Advice for new owners from Australia coming to Europe to collect a boat

[The Miss]

Hi Barra,

Thanks for the good advice and contribution. Currently my husband and I are both working on getting some qualifications before we leave. My husband is undertaking his coastal navigation before blue water and I hope to get the coastal under my belt before departure in June.

I know this is a broad question but I am interested in what kind of budget people who have gone before us have used. So as one with experience, I ask if I may, what kind of budget did you or others have for the basics such as food, boat coast (not repairs) and general living. We obviously have set a budget but not sure if we are on track.

Thanks again

the Miss
Homepage | Miss Catana

PS We have just received new photos of our boat which I have posted on our site but nearing complete photos have made the adventure seem so much closer. The excitement is definitely building as the new year kicks in.

[Barra]

Hmmm how long is a piece of string??

Firstly it varies greatly depending where you are in the med. In Croatia we spent money like it was water with lots of taxes, high marina fees, expensive food (but cheap beer) etc etc. and averaged quite a bit over 200 euro per day (2 people on board) (and we avoided all the expensive marinas and watched what we spent pretty closely)

In Greece we lived much larger and spent around half that. France Italy and Spain somewhere in between.

You can do it for less but if you like marinas and you have a cat you can spend way more too!

So secondly cost depends on how you cruise. We anchor out in preference to marinas by choice. We also enjoy trying to replicate local cuisine on board so probably eat out about 3 times a week on average. How often you choose to eat out is a big swing item in your budget. Off boat side trips were limited to around 1 per month due to the high marina fees more than anything else, not car hire or hotels.

If you use marinas alot, eat out once a day and travel between quite a few countries paying taxes as you go, with regular side trips then I could see a 300 euro budget not being enough for a 42 foot cat. But if you spend more time in the eastern med than the northern and west and eat out maybe 3 times a week then you could probably get by on 100 a day average.

Hope thats about what you were planning on (or less). Unfortunately Glenn Stevens and the RBA have been working hard to make Europe alot more expensive for us Ozzies next year and they appear to have had some success for now. At least they kept Holden in the process

[The Miss]

Hi Barra,

That's a brilliant response and much appreciated.

We have tried to look at how we live now and taking that lifestyle onto a boat in regards to organising budget and being prepared.
Buying a new boat and Catana to boot is the first time we have ever said "bugger it lets go big and do it right."
We are very excited and already have moved out of comfort zones for instance in fitting out the boat from so far away. However the most exciting thing is we have already made new friends from far away who are inspiring, encouraging and only a tip of the future to come.

Glen Stevens is indeed doing his best to reduce our dollar but still feeling pretty happy with the way the process is going - have always been a glass overflowing type girl thogh.

Cheers the Miss

[b_rodwell]

We are newbies in this list of new owners. We (Brian & Lorraine) have recently picked up a Lagoon 400 S2 and we are currently in La Rochelle waiting on a weather window to go South. We plan to go slowly (day sailing on good days) to Morocco to comply with the Schengen rules. We do not have current plans to sail back to Australia.

We have entered Europe under a Schengen visa and I am concerned that we will not leave the Schengen Group within the 90 days. With all the weather delays coupled with our inexperience this does not seem likely at the moment.

The reason for the post is Barra's comment about going over the Schengen limit if on a boat. Could I have comments on your experiences and particularly are some countries more rigid than others in enforcing the rules? I am trying to decide whether we should take the risk of overstaying - perhaps by a month. The only alternative, I am aware of, would be to hire a delivery skipper and with him or her make the trip a bit faster. However this would be more expensive.

Thanks
Brian

[The Miss]

Hi Brian,

The Lagoon looks amazing and comfortable, no doubt you will have a fabulous time.

I too would also be interested in a little more details about the Schengen limit re allowance, who enforces, how you register and the penalty and impact if you go over.
My husband has a English passport as well as Australian, and the boat will be registered as an AU vessel.
Are you able to move the boat around under his passport or is this not possible?

Thank you in advance to anyone who can enlighten us

Cheers
the Miss

Homepage | Miss Catana

[Prairie Chicken]

I'm also interested in Schengen repercussions is you overstay your welcome.

Is it possible to get a residence card in a Schengen country (not for work), would that permit you to stay longer?

In Miss's case, where her husband has dual citizenship, can he stay but she has to leave?

[goboatingnow]

It's not possible to extend Schengen visas or get residents visas in the EU. How ever Australians have some bilateral arrangements with certain EU countries that provide longer stays

I certainly would not push into weather to avoid overstays.

The general feedback is that overstays of day month or two which leave by yacht are usually of little concern. Since you actually don't have to really " check out " there's no stamp on your passport that shows the next country when you left.

