Month 4 Expenses & Costs of Cruising

[Maka]

Very Helpful.
4 months = less than $2K a month, with at least one unusually high month thrown in.
Im guessing calculated annually your spending between $1,000 and $1,500 a month?

[wunderluster]

I think you guys are blowing this up a bit. He said $7,602 for 4 months. That is $1,900 per month, which is about average.

[akprb]

Sailorboy, here is what I REALLY LIKE about your posts. They bring home real time experiences.

Now I have met folks cruising on an ultra budget who were doing a great job of it. A couple we met in Tonga come to mind. They were young and on a 40 some odd foot non-descript monohull. At the beach party, anchorage 14, they were roasting some fish on the fire for their dinner. We had a great talk about their travels and "living of the land".

My wife's cousin and his wife (not married but may as well be) are another example. At a Christmas party two decades ago he asked me with great enthusiasm what kind of boat he could get cheap and sail offshore with. I thought about it and said "Crealock Dreadnaught 32" and left it at that.

A few months later he called and said he bought one, they left from Juneau Alaska with a 50lb bag of rice and a spear gun (I'm exaggerating but not too much and ended up in Japan where they sold the boat. They went on to buy a 40' steel hull at a scrap yard, lived in it at the scrap yard while they “built it” and a year or two later took off again for Mexico, Hawaii, Midway (where they worked for a year to build up their funds) and then back to Alaska. He even built the MAST from a pipe!!!

These kind of folks can and do cruise on a budget of 500.00 per month.

Now for the rest of us……..your experience is much closer to home. When I see a post saying “I want to buy a 20,000 ocean going boat and cruise on 800.00 per month and I need to learn how to sail” I kind of wince. The advice that comes out is good and it can be done, see the above, but is it likely? The two examples earlier were of folks who lived off the land well before going cruising and who were predisposed to doing lots with very little. Those of us who come from fairly comfortable land based occupations with partners and children who are accustomed to certain “comforts” this notion of spending next to nothing each month generally ends prematurely and poorly.

One day I was walking back to Ohana at Palm Harbor Marina in West Palm and saw a man sitting on the dock literally in tears. I walked up to ask if all was ok and struck up “the conversation” about what happened. This is not the first conversation like this I have had, had the same one last year in Cape May with a man on a really nice Pacific Seacraft Crealock 34 (I detect a theme). The conversation goes something like this:

“I’ve dreamed of cruising my whole life. I read everything, researched everything, bought the boat and had a great couple of years outfitting her and fixing her up. Finally we decided to go and headed down to Florida in anticipation of sailing to the Bahamas and points south. Somewhere around Charleston my wife quit. She said it’s too………fill in all the “too’s”, too hot, expensive, cold, boring, terrifying, lonely, far from the kids, claustrophobic……you get the idea. So here I am with my dream and I have to sell it.”

The Cape May guy was more to the point of finances. He had done all of the same and had a very specific monthly budget. His transmission gave up in Cape May and he literally could not afford to replace and could not afford to keep her at a dock or haul her out and store her. He was selling and he was having a fire sale. For a brief moment, as he told his story, I considered offering to help and pay for a transmission but as he kept talking I changed my mind. It would only be subsidizing what he was already ill prepared for and would just end a little further down the ditch.

The point, for most folks it’s going to “cost” a lot more than you think. That fact that you are taking the time to share your real world, real time, experience is invaluable and I would encourage you to keep it up. Your writing style is engaging and enjoyable and at some point put it all together in a book. Nothing makes me happier than to see folks out there really ENJOYING the life and not constantly on the wrong side of the ledger.

Speaking of which I better get to work so I can go off sailing next week! Have a great day and keep your posts coming. Thanks to the moderator who puts them on The Daily Cruiser!

I've included a pic of of Andy and Lisa on their home built steel cutter "Indefatigable" and one from the night in mentioned earlier in Vavauu :-)

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by wunderluster

I think you guys are blowing this up a bit. He said $7,602 for 4 months. That is $1,900 per month, which is about average.

No you misread it, this is month #4 and it was $7602 not a running total. There are other threads for months 1-3.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by wunderluster

I think you guys are blowing this up a bit. He said $7,602 for 4 months. That is $1,900 per month, which is about average.

No. It's not accumulated. It's $7,602 for this month alone.
He will confirm.

But he has a full year boat insurance in that. Plus presents that many wouldn't include (and I wouldn't give lol). Plus rent a car which offset v cheap Marina


As I keep telling everyone: once you get the hell outta Dodge it gets cheaper!
Out to the Bahamas, or north of Brisbane Australia etc.
When you are really in cruising areas you don't need marinas, cars for a month etc.
When u do need a car you often share it with other cruisers and do sightseeing together etc.

