Annual Maintenance

[nuru05]

So I know this has been done to death and there is no single answer, but I'm hoping to at least get an idea if I'm on the right track or not.

I'm trying to get a decent idea if my maintenance budget is reasonable or if I'm way off. I would assume that I am doing most of the minor stuff myself such as fixing the stuff that just needs a day of tinkering like replacing a hatch, bottom jobs, or rerunning some water lines, but hiring out the big stuff like engine rebuilds or standing rigging replacement. This also only includes maintenance on the boat, it does not include fuel, upgrades, slip fees, insurance, etc

So, if I buy a good condition cat (say a Legoon 38) with everything in pretty good shape (engine, sails, rigging, etc) will an annual maintenance budget of $15,000 keep the boat in good condition? I know that there will be years that cost $50k and years that cost $5k but if I just start putting $15k/year into an account and working off of that (with access to extra if something big breaks in the first couple years) should that take care of it?

As far as usage, we are planning on buying our boat in just over 2 years and living on it 9 months a year while leaving to work 3 months (we figured we would pull it out and leave it dry for those 3 months in a safe (hurricane free) area.

[arsenelupiga]

it depends. Mainly on how many extras you have. Any one of them requires maintenance or negative $$$ surprise at inconvenient time, pick your way. Also do not ignore complexity of the boat increasing when adding new feature and subsequent debugging.

We have chosen 'less goodies' way and regular maintenance - benefit is boat is bit faster because lighter, less complicated and I spent less time on maintenance.

In 6 years we have spent 26k AUD p/a including insurance and upgrades for liveaboard & passage making & making boat bit faster (extra sails etc), antifouling, polishing.... This is roughly 5% p/a of initial cost. Boat has around 30K nm.

In 3 years waiting standing rigging replacement, motors have 1100 hours so they will be good for couple more decades. Rest also looks pretty good.

So i think your calc should work out just fine.