Monday, 26 September 2011

Another argument for smaller boats

I was marina shopping at Southampton boat show this weekend. On the stand of one marina chain they were advertising a berth for a 10 meter yacht at £3700 per year. When we got the quote for our 10.9 meter yacht it was over £5100. Talking about this discrepancy revealed that it's because there's a tiered pricing structure. One rate for boats less than 10 metres and another for boats over 10 metres. This is standard practice and on the face of it is reasonable on the grounds that bigger boats tend to need deeper water and wider berths than smaller ones. 

However this presents a case for those considering buying for the first time or thinking of changing their boat that it's worth considering this difference when weighing up the options. For example: a buyer choosing between these two cruiser racers should consider the extra annual running costs even before a single mile has passed under their keels


ModelSigma 33Fastnet 34
Year19851977
Asking Price £22,000£22,000
LOA: 9.88MLOA: 10.4M
Marina Fees£3,700 per annum£5,100 per annum


That's a difference of £1400 every year, which you could think of in terms of taking a pay cut of £2200 per annum from your salary.

I'm clearly not advocating a buying a boat like buying a bag of veg ("I'll have 10M of of generic boat please") rather than selecting based on rich set of criteria (and emotions). I'm merely suggesting  to add it into the mix as another cost to consider.

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