Also... The first year is most expensive.... It's just not cheap to start.

The lessons showing up here are all gold.

[robert sailor]

Once he gets away from the USA, it's highly likely that his lifestyle will change and his costs will go down. There is no getting away from the fact that as my friend keeps telling me "it's the most expensive way to go 3rd class", lol. Having said that if your anchored off some little island with few people on it you don't spend very much money because there is nothing to spend it on. There is also a learning curve to find just the right groove for your own cruising style that works best for you and your budget. Also the more complex your boat is the more it's going to cost to maintain it, try to keep it simple if your on a tight budget. Our costs over the last 4 years, including yearly travel home and land travel plus a new engine and prop average out at a little over $4000 Canadian dollars per month for a 42 foot boat, that is something over $3000 us dollars.

[rastamon]

O no you didnt[emoji850] Really? Living in a tent under a bridge? Wow, had to jump in on this one. If your complaining about expenses in the US, don't come over to the Bahamas. As a general rule everything is twice what you would pay in the US. Except for "marine" items. Expect to pay three times as much as West Marine! We're currently in Marsh Harbor and have been cruising the Bahamas for nearly three months. We eat lobster I spear three times a week. Cracked conch or conch fritters twice weekly that I dive for. Grilled fish at least once weekly that I catch. We love fresh coconut that I find on beaches and personally shuck and clean. We pick fresh sour oranges to flavor our foods. Oh yes, we sail instead of motoring. Our dink finds great places to explore and provides more entertainment than any bar or restaurant, if you like to watch turtles, stingrays, coral reefs and the like. We prefer to drop a hook over marinas and mooring fields. We find beauty everywhere we look, for free! We walk to markets along the way to provision. Our boat is insured and I maintain it. We are very happy living this way. We watch sunrises and sunsets and love living with nature. We call home to friends and family and post our adventures online. Everything has an expense. Our monthly budget is $1300 and we do just fine thank you. If ya wanna call that living in a tent under a bridge, so be it. You stay tied up to a dock. We're moving to explore Eleuthera next. Happy trails⛵️[emoji227][emoji1040]

[MV Wanderlust]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Posting a breakdown I have learned just gives the haters something reply to so I’m thinking I wouldn’t post it any more. But if you wish to know for your own planning PM me and I am willing to share it depending of course on who asks.

Sailorboy, please reconsider on posting the breakdown of expenses. As you can see from the responses, your breakdown is helping many of us plan for the current and future, including us. If not, we would appreciate it immensely if you would PM the breakdown to me. Glad to hear your holiday month was decent, if pricey.

[sailorboy1]

[QUOTE=rastamon;2307302 You stay tied up to a dock. [/QUOTE]

That must be it! The past 8 years I have a total of 12 days tried to the dock and 3 of those were just last month.

[grantmc]

Just so sorry to hear that Sailorboy has received hate mail. That’s really awful. Posting the costs publiclycan be of enormous help to others. And it’s very brave.

Just as awful that people make public judgments about what and how you’ve spent your hard earned money. Similarly passing judgement and suggest better ways on how you have decided to include the costs in your accounting.

On a positive, the post by akprb was wonderful for its insights. I especially appreciated this paragraph:

Originally Posted by akprb

One day I was walking at the marina and saw a man sitting on the dock literally in tears. I walked up to ask if all was ok and struck up “the conversation” about what happened. This is not the first conversation like this I have had, had the same one last year in Cape May with a man on a really nice Pacific Seacraft Crealock 34 (I detect a theme).

The conversation goes something like this:
“I’ve dreamed of cruising my whole life. I read everything, researched everything, bought the boat and had a great couple of years outfitting her and fixing her up. Finally we decided to go and headed down to Florida in anticipation of sailing to the Bahamas and points south. Somewhere around Charleston my wife quit. She said it’s too………fill in all the “too’s”, too hot, expensive, cold, boring, terrifying, lonely, far from the kids, claustrophobic……you get the idea. So here I am with my dream and I have to sell it.”

I read posts on the forum here all the time from people busily, doing cruising research, looking for boats to buy, refitting boats etc for the their big trip, yet they never ever go sailing, and mostly have never been sailors. I also regularly see people here where I live doing exactly the same in local marinas.

We saw an example of such an experience recently. It was boat hits bridge.

