Operating Costs---430

S

Scott & Malina

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Okay folks, good day! As some know, I'm a newbie to the forum so thanks for the warm hellos. I have a question that I'm sure can be answered in about as many ways as there are boats in the water, but I'm not looking for specifics, just a ball park answer, unless someone wants to share a spreadsheet. I'm just looking for what operating costs are for your boat considering you have a 40-45 footer or something close. Aside from the boat payments, what are you putting aside monthly for your operating costs such as for dockage, fuel, annual hauling, insurance, maintenance (preventative or corrective) weekends out etc...etc...? I know a lot has to do with how you operate and how often, but just give me your situation and I will gauge against mine and get an average. I'm doing some advanced planning on owning what I hope to be a 430 DA or similar in a few years and want to get a feel if it's in my budget for that size boat. I appreciate any inputs.

Scott and Malina
 
Well I'm at 38 ft and it cost about 2 grand a month or more depending on fuel use storage and haul are 2500 for wither 4500 per year for slip use age 1600 in maintenance per. Year if I don't DIY when you get to 43 if its diesel I don't know the cost but got to be close.i about 18000 a year when I'm done without boat payments
 
well here's some of it - for our 470DA (same as 09 43DA). Ins about 2300...Year round moorage 5000.....fuel figuring about 75 hours of running plus gen time...2000.......annual maintenance on the diesels and gen.....4000 (inc's winterization and a laundry list of "need dones")..annual exterior upkeep (general waxing) 1200...misc items related using the boat (food, drink, etc)...1500......and 32380.49 for Bud Light (ok only kidding on the last one lol) I think that all adds up to about 16k, plus any costs related to the boat itself if payments are involved....df
 
I am in Panama City Beach. We boat 12 months a year, roughly 125 hours per year. Boat is a 450DA, which is about 8-10 ft more length and a little more beam than a new style 430DA. We are in a leading area marina owned by the Sea Ray dealer in one of the few covered slips in this part of the world.

Slip = $8100/year

wax/detailing the exterior 3X per year = $1800......for a colored hull in Florida...X2

annual haul out= $65/ft every 3rd year for a full bottom job; $1500 the other years

insurance = Roughly $15/1000 of agreed hull value. But this is a gotcha area.......I have 25 years experience in 50'+ vessels, have a USCG Masters license, have a Florida safe boating certificate, have no debts, and have no claims experience. Boat insurance in Florida can be hard to buy if you are near the coast and have coastal cruising limits. Experience in similar vessels as the one you want covered can be troublesome as well. If you don't have experience as owner in something over about 30', you may not be able to buy coverage unless you have a captain on the boat with you for the first few months you own the boat. You can't really estimate the insurance factor until you shop for a policy. Try Boat/US or NBOA and just explain your circumstances and ask for a rough estimate of coverage.

fuel= estimated hours X GPH X $/gal

oil changes = I service my own boat so the cost is oil and filters, which for me is roughly $240/year and I use Caterpillar brand filters.

Canvas = figure recovering every 5 years if you store the boat in the sun ......$3500/5 = $700/year

and then you have repairs. My boat is well maintained so I just have the usual heat exchanger & afterccooler cleaning (cost depends upon the engines you have), impellers every 200 hours $100/engine if you do it yourself......



Maybe that will get you started.
 
Per year: Moorage 50 foot slip 5K, Maintenance over time 5K, Insurance 1K, Fuel $5 per knot we go out for 3 months a year some years it is 5K others it is 10K, stuff you do not need but get anyway2K, Food and drink 5K. In all I allow 25K per year. That works out to 250 a night
 
To all,
I really appreciate this information. :smt038 You all have given up a small part of your day in response to my inquiry to give this information and it is invaluable, both the information you've provided and the great folks that are here in CSR.
Keep the replies coming in if you have the time. The more the better, this helps me greatly!

A heart felt thanks to all that have given your input so far. :grin:

Scott & Malina
 
I have a 21 foot jet boat when I use it I feel it is almost free to run compared to the 38 footer. Then when I fill up my SUV for $80 I feel it is inexpensive to run compared to a boat. Cost is all relavent to what you can afford.
 
There are a few simple calculations to determine annual cost that may help. This is how I figured the cost different when I went from my 240DA to a 350.

