
Suspect this applies to machine tools, as well.
- analog31 7y ago
  Indeed, and wait until you have to buy and maintain tooling, including cutters, fixturing, etc. That stuff adds up quick.
dpeck 7y ago
reminds me of the documentary that Moxie Marlinspike, of Signal fame among others, did a few years back about fixing up a boat in south Florida and sailing it in the Caribbean. https://vimeo.com/15351476 https://vimeo.com/15351476
lightedman 7y ago
BOAT = Bust Out Another Thousand, as anyone that has owned any boat can tell you. Glad I got mine sold off a while back. Maintenance is costly.
peterwwillis 7y ago
I've experienced this with cars, where I wanted to buy something cheap and fix it up, only to find the costs were way higher than I'd anticipated. I've since learned to look for better "deals" that require minimal work, but the lesson that trying to cheat reality doesn't work is still there. I feel like a "life lessons Wiki" would be really useful. When the old salts said the buyers were crazy, they were right! But they probably couldn't articulate in great enough detail, so they weren't listened to.
- Jamwinner 7y ago
  Unless you have an edge over others, the car has already been priced to 'be fixed up.' Nevermind that at least a third of used cars are for sale because they are 'upside down' in repairs. I.e. they are worth less than a mechanic would charge to fix it. If you can outdiagnose, source cheaper parts, and not value your time, you can make a reliable profit. Number one tip: know your niche and stick to it. Pick a single model/generation/platform and dive deep. Forums exist for every car, boat, tractor, and hot air baloon made. The common issues, fixes, and prices will already be in your mind when you evaluate one to buy. Money pits are always just things you don't know well enough to make sound financial decisions about.
m463 7y ago
Interesting classic story of a software engineer who bought a boat... "An account of an around-the-world solo sail in a 31-foot boat, 1988-1991" https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html
rb808 7y ago
Reminder - NY boat show in a few weeks. https://www.nyboatshow.com/ https://www.nyboatshow.com/
emmelaich 7y ago
Another epic restoration in Sydney - the tall ship James Craig. Took $30m and 40 years! https://www.shf.org.au/explore-the-fleet/our-operational-vessels/james-craig-1874-tall-ship/ https://www.shf.org.au/explore-the-fleet/our-operational-ves...

101 points by smacktoward 7y ago

They say the second best day of your life is the day you buy a boat, and the best day of your life is the day you sell it.

wrnr 7y ago

Can someone tell me what the phrase "fixer-upper" comes from? Is it a type of woodwork, or maybe refers to fixing and upgrading?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
redis_mlc 7y ago
It means you buy something unfinished with the plan to improve it after purchase. A lot of people buy houses that way in the USA, but it is usually stressful on the marriage, and banks require the house to be habitable before a mortgage is issued. Generally large boats are not in the same category, so it's a red flag here.
- mturmon 7y ago
  > ... it is usually stressful on the marriage... So true. My wife and I noticed that several of our friends who had renovated their house on the way to a big showcase (e.g., to become one of the homes on a home design tour) ended up getting divorced right after the big showcase. They lost their focus on what really mattered.
aliswe 7y ago
Just means that you're supposed to fix it up.

aliswe 7y ago

I immediately thought about the guy who filled his boat with foam, in his quest to make it "unsinkable". Also, he made it fully autonomous. https://towndock.net/shippingnews/sean-d-epagnier-and-alexandra https://towndock.net/shippingnews/sean-d-epagnier-and-alexan...

lmilcin 7y ago

Fixer-upper is not a folly. 1. It is the only way for many people 2. It allows to trade your time for a huge discount which may be advantageous if you have relatively low wage. 3. It creates healthier market making boats cheaper for everyone because now low end yacht makers compete with used boats and because as an owner you can sell used boat making it effectively cheaper to own. Now... it is a folly if you have no idea what you are buying. Some kinds of damage is going to be too costly to repair properly. It is best if you have already spent some time sailing before you buy one.

mark_l_watson 7y ago

I met my wife when good friends brought her along when I invited them for sailing/whale watching. She loved boating, but I had a crappy little boat that I liked because it was so low in monetary value that I didn’t think twice about taking it to Mexico for fishing and general fun anchoring in Bahia de Tondos Santos. My wife didn’t particularly care for my crappy little boat but fortunately she liked the captain. Anyway, 35 years ago we found a boat we liked at a boat show but it was $45K new and would have needed another $5K of gear. We didn’t get it, but a year later we found the same boat used that had definite wear and tear, but at half the price. We enjoyed that boat for almost ten years, and sold it at a good price. I have always been grateful for how well that turned out.