I thought as I read/watched their videos, what a couple of strange people, all that resource, emotion, and effort and they’d (or the boat either) hardly ever been sailing. As they left on that fateful trip it was their first overnighter. As well as crashing the bridge, they had serious motor and steering problems too. And before I get the hate mailers, the consequence was serious no motor, no steering, but yes the cause of the problems weren’t of themselves serious. But the boatmanship displayed on several occasions (in my judgement) was poor. And I don’t doubt that with a few miles under the belt the skill level increases. So the issue is how to gain experience safely before you leave.

And of course, they’ll gain experience as they travel, that’s seemingly very true. But many experience serious issues and have to cancel their plans and dreams. And I would suggest such issues are because of lack of experience. For example how does one know how you’ll cope with chronic seasickness Or a partner with same), or boredom, or fear, or confinement. For example I spent a week once in a very remote place at anchor through a terrible storm. The wind hardly let up for 5 days, And I mean like 40 knots +, with the boat sailing from side to side. I was constantly concerned that we’d drag, so didn’t dare leave the boat (I was solo), and hardly slept. The noise was the worst. So I used the word confinement.

Here’s an interesting although somewhat depressing statistic. In talking to New Zealand Customs recently the Officerexplained that when a yacht clears to depart our country Customs don’t process the entry for about a week after departure date. That’s because over 1 in 5 boats unexpectedly return to NZ within a few days. So by not processing their outbound entry they don’t need to clear back into the country. Breakdowns, sea sickness, or they find sea travel truly unbearable, bad weather forecast, all sorts of reasons (but most reasons are of the mind, not because of the boat itself failing). A common one is they find that they’re terrified once out of sight of land. And of course for almost all, their trip had been a long term dream at significant cost and sacrifice (including Cat.1 signoff for locals).

So Sailorboy your posts are specks of gold down the mine. So thanks sincerely for doing so. It’s very generous of you to do too and I hope you’re not put off by either the haters or the ‘make better choices brigade’. And to the ‘you should make better choices’ brigade I note few of you are Cruiser Forum supporters, so how’s about choosing to spend a measly $15 for the year and subscribe.

[ccrascal]

Recently completed cruise from Portsmouth, UK to Capetown, SA via the Artic and thru Canal.....spent 4 weeks in Portsmouth making sure all was in order for this trip including overboard drills, check lists, supply lists, etc. Fortunately we had little trouble and were able to handle all things that went flooey on us like the deep freeze that quit working and a few mechanical repairs....as to expenses, we simply doubled our best estimates and luckily we returned home with half of doubling...

[a64pilot]

A phenomena here is that sometimes someone posts something like how much fuel they burned last month or year etc. Sometimes it seems then to become a competition on how little fuel you burned, cause any "real" Sailor never cranks the engine. Real soon you get posts about they don't know have much they burned, cause they haven't filled the tank in the five years they have had the boat etc.
This is silly, but sometimes I worry about the effect. I remember distinctly that Rebel Heart only left with the fuel she held in internal tanks, and I wanted to say something, but I was the new guy, who was looking to buy their first sailboat, so I didn't. I believe maybe he could have used extra fuel.
So we get to SB posting what HE spends, doesn't necessarily mean it's what anybody else but he would spend, but he enjoys I believe a lifestyle that I and the wife will hope to have when we go, so I read and take notice of his posts on expenses.
Then we get into the competition about how cheap you can cruise, and then people start posting how they can get by with less by doing this and that and if you weren't living like Richie Rich then you too could get by with X.
But here's part of the thing, it's not about a competition, nor is it about how cheap can you do it. Maybe it's about what it cost to do it and enjoy doing it?

[sailorboy1]

BTW remember I said I will provide the breakdown if you PM asking me. I will even discuss the breakdown numbers on the thread if someone asks about them. I'm just currently not willing to suffer all the jabs I've taken the last 3 threads.

[varkpilot]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

That must be it! The past 8 years I have a total of 12 days tried to the dock and 3 of those were just last month.

Here's a fix for the haters. Use it instead of letting them win.

"Can I block posts, emails and messages from specific users?
If there are particular members that bother you and you do not want to see their posts or receive Private Messages and Emails from them, then you can add these members to your 'Ignore List'. There are several ways to do this:
Through your User Control Panel: User CP, Settings & Options, Edit Ignore List. Then, type their name into the empty text box and click 'Okay'.
What if I see something offensive?
You will find 'Report' links in many places throughout the board. These links allow you to alert the board staff to anything which you find to be offensive, objectionable or illegal."


End of hater problem.

[sailorboy1]

Really