1) What is your monthly payment? This will be a fixed cost, so easy to budget for.
2) How many hours do you use the boat each season? Figure out how far you travel in a season so you can estimate tanks of gas. We usually budget 3/4 tanks. This will give you an estimate in fuel costs. Take your total and multiply by the current cost of fuel.
3) Is your slip by the foot or by set increments? Marinas around us charge by the foot, so this is easy to calculate and figure out costs.
4) If you average 100 hours a season one big annual maintenance/winterization should work. I estimate $1000 per engine and then $500 for other systems for winterization, etc. (our winterization bill is about $2500 and that includes oil changes, etc)
5) Will you haul out part of the year? Estimate this cost.
6) Estimate at least one good wax job a season, which requires a haul out. Around here a full detail and wax averages $15-18 per foot.
7) We budget $250/mo during the boating season for misc. stuff. This is food, drink, transient docking, etc.
8) Insurance.. Depends on where you boat. Budget $1k and you'll likely be close.

We use a separate checking account for all boating expenses. This allows us to properly track stuff. It has a debit card we use for fuel, food, etc. During the off season we try to stuff some extra money in this account for unexpected expenses, upgrades, etc. We also try to jump ahead on boat payments.

Hope this helps. This should give you a general idea on costs regardless of boat size.
 
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WDCboater,
Great idea! Working out of one account is the goal. I like the way you think. Again, much appreciated, lots of good info in your post.

Thanks!

Scott & Malina
 
A good rule of thumb is this, take the value of your boat, times that by 10% and you will get a good idea of your annual total costs out the door excluding payments and insurance... that has worked for me every time. On my 390MY... I am running about 20k a year
 
Scott,
i just made the jump to a 450 this year. As frank mentioned in an earlier post, insurance can be a big cost, especially in FL. I'm paying 4800 per year. In the Great Lakes I would be paying about 1/2 that amount. Slip 8500, clean/wax 2500, maintenance 3500.
no matter how new the boat is or how great of shape, plan on another 2000 -3000 in unplanned maintenance! A/C, pumps, refrig. Etc...
Budget 25 k per year.
 
I hear ya Pete. Friends of mine just sold their new boat after 15 months of ownership. They figured it cost them $12,000 per hour.

That's math that just not worth doing!
 
FalconFlyer said:
A good rule of thumb is this, take the value of your boat, times that by 10% and you will get a good idea of your annual total costs out the door excluding payments and insurance... that has worked for me every time. On my 390MY... I am running about 20k a year
Click to expand...


Thanks, that's in interesting way of looking at it, but it does seem to come out about the same.

Scott
 
GWICK said:
Scott,
i just made the jump to a 450 this year. As frank mentioned in an earlier post, insurance can be a big cost, especially in FL. I'm paying 4800 per year. In the Great Lakes I would be paying about 1/2 that amount. Slip 8500, clean/wax 2500, maintenance 3500.
no matter how new the boat is or how great of shape, plan on another 2000 -3000 in unplanned maintenance! A/C, pumps, refrig. Etc...
Budget 25 k per year.
Click to expand...

Thanks GWICK. Yeah insurance, it seems to be the Achilles heel of all endeavors fun. I appreciate you sharing your information.

Scott & Malina
 
I would add that if you can negotiate a long term warranty on the boat and the engines it's worth it imo. When I purchased my 08 330 I was able to get a 3 yr extended boat warranty with an upgraded engine provision as well. Yeah it was cash out of pocket at the time of purchase, but if finances are tight and you want to put a ceiling on unexpected out of pocket costs that could be very large, that is the way to go. Brunswick has the Legacy Protection Plan and MarineMax has the CPO and extended CPO plans.
 
I'm with Pete, it would be too much to think about, so I'm better off not putting the boat expenses on a spreadsheet. I have a pretty good sense that I can swing it, just don't need to add it all up.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Roller, 12,000 an hour. Holy cow. That's insane. But I guess it happens. I saw a year old 50' Cruisers Yacht that was originally 1.2M and for sale a year later for $600K. That depreciation has to really hurt. I try to buy things that don't depreciate or at least don't depreciate any faster than I can pay for it. Ha.

Pete
 
The secret to beating the depreciation curve is to buy a good clean used boat, keep her in pristine condition for 15 years while you run it and enjoy it and you will have ridden the curve to the bottom and the value then starts back up. A quick thumb nail calculation says I'm at about $45-$50/hour for depreciation right now....and the values of clean used 450DA's is rising.
 
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