from The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat
Speaking of investments, in general, boats are not good ones. Not only do boats depreciate in value, but the difference in value between a boat that is 19 years old and 20 years old may be significant, because many financing companies will not lend money for a boat that is 20 or more years old. You may find that you own a boat you cannot one day sell, which makes your boat virtually worthless.
Even adding electronics and fancy gear to your boat won’t help much in maintaining value. Once installed, the electronics will immediately depreciate. This isn’t like a house (on real land) in which a $15,000 kitchen renovation might bring about $35,000 in increased market value. On a boat, a $2,000 radar system might bring an increased market value to the boat of $500-$1,000. That’s an immediate net loss of 50-75 percent. Then, after just a couple of years, the electronics, valuable if separated from the boat, will bring no market value increase at all to the boat.
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A better deal will always come along, even if that deal does not exist today. When you think that a great deal is passing you by, don’t be nervous, because there is another one coming. … So be patient, my liveaboard brothers and sisters. Relax and enjoy the ride. Don’t panic. A better boat is right around the corner. If you remember that, and learn to believe it, this process will be less stressful and more fun; you will be a much better negotiator knowing that you can walk away and still have terrific options. And you will be more emotionally willing to take the time necessary to choose for yourself the best possible boat.
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We already talked about how accessories are not worth their original prices once installed. Good accessories do not make for a good boat. A good boat is a good boat whether or not it has a good radar system. Unfortunately, a bad boat does not become anything other than a bad boat just because it has a $2,000 chartplotter.
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Power vs. Sail. Most of the time, your preference is in your heart. Sailors want sailboats. Powerboaters or fishermen want powerboats. The decision is often part of the personality.
Sailboats are slow and quiet, with unlimited range under sail, provided there is wind. They require manual labor to operate. A sailboat that is the same weight as a powerboat will typically have a lower center of gravity because of the keel and ballast; the counterbalancing between the keel and the mast will often give the sailboat greater stability under difficult conditions, both at dock and at sea, than a powerboat of similar displacement. While the rigging and sails can be expensive to maintain, a sailboat in good overall condition has much less operating expense than a powerboat.
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So the question is: Who in his right mind would want to buy a wooden boat?
The advantage to wooden boats is that they are cheap. An old wooden boat can be purchased for far less than a comparably sized fiberglass boat. Consequently, you get more space for the money. Wooden boats also tend to look and smell nice, and even an inoperable boat might be an excellent choice for someone who does not want to leave the dock or perform much maintenance.
If you don’t plan on operating the boat, but have enough cash to buy the boat outright and want to avoid insurance payments, an old wooden boat might provide you with the perfect floating house for a fraction of the money.
As another word of caution, many marinas require that their tenants carry insurance, which might be difficult to acquire for a wooden boat.
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If logic dictated, very few new boats would be produced. But lots of new boats are produced — lots and lots, despite the fact that there must be a million used boats for sale at any one time.
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Almost universally, liveaboards seem to agree that no one should subject himself to living in a boat smaller than 30 feet (this may be the only thing that liveaboards can agree on). … When you think about how large a boat you should acquire, it is best to at least heed the sentiments of my friend and trusted boat technician Chris Birch, who advises liveaboards to acquire the smallest boat they possibly can fit in, and take the money saved, which is significant, and invest in a landside facility for storage.
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There is an upside that I truly enjoyed: it is impossible to buy anything else. Spending sprees are no more. There is no room for furniture or wall space for artwork. And since everything on board must be properly secured/stowed before cruising, there is an incentive to limit unsecured possessions. My relatives and friends were all told that gifts should be limited to beer (in cans) and wine, trips to restaurants, and other things that do not take up any space. For everything that is added, something must be removed.
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Yet another person at a well-known publication told me that the reluctance to discuss costs was tied to an internal policy of trying to avoid discussion of specific topics that could scare people away from boating, and thus, the purchase of the publication.
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Boats make noise. Noises aboard your boat will be magnified and will reverberate throughout your boat; noises aboard other boats and upon land will be heard, depending on how far away and how soundproof your boat is. Noise travels well over the water (they–I don’t know who they are–said that one of the biggest tortures of being a prisoner in Alcatraz Prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay was that one could so clearly hear parties in the city, more than a mile away over the water).
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Care to guess how much insulation a boat has? None. … Lack of insulation means that (in addition to added noise) when cold water surrounds the boat, the interior hull and surfaces will chill. We will talk about this in the “Climate” chapter. When there’s cool or cold air, the boat’s topsides will chill. When it is cold and damp/rainy outside, everything will chill. This is not only uncomfortable, but it also results in condensation.
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Boats are hard work, and while having a team of people participating in the chores sounds like a blessing for most liveaboards, having less than a team effort is sure to add resentment to the already tight space. Throughout this book, we’ve talked about how small a boat can be for just one person; add another and the space diminishes substantially. Add a few more and you create a wonderful system of communal living… in a fraction of the space of a commune.
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Dogs present other challenges. One family in my marina has trained their dog to use the foredeck as his bathroom. I have always found this to be a bit off-putting, but since this family did some extensive cruising, this was the only acceptable location for this activity. The family would clean the waste whenever they noticed it and hose the urine off daily.
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