So unless they go through the Schengen times from the original entry stamp they can't really determine anything . Usually they just stamp in a new Schengen visa

It's a risk but not a huge one

Dave

[The Miss]

Thanks Dave,

Also may I ask do you know how hard it is for cruisers to open a bank account in Europe?

Having a local bank account would be quite advantageous in particular with our AU dollar at the moment. As we intend to stay around for a while as it sounds like Brian & Lorriane it would help avoid paying an exchange loss and then min 3% of total on any funds transfer.

Cheers
the Miss =)

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by The Miss

Thanks Dave,

Also may I ask do you know how hard it is for cruisers to open a bank account in Europe?

Having a local bank account would be quite advantageous in particular with our AU dollar at the moment. As we intend to stay around for a while as it sounds like Brian & Lorriane it would help avoid paying an exchange loss and then min 3% of total on any funds transfer.

Cheers
the Miss =)

It is possible but the rules vary from country to country. Foreigners can easily open accounts in Europe in general , wander into a local bank and ask , alternatively you could hedge or seek to open a euro account in Australia

Dave

[Barra]

For a local bank account we found the best option was to open an international account with lloyds in the channel islands. You can have easy online access Euro, GBP and USD accounts all linked to VISA debit cards in each currency. Best thing is you then have an IBAN number for interntaional (wholesale FX rate not crappy retail rate) transfers from your aussie bank, and an account for bigger ticket item payments like winter haul out etc

If you keep a miniimum amount in one of the currencies there are no fees either even for cash advances from an ATM.

On the Schengen issues we overstayed and had no problems but had to field a few questions from immigration officials so best to have an explanation ready such as weather hold ups, maintenance issues etc. Ive been told you will get more leniency from maritime immigration as they understand the issues better than if you try and reenter via airport for example where they are far more suspicious.

Movement between france spain and italy by boat was not checked in our experience with the onus on the skipper to find not always present immigration at ports of entry if you wanted to bother.

Discovery of overstay on clearing out wasnt in issue for us ie we were clearly leaving anyway and so common sense prevailed.

The issue may come up when you are past or close to your 90 days and trying to enter your next country so try and time your trip so that your not doing that. Also try and visit at least one non schengen country during those 90 days so actual days would need to be counted out in detail and only one official actually bothered to do that in our experience (but since that was on clearing out we got a "finger wave" and that was it).

At the end of the day your clearly not a refugee, have your own means of transport and appear well funded so common sense prevails at least around the ports. Not saying you wont get an officious type that causes problems but that didnt happen to us or any other non EUs we spoke to so you would have to be unlucky in the western med at least.

[goboatingnow]

Barra experience with yachts based schengen issues is typical of what happens. If you are using airports you have to be far more careful. but maritime immigration ( if you can actually find the buggers) are far more lenient, especially as you clearly are not an illegal immigrant risk.

dave

[Prairie Chicken]

In our case, we fly into Europe so those arrival & departure stamps are obvious in the passports. We've never exceeded our 90 days but we're right up against it and we'd like to spend more time on the boat. We do break the 90 days up in two trips so that helps a bit ... but we're on the edge. I can see being spoken to on our way out on the second trip ... but what would the repercussions likely be?

[Prairie Chicken]

Miss, you're right about the wisdom of getting a bank account. In Spain they are easy to open although there are some minor fees associated with having a foreign-owned account, and also for the debit cards. The debit cards allow you to 'spend' cash or to get cash from an ATM. You can also do electronic transfers from IBAN account to IBAN account for major expenses as Barra mentioned above. It costs to transfer money in but not so much as using credit cards or not having an account, and in Spain at least, you can negotiate the fees to transfer significant amounts in. Using a foreign credit card, while good for collecting points, is the most expensive way to pay your way.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Prairie Chicken

In our case, we fly into Europe so those arrival & departure stamps are obvious in the passports. We've never exceeded our 90 days but we're right up against it and we'd like to spend more time on the boat. We do break the 90 days up in two trips so that helps a bit ... but we're on the edge. I can see being spoken to on our way out on the second trip ... but what would the repercussions likely be?

If you fly , there might be an issue, if you depart by yacht , very unlikely to be anything said.

The worst really is a denied retry stamp and/or fine. Greece seems to have been active at that in regards Backpacker. Most ABC groups, just get a finger wagging.

Dave

[Barra]

dont know what the fine would be dave but im sure its less than a delivery skipper eh....

one more thing for the aussies on the bank account side - the lloyds account can be opened while you are still in Oz and money transferred to it, cards recieved before you leave so no buggering around sorting that side out while you are trying to prep your boat etc

Oh and its owned by the British taxpayers so less default risk than most other banks in europe....