Choosing the Right Boat: A Guide Based on Your Experience and Budget

My advice is to choose a boat that you can afford and which suits your type of sailing, No boat is suitable for all types of sailing. Being human, at different times we expect to jump aboard our boat and to race, day sail, bluewater cruise, or simply potter.

Sometimes we sail alone or with friends or family. Your choice of boat is what you believe is the best compromise between your range of sailing activities. This is a very personal decision.

What type of sailing will you do?

To make the right choice of boat, it helps to ask the right questions and the following questionnaire tries to list the points you must juggle when making a decision. It is not a formula but a guide that lists the points you ought to consider. There are no scores to add up, no trick questions or right or wrong answers, but when you reach the end you should have built up a profile of your type of sailing and gathered some ideas towards the type of boat you want.

Sailing experience:

• Never sailed before.
• Less than one season.
• Two or three seasons.
• Five to ten years.
• Over ten years.

If you have already owned boats or sailed on other people’s boats then you will have definite opinions about the boat you want. The longer you have been sailing, the firmer your opinions will be on this matter. If you are new to sailing then your knowledge about boats is likely to be based on adverts, boats reviews and word of mouth. Be aware that no one speaks unkindly of their present boat and that boat reviews often resort to coded language to hint at drawbacks. Adverts by yacht builders and brokers are hardly likely to highlight flaws in the products they promote.

What type of sailing:

• Exploring the coastline.
• Racing exclusively.
• Cruising exclusively.
• Cruising with the occasional race.
• Racing with the occasional cruise.

Boats perform best at what they are designed to do. You can cruise in a racing yacht or race a cruising yacht but it is hard work. If you enjoy exploring less frequented waters, the absence of shore facilities puts onboard comfort and facilities at a premium. If you gunkhole then you need a boat that can take the ground. Buying the wrong sort of boat for your principal activity is never a wise move, however cheaply the boat is priced.

The more frequently you sail, the closer you should keep your boat to where you live, otherwise too much time, and money, is spent on the road between home and mooring. If you only daysail, then the onboard facilities can be basic. Sleeping on board begins with a cockpit tent or a cabin large enough to contain bunks, a galley of sorts, heads, and electrical power for domestic as well as navigational use. If you make overnight passages, then you should be able to use the galley, heads and bunks at sea. The longer you live aboard, the more space, equipment and home comforts you need. On the other hand, if you buy a boat that is bigger or better equipped than is needed then you are wasting money.

If you sail on inland waters, your boat may have to meet local regulations in terms of fitting out and equipment and be certified to this effect. Check that your boat complies or, if it does not, that the work to bring it up to standard will not break the bank.

On most coastal passages, there are harbours of refuge en route where you can seek shelter in good time if the weather turns unkind, but on offshore passages you may have to take what comes, and your boat should be fitted out to stay at sea in most weathers. If you plan any ocean voyages, your boat must be able to stay at sea in any weather. If you wish to make coastal passages in a different area each season then consider a trailer sailer to cut down on the days, or even weeks, spent reaching your chosen cruising ground.

Sailing in company:

• Alone.
• With family.
• With friends.

Solo sailing demands easy sail handling and some form of reliable autopilot but you have more freedom to decide when and where you sail. If you rely on friends as crew then when you sail depends on everyone coordinating their free time. Children aboard limit the type of passage you make and become bored looking at waves. Family sailing is nearly always shorthanded sailing and arrangements aboard should reflect this. The more people who expect to sleep on board regularly the bigger the boat you will need.

The further you live from your boat the less likely you are to sail for an evening or on impulse and the more money you spend travelling between home and boat.

If access to your home port is limited by tides or bridge or lock-opening times, you can rule out regular evening or weekend sailing. It is worth checking out the parking facilities shoreside. Returning on the midnight tide you do not want to be faced with a locked car park, a three-mile trudge to your car or, worst of all, no car.

A pontoon berth cannot be beaten for convenience. A swinging or trot mooring can add up to an hour, sometimes more, for ferrying crew and kit to and from the boat at the start and end of each passage. Even allowing for launching fees, parking your boat at home for all or much of the year is a good reason to consider a trailer sailer.

Limited facilities at your home port may mean having to take your boat somewhere else for winter storage. If lift-out is by special arrangement, it may be expensive and if there is no power available then working on the boat during the winter could be difficult and expensive. Some marinas insist that maintenance work is carried out by their approved contractors which keeps your costs and their profits high.

