Maintenence Costs and charter.

[Sailsail1]

Hi thinking about purchasing a 40ft cat like a lagoon ect.

Spoke to a few charter companies and Maintenance costs seem insane.
$21K for maintenence
$5k for annual paintings

Reading posts ect online they put average Maintenence costs average around $5K, is this accurate?

I want to purchase and live aboard probably between northeast and Florida.

Also for chartering it seems there is gross income of say 20% of the boat then all these insane costs leave about $20k-$30K in net income which seems like an utter joke.

Can you earn anything decent with charter or pretty much have to do it yourself?

[Chotu]

That might sound kind of high, but, think about what’s going on with the boat. It’s in use all the time. It’s in use by people who don’t normally use it and may not quite care as much as if it were their own boat. I would suspect the maintenance costs are much higher on a bareboat charter boat.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Sailsail1

Hi thinking about purchasing a 40ft cat like a lagoon ect.

Spoke to a few charter companies and Maintenance costs seem insane.
$21K for maintenence
$5k for annual paintings

Reading posts ect online they put average Maintenence costs average around $5K, is this accurate?

Can't speak to chartering, but the numbers they give you are including their labor costs. Skilled labor around here averages $100-125/hour, and unskilled yard labor is billed at approx $65-90/hour.

If you do your own work, or most of it, your costs may be more palatable. (As long as you ignore your own time spent.)

-Chris

[Sailsail1]

What’s the typical annual labor if you’re just living aboard not mmmmm chartering? Can you get away with 25-50 hours of annual Maintenance at those rates?

I’m more concerned of my own costs if I live aboard.

[Peeew]

It always seemed to me that if there was money to be made by owning a charter boat the charter companies would be owning the boats themselves.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Sailsail1

What’s the typical annual labor if you’re just living aboard not mmmmm chartering? Can you get away with 25-50 hours of annual Maintenance at those rates?

I’m more concerned of my own costs if I live aboard.

No clue what it might cost to maintain a boat like that. And there's always the "it depends" thing.

But whether in charter or not, you've still got underwater growth to contend with and periodic (often annual) engine service.

-Chris

[Sailsail1]

I mean what are typical cost for other 40ft boats? Cant see it being significantly higher?

Does it even need to be repainted every year? If there is no damage besides cleaning it?

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by Sailsail1

I mean what are typical cost for other 40ft boats? Cant see it being significantly higher?

Does it even need to be repainted every year? If there is no damage besides cleaning it?

They're talking about anti-fouling paint on the underwater portion of the hull.

I've spent roughly $10k a year on maintenance. You don't replace a shaft, strut, and coupler every year, or overhaul a generator, or replace electronics and auto-pilot, or replace canvas. However, every year it's something....sometimes it's one big something, or several smaller....but it's always something.

[Sailsail1]

Originally Posted by Shrew

They're talking about anti-fouling paint on the underwater portion of the hull.

I've spent roughly $10k a year on maintenance. You don't replace a shaft, strut, and coupler every year, or overhaul a generator, or replace electronics and auto-pilot, or replace canvas. However, every year it's something....sometimes it's one big something, or several smaller....but it's always something.

I know, does that include anti fouling every year, or just random stuff?

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by Sailsail1

I know, does that include anti fouling every year, or just random stuff?

$5K seems amazingly expensive for anti-fouling paint. It costs a couple of hundred dollars for paint and supplies and a days work.

[Sailsail1]

Originally Posted by Shrew

$5K seems amazingly expensive for anti-fouling paint. It costs a couple of hundred dollars for paint and supplies and a days work.

I know everything seemed mentally challenging expensive, honestly felt like a nice way to line their pockets.

BTW these are sailing cats how much are you honestly using the engines to be overhauled every year.

Dockage Dock: $19,200.00
Electricity: $1,000
Turnarounds: $17,500 $875 per
Insurance: $14,673
Satellite Track: $780
Maintenance: $21,000
Haul/Launch: $4,750
Annual License: $600

Total maintenance around $25K, are brand new boats this unreliable that everything breaks all the time?

Turnarounds basically fancy Airbnb cleaning $17K lol. What are they doing on the turn around are they repairing the boat? If they are that’s like $40K in maintenance, if they aren’t well what exactly are they doing besides basically cleaning a studio sized apartment?

Real world owners please chime in on yearly hours spent on Maintenance for brand new boats, because it seems even at 25 - 50 hours a year at $100 of not doing any of the work yourself you should be at $2500-$5000. I understand some expensive part breaks, but again are newer boats basically lemons?

[Sailsail1]

Reading blog posts of people blue water cruising the world and Maintenence costs coming in at around $17K

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by Peeew

It always seemed to me that if there was money to be made by owning a charter boat the charter companies would be owning the boats themselves.

That's right. They are just good capitalists. What they are doing is using your money to generate their own income. Why put their own money into boats when they can use yours? But as always they have to compete in the market, so there is probably a little money to be made by the individual owners, but that's in theory only. There is a tangible benefit that you can use your boat or equivalent, in whatever other areas they operate, but when we investigated it seemed you could only get use of your boat for "free" in the off season.

BTW to the OP the yearly cost of maintenance on 40 to 50' boat in the FL/Carib area is probably at least $10K even if you own it and treat it very well. That does not include marina costs. Another $15K. Insurance, OMG.

[DMCantor]

These figures seem very reasonable to me. It is easy to spend $300/gallon or more on bottom paint, and you have to figure in the labor to sand before application, and the application itself. Things break on boats, and have to be fixed. This costs in parts and labor.


You can reduce costs a lot by doing most of the work yourself, but time is money.


Over ten years of cruising winter months only in the Caribbean, we have averaged $12,000 in maintenance costs and $4,000 in various upgrades. You have to add in haul/storage/launch costs which are significant. It is not a poor man's hobby.

[jacktheflyer]

When I had my boat chartered, if it was chartered one week a month I would lose money, if it was two weeks basically break even, three weeks in profit, four weeks is where the cream is.

Maintenance costs are high when you are not there to manage the work. First you get a lot of 'make work' from the charter company to keep their staff busy and secondly like a rental property you are a mark for the contractors because they don't need to compete on prices.

There is money to be made but the risks are high. Otherwise the charter company would own their own boats. And of course if they do own a couple they will get preferential bookings.