achenatx 7y ago

On my honeymoon the resort had free hobie cats and lessons on how to sail. I immediately fell in love and bought a small trailerable sail boat when we got home. Launching and rigging was always a huge pain and took about an hour. While out on the lake I saw people on windsurfers sailing, it seemed so much easier to transport, rig, and sail so I took a lesson with a local club. After the first time windsurfing I sold my boat. Rigging the windsurfer took just 30 minutes and the equipment was so easy to load/transport. The stoke was pretty much the same and an additional benefit was all the core strength. I Windsurfed for a few years. I even bought my truck based on transporting boards. I picked my travel destinations based on the wind and availability of equipment at the destination. My friends had sprinter vans and dedicated trailers for all their boards/sails/masts/booms. The downside was the equipment was heavy and all dead weight. It was extremely difficult to travel (boards wouldnt fit in rental car) and even getting equipment to the waters edge sucked. And then I started to see guys show up in priuses with tiny boards and kites in backpacks. They could rig up in about 10 minutes and it was so easy to carry everything to the water. The boards/kites were so small they could fly as checked baggage at no extra charge, this opened up all the destinations with wind, but no equipment at the destination. I was in the philippines on a windsurfing vacation, but the wind was too light for the size sails they had. The kitesurfers were all out on huge kites, so I took a lesson and was blown away by how comfortable it was. Instead of a giant unwieldy sail, the kite flew itself and weighed nothing. When I got home I sold all my windsurfing equipment and have been kitesurfing ever since. The zen is still the same as sailing, plus you get the thrill of jumping 30+ feet in the air, or being able to surf awesome waves.

duxup 7y ago

I'm surrounded by boat owners who repeat the old adage: "The two happiest days in a boat owner's life: the day you buy the boat, and the day you sell the boat." I imagine a yacht is just that .. but more.

JshWright 7y ago
The other boat quote I hear is something to the effect of "the definition of 'boat' is a hole in the water into which you continuously throw money".
- downerending 7y ago
  I've heard both of those, but as allusions to marriage.
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    >I've heard both of those, but as allusions to marriage. "If it flies, floats or fornicates, it's cheaper to rent than to buy." Is the phrase I've heard most often. Kind of a sad worldview, where in each of the three relationships described, the primary focus is to extract value in exchange for money, rather than obtaining value from the investment of personal effort.
    - aidenn0 7y ago
      I don't think it implies that worldview, but rather states a simple fact. Lots of people who say that phrase have still chosen to buy a boat/plane or get married, which would actually imply the opposite.
    - raverbashing 7y ago
      Airlines are the easiest way of turning a billionaire into a millionaire. I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for a machine where anything going wrong will most likely result in fatalities, which is usually what happens in general aviation.
    - 7y ago

robomartin 7y ago

A number of years ago we decided to get a boat. I've been sailing my entire adult life (through clubs) and love it. And yet, I am also good at math and have seen friends and acquaintances go through the realities of boat ownership. I had exactly zero interest in that. We bought a boat. It was in good condition. The plan was to enjoy it that summer and sell it a the end of the season. In other words, I bought a boat with the stipulation that we would not keep it after three months. That was not negotiable. We would potentially lose a little money in the transaction. I thought of this as a rental fee. This worked out great. We had a good time boating that summer. I did not spend a dime doing anything to the boat (I made sure of this by being careful during the purchase selection phase). We sold the boat for $1,000 less than we paid for it. With slip fees that was about $800 per month "rental". Perfect.

hesdeadjim 7y ago
I am of a similar mindset. My family has owned a small lake house in (very) rural Maine for close to thirty years. My parents have spent a small fortune to maintain and upgrade the property over the years. While I am incredibly grateful for the summers spent there as a child, the burden of ownership from a financial and time point of view had major consequences over the years. Because this property put such a strain on finances, it put my father through incredible strain at work. His health paid the price. My mother also had to weather the strain of raising three boys and working full-time to help ends meet. And because of ownership and these hardships, going to the lake became a requirement for every vacation we took. Even when we moved twelve hours away. I've carried this lesson with me for many years now. When the temptation has struck to make a big purchase like this, I remind myself that often our possessions end up owning us. You can rent practically anything you want nowadays, and in doing so do not need to face all of the hidden financial and personal costs associated with ownership.
- robomartin 7y ago
  I put RV ownership in that same category. A bunch of my neighbors own RV's. If I had to guess I would say they are parked about 350 days out of the year, in some cases 365. So, at the best utilization rate we are talking about being parked 96% of the time. In some cases they have to park them off-site and pay monthly storage fees. I now people who have had their RV's for over twenty years. I can't understand the math. We've rented RV's three times in the last twenty years. The cost ranges from about $100 per day to a few hundred per day. That math I can understand. We even have a favorite RV camping spot we've been to where you can order an RV to be delivered and setup for you. You just show up and start your vacation, no need to drive an RV around at all!