Practical skills:

• You have good woodworking skills.
• You are competent at working in GRP.
• You can weld steel, including stainless steel.
• You can weld aluminium.
• You can maintain marine engines.
• You can fit electrical equipment.
• You can fit and maintain LPG appliances.
• You can splice rope and wire.
• You have a good working knowledge of paints and coatings.

Maintenance is labour intensive and the more you do then the more money you save. Buy a boat whose construction and equipment matches your practical skills.

Running costs

Make a realistic estimate of how much you can afford for your boat’s annual running costs. Do not try to offset any part of these against the price of your annual holiday and, unless you plan to live aboard, changing your lifestyle to save money is an illusion. If you are planning to sail on a shoestring then you must carefully research the running costs of the boat you intend to buy.

Only you know what compromises you can accept and still balance the conflicting demands of:

• How much you can afford to spend on a boat.
• How much you can afford to spend on its upkeep.
• What you want the boat to do.
• Where you want to sail.
• The time you have available to sail.

Inconsistencies in your answers point towards areas where you may have to downsize your ambitions. Ignore discrepancies at your peril. They turn dreams into nightmares.

Do I charter or buy?

The search for a suitable boat begins by deciding whether you wish to:

• Sail other people’s boats.
• Buy a new boar.
• Buy a second-hand boat.
• Build one yourself.
• Refit a yacht in need of major repair.
• Make your boat pay its way.

Sailing other people’s boats

You do not need to own a boat in order to go sailing, The costs of buying, berthing and maintaining a boat can be avoided by sailing other peoples boats. You may never be skipper but a good crew member is a pearl beyond price and can pick and choose when and where they sail. Some keen skippers will even bribe experienced crew by paying all their expenses.

Boats looking for crew or crew looking for boats find each other through friends, club notice boards and crewing agencies.

Charter

If you wish to skipper a yacht without the expense of owning your own boat and are prepared to limit your sailing to two or three weeks a year, then chartering works out much cheaper than Ownership and Financial Side of Yacht Purchasingboat ownership. In addition to freeing you from berthing fees and annual maintenance costs, chartering also opens up the possibility of exploring overseas cruising grounds. Some sailing clubs own yachts that their members can charter cheaply. If that is not available to you there is always commercial charter.

Types of charter

Bareboat charter. A bareboat charter is not a boat stripped to basics but chartering a boat and sailing without a company skipper on board. Before letting you loose, the charter company will need to be reassured that you can handle the boat safely. Normally the minimum seagoing qualification for bareboat charter is a full (Shorebased Theory and Practical) RYA Yachtmaster™ Coastal certificate or an acceptable equivalent.

Skippered charter. If you, or the company, have doubts about your ability then you may wish, or the company may insist, that you hire a professional skipper for the trip. There will then be an additional charge of about two-thirds of the charter cost.

Flotilla sailing. A flotilla cruise is a halfway house between a bareboat and skippered charter. You skipper but sail in convoy with a number of other boats, one of which is skippered by the convoy leader who is on hand to offer advice and help. Charges for flotilla sailing are normally per person and include travel costs.

Boatshare. This is a variation on mantime timeshare for those who feel competent to bareboat charter. For a fixed monthly fee you are promised a certain number of weeks a year sailing. There may be an annual membership fee and a requirement to give several months’ notice if you wish to quit.

The weekly rate is around 40 per cent of a fortnight’s bareboat charter which makes it attractive but as most people wish to take an annual cruise in July and August there may be restrictions on availability and the commitment to a monthly fee makes shopping around an expensive option if you cannot get your preferred dates. If you can only manage a couple of weeks sailing a year then a boatshare scheme becomes an expensive option.

Read also: Recommendations for Choosing and Buying a Sailboat

The cost of charter. It is difficult to compare costs. On paper, boatshare schemes offer the cheapest weekly sailing but making this a reality may require sailing at inconvenient and unpopular times of year. Flotilla sailing for a family of four may appear much more expensive than bareboat but the cost per person usually includes flights and when these are added to bareboat costs the figures become closer.

Finally, prices may be quoted in currencies other than sterling and currency fluctuations can see prices swing up and down without warning. The figures in the table below give comparative costs for different types of charter.

The prices are those for high season which coincides with the school holidays. As always, term-time holidays are cheaper. On flotilla holidays there may be a discount of around 10 per cent for anyone under 16. Some companies offer discounts for repeat bookings and there may also be a discount if you book within a week of the start of your cruise.

Some companies offer a midweek charter option which may be attractive if you are planning a one-week cruise. Instead of Friday to Friday as in a weekly charter, a midweek charter is usually Sunday evening to Friday evening. It adds up to five days’ sailing instead of seven but if you live several hours’ travel from where the boat is lying and cannot leave work on Friday in time to take over the boat on Friday, then it may be Saturday afternoon before you are ready to sail.

Normally when winds of force 6 or more are blowing or forecast the charter is postponed or if the charter has begun then you stay in harbour. Prolonged poor weather at the start of a cruise may result in cancellation. Depending on the company there may be a full or partial refund or the offer of alternative dates. When going abroad, check on the weather patterns you can expect. Some companies in the Caribbean have their high season charges during the hurricane season when the risk of losing a cruise to poor weather is high.

Extra costs. Check what is included in the price. Some charter companies include a tank of fuel and a bottle of gas, others do not. A deposit, usually into four figures, against late return, damage or loss is required before you set sail. Some charterers insist you also take out an additional hull damage waiver insurance and the cost of this premium is not returnable. They may require the dinghy and outboard to be insured separately.

Travel costs. Bareboat charters do not normally include travel between home and the boat bur flotilla cruises, which tend to take place in sunny climes, normally include travel between a designated airport and the boat. Travel between home and the airport, accommodation en route and transfer between airport and boat abroad are usually extras.

Buying new

Buying new is attractive. For a little extra cash you have a fault-free boat fitted out to your specification with the promise of several years’ low maintenance. If it holds its value, the extra outlay of buying new may be recouped when you come to sell.

Nowadays “new” nearly always means buying a boat built on a production line and marketed through a network of distributors rather than directly from a yard. Your own specification means mixing and matching from a list of manufacturer’s options on rig, keel, deck, engine and internal layout. Choosing anything but the basic, standard production boat pushes the price up.

The next shock to your wallet is that you are expected to pay for its delivery to the distributor. Then comes a commissioning charge for unpacking the boat, stepping the mast, firing up the engine and applying a coat of antifouling. Most costly of all, new boats, even sail-away versions, lack the basic equipment that allows you to sail away in a safe and sea-manlike manner.

By the time you have paid the extra charges, bought and fitted the absolute minimum of gear and added taxes, the price gap between new and second-hand resembles a financial Grand Canyon and you are unlikely to totally recover the extra outlay that buying new demands when you come to sell. So a new boat is not really a viable option for the budget sailor.

Buying second-hand

Buying a second hand boat is the cheapest way of getting afloat in your own boat, particularly if you are new to sailing. The inevitable bumps, bangs and scrapes of a steep learning curve add only to those the boat already has and are not quite as painful to your bank balance as repairing a new boat.

On the downside, every second-hand boat has a history. You do not know how it has been sailed and maintained; what modifications have been made, or if it has been damaged or even sunk. At the end of each hurricane season in the Caribbean, a lot of boats which have spent time on the bottom of a hurricane hole, suddenly, and in suspiciously good condition, appear on the market.

On the plus side, most second-hand boats come with an inventory of kit that lets you start sailing right away. Even so, it is prudent to earmark at least 10-15 per cent of your budget to replace ageing equipment, Tips on Rigging a Boat and Using Knots in Sailingworn sails and tired rigging. During the next two or three seasons, set aside a percentage of your annual budget for a phased upgrading programme.

It is possible to get afloat in a boat that will take you across oceans for little more than the cost of buying and owning a second-hand car. But where do you direct your cost-cutting efforts so that you make the greatest return for the least effort? Spending pounds to save pennies is not good sense.

Where the money goes?

• 56 % – boat.
• 38 % – mooring.
• 3 % – cruising.
• 2 % – refit.
• 2 % – kit.

Savings on refit, mooring and cruising roll in year after year while those on buying the boat and personal gear are one offs, but if they are amortised over five years then more than 90 per cent of your expenditure is on buying a boat and mooring fees.

Build your own boat

Building your own boat is a good way of owning the biggest boat possible for the least amount of cash. Many sailors have successfully chosen this route and produced professional-quality boats. But before you take this route, do your research very carefully because building your own boat is a major project and not as straightforward as it first appears.

There are no figures available but anecdotal evidence suggests that for every DIY boat started, at least three or four are never finished. Also, cost and build time often rise unexpectedly. A rough rule of thumb is: before starting work, double your estimated costs and multiply the projected build time by four.

The site where you build your dream boat is one of the hidden costs of self-building. Ideally this should be under cover with easy access to power and water and space to securely store materials and equipment. You want a location as near your home as possible so that you can work in the evenings and at weekends without hours of travelling.