david927 7y ago

As someone who knows nothing about boats, I don't understand understand why there hasn't been more breaking of tradition. Why we don't use modern materials and methods to create boats that are much more resilient to external conditions, solar power instead of sails, etc.? Edit: Thank you so much, everyone, for answering!

07d046 7y ago
Re solar power: the short answer is that wind carries far more energy than solar. Tûranor PlanetSolar is a 31m catamaran with over 500 square metres of solar panels. I think I'm right in saying that its cruising speed is slower than any regular yacht. A big racing yacht is multiple times faster. What I'd be interested in seeing is if a big wind turbine could be put on a yacht, rather than sails. One fun advantage is that it should be able to travel directly into the wind.
dzhiurgis 7y ago
I’m quite excited about possibilities of 3D printing entire hull (especially Using SLA printer). You could make it entirely of different characteristic or particularly easy to maintain certain aspects...
- RantyDave 7y ago
  I doubt the plastic would make a particularly good hull. Strength/weight ratios are a big deal in sailing.
  - dzhiurgis 7y ago
    It all depends on plastic. Most important if you can build safe enough boat for the masses for 10th of a cost - that would destroy rest of manufacturers wasting money on manual labour. Racers will keep using carbon fibre.
smacktoward 7y ago
> Why we don't use modern materials and methods We do. One of the main points in the article is that this particular yacht is old, was made using materials and techniques that aren’t in general use anymore, and thus the skills needed to maintain it are gradually dying out.

joeblubaugh 7y ago

Oh my is that a beautiful boat. I love that fiberglass has made sailing more accessible, but those timber hulls really have something to them.

slowhand09 7y ago

35 years of racing sailboats(mostly other people's) ranging from 14-80ft have taught me a lot. You can do more than you thought. You can get in deeper than you ever imagined and still get out. And this sounds deep. The coolest thing is mentioned in the article. Sailing on and participating in this adventure changes lives. And saves more than you might know. Over the years I've known many people young and old who have died, by natural causes, or their own hand, or at the hand of another. Of hundreds of sailors I've known personally, I recall only one who took his own life.

satori99 7y ago
I have been racing and sailing other peoples yachts for a similar time frame. I grew up in the Southern suburbs of Sydney. It is a place surrounded by waterways -- Botany Bay, Port Hacking and the Tasman sea. When I was young, during the 1980's it seemed like every young person spent their free time sailing and boating. Numerous sailing clubs had weekend fleets numbering in the hundreds of vessels over multiple classes. This has all but vanished today -- The clubs have either disappeared or are struggling. I'm not sure what children do today instead, but sailing isn't it anymore.
- brownbat 7y ago
  > I'm not sure what children do today instead, but sailing isn't it anymore. We solved distraction as if it were a game of perfect information then we put it in everyone's pocket.

bobbyd3 7y ago

“Go small, go simple, go now” - Larry Pardey

GrumpyNl 7y ago
Just rent a boat for those few days.

cjlars 7y ago

>Financially, it was a foolish decision, which cost us at least double the original estimates. But being in a syndicate has meant sharing the losses and the workload. Two good lessons. (1) Restorations are almost always far more expensive than just buying a similar boat that has been well maintained. (2) Group boat ownership is often a good idea, you can share the finances and no one actually ends up using the boat as often as they think they will.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>Group boat ownership is often a good idea, you can share the finances and no one actually ends up using the boat as often as they think they will. That works well if you're all the type to just putt in a circle outside the harbor. If some of the owners are the type to beat the vessel up doing what it was intended to do and more and some of them aren't you will wind up with hard feelings when things break.
- sybarita 7y ago
  Would you expect the other owners to pay for something you broke?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Because often things don't break right away. They just wear out prematurely or repeated abuse eventually gets them. If you have multiple people with varying use cases odds are someone is abusing the boat because they are trying to shoehorn it into a use case it really isn't well suited for. If you are trying to bounce off 6ft surf (emphasis on "off" rather than "through" in a tri-hull) that will eventually come back to bite you in the form of tearing the vessel apart at the seams. If you are constantly beaching something with a deep V you can only go so long between events where the prop/lower unit unexpectedly finds the ground (and eventually that will get expensive). So you either share the cost of these repairs with the understanding that that's just the cost of doing business (because simply based on your varying use somebody will have to be more abuse to the vessel) or you all get your own boats that fit your use cases.

hprotagonist 7y ago

Ship, (n): A hole in the ocean into which money is thrown. (this shouldn't necessarily deter you from owning one: just, go in with open eyes)

haecceity 7y ago
What if you live in it?
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  not much changes in terms of money. Unlike land and houses on that land, ships (and trailers, vans, etc) typically don’t appreciate in value: upkeep costs are just costs, you’re not usually “paying into” something which you can “get your money back on” later. Arguably that’s true for property too but we like to believe it’s not. there are many factors beyond monetary value that ought to influence decision-making.
  - yardie 7y ago
    Houses don't appreciate in value. The land they are on appreciates faster than the building depreciates.
    - bretpiatt 7y ago
      Structure can and do go up in value if replacement cost increases from higher material costs, labor costs, building code and permitting costs (that just add cost, not directly to buyer utility), etc.
    - hprotagonist 7y ago
      ... sometimes. And sometimes it even outpaces inflation!
  - ben509 7y ago
    Land will appreciate in value if more people move in to the area. So the downside to a boat is you have no neighbors. On the upside, you have no neighbors.

swiley 7y ago

IMO it's surprisingly easy to build small boats on your own. Easy enough in fact that I wouldn't bother buying one until you at least get into the $1k+ range.

rebuilder 7y ago
Any resources on that? I assume we're essentially talking rowboats here, given the price range. I was going to say I'm very skeptical it's as easy as you make it sound, but after a quick mental rundown of material cost, I'm suddenly curious and maybe would like to build a boat!
- swiley 7y ago
  The cheapest is skin on frame style boats (like the original Inuit kayaks.) You build a frame with wood and then wrap it with canvas and paint it to keep the water out. People have even made small dinghies this way. The easiest (maybe, SoF is pretty easy) are probably plywood boats. A lot of people like "stitch and glue" but the "glue" is usually epoxy resin which is a human carcinogen so I've never tried it.

geocrasher 7y ago

Anyone who enjoyed this article will likely enjoy watching the rebuild of Tally Ho, a 110 year old wooden sailing yacht. He's replacing everything and his series is amazing to watch. http://sampsonboat.co.uk/ http://sampsonboat.co.uk/

zstiefler 7y ago
This reminds me of the paradox / thought exercise of The Ship of Theseus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
- smacktoward 7y ago
  They address this very question in one of their updates: http://sampsonboat.co.uk/ep58/ http://sampsonboat.co.uk/ep58/
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
Not everything. The lead keel, some of the decking and hardware, some of the side planking, etc. are all being kept. Certainly most of the ship is being replaced, but not all.
PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
This is one of the best YT "series" I've encountered in, oh, maybe forever. Relaxing, engaging, fascinating, full of subtle wit, hard-earned knowledge. My wife thinks it is utterly boring, I could watch it for hours at a time (and have).
- theossuary 7y ago
  Try project binky, fantastic series

zelienople 7y ago

All yachts are fixer-uppers, even (especially, sometimes) new from the factory. Source: former owner of Hunter, Hylas & others.

MrFantastic 7y ago
If you think there is nothing wrong with your boat, there is something seriously wrong with your boat.

purplezooey 7y ago

The article is about a sailboat. A real yacht is powered by two engines. :)

soneil 7y ago
We use the term differently in British English. It’s a yacht if it has a cabin, a dingy if it doesn’t. We really don’t use “sailboat” at all (it sounds like “wingplane” to our ears).

sammyo 7y ago

There are a lot of folks out on the water in "ugly" boats that are not costing the arm&leg but safe and a lot of fun. Get a 100 foot boat, that is a boat that looks great from 100 feet away. Sailing is totally possible for anyone, do all the maintenance yourself, also a really good idea to deeply know every line and turnbuckle when out in the ocean days from a mechanic. OMG they bought a wood boat, the only way to keep a wood boat is to start a foundation or be a billionaire.