If you do not have a yard of your own then you will have to rent suitable space. If this is a corner of a boatyard instead of inside a shed, then cover from the elements will probably be a scaffolding tent and secure storage space will be an old shipping container. One way or another, you will be paying out rather more money than you first expected for several years.

DIY has the advantage of paying-as-you-build which allows you to pause or accelerate the building programme to suit your cash flow. You must factor into your budget that a home-built boat has a lower second-hand value than an equivalent professionally-built boat even if the home-built boat is constructed and fitted out to a higher standard.

DIY kit boats. DIY kit boats are professionally part-built. Options range from buying an empty hull to having the manufacturer fit the bulkheads and join the Deck and Super Structurehull and deck together. Some manufacturers even supply the hulls, decks and bulkheads finished and all the other bits and pieces ready cut and shaped to complete the boat. Kit boats are more expensive than self-build but you get afloat much quicker and it is still cheaper than buying a new finished boat, although probably more expensive than the equivalent second-hand boat.

Refitting a yacht in need of major repair

This option is generally taken by those who have found the classic boat of their dreams which has been allowed to fall into disrepair; they are prepared to lavish almost unlimited time and cash restoring the yacht to pristine condition. The finished product will be worth much more than it cost to buy but not as much as has been paid out to rebuild it.

However, it is possible that you may find a boat which is in poor condition but is essentially sound and can be made seaworthy with some effort and little expenditure. It is much more likely that you will come across a part completed home-built or kit boat whose present owner has run out of cash or enthusiasm, or both, and wishes to cut his losses.

These failed projects are often available for a fraction of the cash you would need to pay our to reach the same stage of construction and frequently come with many of the bits and pieces needed for their completion. Provided the work done so far is to a satisfactory standard, and you have the skills to complete the job, then they represent a cheap way for the budget sailor to get afloat.

Comparing prices

It is fairly straightforward to work out where the cash goes when buying a new or second-hand boat. The figures show that when you buy second-hand you can afford to spend around 30 per cent more of your budget on the boat.

This is because you need to buy less equipment and there are savings on taxes.

Looking at the cost of DIY boats, kit boats and major refitting projects, the picture ts less clear. This is mostly because some expenditure never appears on the books. It would be unusual to include an hourly figure for your own labour in the expenditure, or the cost of travelling between the boat and home, or the extra meals you eat out, or the occasional item you buy on the way to the boat. If they were added in, then the final bill would be frighteningly high. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that by counting only the cash paid out, selfbuild probably just wins the race to be the cheapest way of getting afloat.

It is only just ahead of buying a second-hand boat where you have the advantages of purchasing a known product, avoiding much hard labour and getting afloat several years earlier.

Can your boat earn its keep?

Boats can be made to pay their way but before you take this route there are some important points to consider:

1. Check if the authorities will regard your boat as a commercial craft. If so, discover what additional work is necessary to bring it up to commercial standards and if it needs to be officially certified. It is also possible that you may require the appropriate professional qualifications to act as skipper with paying customers aboard.
2. Inform your insurance company. Most insurance policies contain a clause excluding using your boat as a business. Similarly, your berthing agreement may exclude commercial activities.
3. If opting for bareboat charter, think about how you ensure that your customers are competent. This is not just to make sure they do not damage your boat. You have a legal duty of care to check that their nautical ambitions are in step with their abilities.
4. Do you have the time to manage the administration that a working boat brings, such as the advertising, booking and the meeting and greeting of clients?

Putting your boat out to charter. If you own a boat then putting it out to charter is one way of reducing costs. Chartering comes in different forms, ranging from bareboat charters to corporate entertainment.

If you choose bareboat charter then there are companies which, for a fee, do all administration, including the handover and handing back of the boat and some even offer to look after berthing and annual maintenance.

Timeshare. Some charter companies offer yachting timeshare holidays. You buy a yacht of a type and specification that they lay down. They will then include the boat in their charter fleet and, in return, you are given an agreed number of days sailing on your own or a similar boat plus a guaranteed income.

Cost sharing. Asking your crew to contribute towards their time aboard probably escapes being classed as a commercial activity either by the authorities or your insurance company and it does, at least, reduce your cruising costs.

Author

Olga Nesvetailova

Freelancer

A creative freelancer with the ability to study source literature and create relevant material. The sea has always attracted me with its unbridledness, mystery, and a love of creativity helped me express my most interesting thoughts and reflections on paper, therefore, now I am doubly interested in studying the world of shipbuilding and writing useful materials for sailors.