trhway 7y ago
>OMG they bought a wood boat, the only way to keep a wood boat is to start a foundation or be a billionaire. absolutely. On the other hand, buying an old, requiring a lot of restoration/etc, boat is practically the only way to get such a beautiful wooden boat as they don't build them anymore for a couple of reasons: 1. those beautiful graceful lines were designed to "hack" the mid-20th-century CCA racing rules - the short waterline of a free standing boat becomes longer when the boat is heeling during actual sailing. Half a century ago the IOR rules de-facto replaced CCA and thus all those fat boats of 197x-198x which in turn seem to be more and more replaced during the last couple decades by the boats designed more for the downwind planing. 2. the introduction of mass produced fiberglass resin boats in 196x completely killed the economics of wooden boats at both stages - building as well as maintenance. A mildly related sidenote just for visual pleasure for anybody who loves the boats - i think it is just magnificient how smooth and fast this Draken is sailing https://youtu.be/XORSpUUy0lQ?t=168 https://youtu.be/XORSpUUy0lQ?t=168
- jacquesm 7y ago
  That's an incredible boat, definitely not one for those who are easily seasick. Also a nice testimony to how good the shipwrights and carpenters of that age already were. It is almost skimming across the waves in some shots. Thank you for posting this.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
My Dad bought a wooden boat when I was 14. I was (happy to cooperate) slave labor maintaining that boat: it was kept in San Francisco Bay and I put on my SCUBA gear and cleaned the bottom every month, with my Dad I learned how to care for a wooden boat, etc. It was a 22 ton monster that we sailed often between SF Bay and Northern Mexico. I was fortunate that my Dad paid for all of my college expenses but I worked 20+ hours a week in summers maintaining that boat. When I graduated from college and got a job my Dad sold that boat within a month and replaced it with a Passport 40 which was made of fiberglass. So, the secret to owning a wooden boat is having a son who loves sailing and boat maintenance.

wheaties 7y ago

Wow, read this and thought, "this is like airplane ownership."

newnewpdro 7y ago
Maybe, if the hangar is on a salty, wind-blown beach.

aj7 7y ago

Suspect this applies to machine tools, as well.

analog31 7y ago
Indeed, and wait until you have to buy and maintain tooling, including cutters, fixturing, etc. That stuff adds up quick.

dpeck 7y ago

reminds me of the documentary that Moxie Marlinspike, of Signal fame among others, did a few years back about fixing up a boat in south Florida and sailing it in the Caribbean. https://vimeo.com/15351476 https://vimeo.com/15351476

lightedman 7y ago

BOAT = Bust Out Another Thousand, as anyone that has owned any boat can tell you. Glad I got mine sold off a while back. Maintenance is costly.

peterwwillis 7y ago

I've experienced this with cars, where I wanted to buy something cheap and fix it up, only to find the costs were way higher than I'd anticipated. I've since learned to look for better "deals" that require minimal work, but the lesson that trying to cheat reality doesn't work is still there. I feel like a "life lessons Wiki" would be really useful. When the old salts said the buyers were crazy, they were right! But they probably couldn't articulate in great enough detail, so they weren't listened to.

Jamwinner 7y ago
Unless you have an edge over others, the car has already been priced to 'be fixed up.' Nevermind that at least a third of used cars are for sale because they are 'upside down' in repairs. I.e. they are worth less than a mechanic would charge to fix it. If you can outdiagnose, source cheaper parts, and not value your time, you can make a reliable profit. Number one tip: know your niche and stick to it. Pick a single model/generation/platform and dive deep. Forums exist for every car, boat, tractor, and hot air baloon made. The common issues, fixes, and prices will already be in your mind when you evaluate one to buy. Money pits are always just things you don't know well enough to make sound financial decisions about.

m463 7y ago

Interesting classic story of a software engineer who bought a boat... "An account of an around-the-world solo sail in a 31-foot boat, 1988-1991" https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html

rb808 7y ago

Reminder - NY boat show in a few weeks. https://www.nyboatshow.com/ https://www.nyboatshow.com/

emmelaich 7y ago

Another epic restoration in Sydney - the tall ship James Craig. Took $30m and 40 years! https://www.shf.org.au/explore-the-fleet/our-operational-vessels/james-craig-1874-tall-ship/ https://www.shf.org.au/explore-the-fleet/our-operational-ves...