cruising costs, maintenance and price of the boat (sailboats versus motorboats)

Will, I agree, even if Dave is not going to mount the 2x30hp of the Sailcat, but 2x65hp. I don't know the cost difference, but that it is not the point.

If you build your own boat you can do all sorts of things. In a sailboat you can have a salvaged rig, and in both cases (sailboats and motorboats) you can feel that you only need an almost "naked" interior and so on.

Boats that are far from being standard quality finished can be interesting but, every case is a case, so I don't think it makes much sense comparing these very particular type of boats.

 

Hi, most of the boaties I've done work for in the past are dollar driven and some of us boatbuilders actually take too much pride in our work to cheapen ourselves by producing a product that we just would not be happy with.Unfortunately that means that a lot of the good ones only do custom builds and in between build there own boats and go cruising,I have 3 mates doing just that, one has actually got a job using his boat in Vanuatu as fishing charter. There is a resources boom on in Australia at moment and it"s damn near impossible to get tradies in building industry to do work. Just because they charge like wounded bulls does not mean they do good work, It just means there is a shortage and they charge what they like.

There are only three other boatbuilders that I know of that work to my standard and their building their own boats as mentioned above.We are getting out of the game because you don't need to be a boatbuilder anymore,you just need to be able to use a chopper gun and then hide the mess behind a facade of shiny timber and fabric. I did my apprenticship at a firm building 100ft plus gin palaces back in the 80's as did the other 3 and the skills we aquired then don't seem to be as needed these days. The boats we've built all use the KISS principal ,less is more and waterline length is everything. We'd rather have a 50 footer with not much in it that performs than a 30 footer with all the bells and whistles that behaves like a pig,but gee it looks good on that marina berth with the thousands of other boats that never go out 'cause their owners have to work their guts out to buy even more toys to jam in their poor overloaded boats.

Give me another coupla years and I'll be back out there doing it again, not needing much to keep the boat running, avoiding the caravan parks like the plague and living the good life, on the boat I've built for me not the masses.

P:S vega, I sent you an email on this site re posting pics' I hope you can help me out

P:S looked at the recycled rig option and it still would have paid for 20,000 litres of diesel,not to mention the extra structure to take the loads
Dave

 

Gee I have got some pics of the cat i'm doing on my photo album for anyone who's interested, still can't figure out how to get 'em here though. Think i'll stick to building boats and leave the 'puters to the experts.

Just in case any one was curious, the boat I'm building was built as a sailing version a couple of years ago out of end grain balsa epoxy composite and was 28 ft wide not the 24 ft that I,m doing. I,t also sported a huge composite wing mast ,30hp volvo diesels and an extensive suite of electronics.The designer and I took great interest in how much it cost the owner in material and it was a touch under the $100,000 mark.

Had a look back through records today and the motors and winches were second hand and the new owner replaced, and the deck gear looks a bit light on. I know the ply for the bulkheads was not marine and was not even the best of exterior,but the boat has cruised Asia extensively and has,'nt broken yet.
Dave

 

Just got my last pack of gaboon marine ply, the last lot of highbuild and topcoat,the last 200l of epoxy and 30lm of 440db glass,and all the hydraulic steering gear.

All we have left is a BD80 compressor and plates for the refrigeration, battery bank,solar panels and wiring and some plumbing and a few pumps.and a Auto pilot.

All the other big ticket items have been purchased.

Cost to date $67,500 Australian dollars, so we shoold be able to finish her underbudget. Initialy we budgetted $120k, so thats $52,500 to go. Now iv'e just got to get the same finish I got last time.

Can't see me blowin' that.

Dave

 

What's the displacement of her Dave?

 

Interesting but weird

I've read most but not all of this thread, and find it absolutely fascinating.

But it's fascinating purely from an academic perspective. An almost alien perspective.

The fact is, 99.99% of all boaters decide whether they want a motorboat or sailboat first, and only then start setting parameters for safety, budget, size, use, and the like. The idea that somebody would decide whether to purchase a motor cruiser or sail cruiser based on budget or cost is more than a little foreign. The difference in "style" between motor cruising and sailing is so fundamental as to overwhelm any serious consideration of economics--at least that's the way it works for most of us I'm sure.

Vega, you may well be that .01 percentile, which is nothing to be ashamed of, but you need to be aware most people emote on this issue rather than think about it. The question of motor versus sail does not intrinsically lend itself to a calculator.

The percentage of boaters who harbor dreams of cruising near or far is high, amazingly high in fact. Yet they usually never take the plunge. Had they never purchased the boat in the first place, and instead invested a fraction of that amount in some airline tickets and hotel reservations, they propably would have hit closer to the mark.

But as a species, rationality has never been our strong point. I'm mean, after all, we are a land species but you would never know it by the length of this thread.

All of which says something about the romance of the sea, which by definition has nothing to do with logic, reason, and common sense. Motor versus sail is somehow wrapped up in all this irrationality.

* * *

I had always assumed that motor cruising would be cheaper, except in the most extreme long-distance example. The motor cruiser's advantage presumably would flow from the lack of duplicated propulsion systems. Vega's findings are illuminating.

The inherent margins of safety are different between motor cruisers and sailboats because sailboats tend to have deeper and heavier keels. So, perhaps you can build a "safe" sailboat cheaper than you can a "safe" motor cruisers. At least that's my impression.

Also, the failure of an alternate propulsion system for the motor cruiser increases engine costs considerably as it must be sized for the worst conditions expected, which is expensive.

But even apart from the keel and the motor, a sailboat can have tremendous loads on it never experienced by a motor boat, namely loads from the rig. So, you can build a "cheap" sailboat essentially designed for protected waters, or you can spend the money to build an offshore boat. I'm not sure there is an analogue to this dichotomy in the motor cruiser world. They never have to choose how much stress the rig is going to impose on the hull. So the sailboat offers a much wider spectrum of build quality, which in turn presents the question: At point are you comparing apples to oranges when comparing sailboats to motor cruisers. I think that the Beneteau-to-42'-motorcruiser comparison may well be an apple to orange comparison.

In any case, I think the Beneteau-to-42'-motorcruiser comparison is a false comparison for another reason. Again, it's too analytical. For a lot of reasons, the guy who can afford a 42' motor cruiser is simply not going to consider a Beneteau sailboat, even if we could beat him about the head with a stick to make him think of sailboats in the first place. That guy is going to consider something in a sailboat with a build quality equal to the 42 motor cruiser he is eyeing, which right away takes Beneteau off the table--and starts putting the upfront costs on similar footing. I think the better analysis will use purchase costs of similar size and similar build quality because 99% of the time that's how it's done.

So, I think care must be used when extrapoliting the results of this thread elsewhere.

 

Hi Willallison'
She should be around 4500/4700kg dry,and 8500 wet. The sailing version [pictured] came in a bit lighter than this at launch and was 4 ft wider than mine. My motors are heavier so we changed the hull shape a bit down aft, and we don't carry the rig,so the numbers should be similar. This modified sailing hull shape will be fine as we don't and can't travel any faster than about 14 knots on a good day, so a 10 kn cruise will be good.

Dave

 

Hiracer, welcome to this thread.

This is a long thread and people who have not read it from the beginning probably will not read all of it, so let’s use your post to clear things.

This thread is not about sailboats or motorboats, but about cruisers; I mean the few that actually cruise and live in the boat for some extensive periods. And about costs of doing that.

I guess that when you talk about differences in style, you are not really thinking in motorboat cruisers (they are rare) but in motorboaters. I believe that for a cruiser, cruising is more important than the type of boat he chooses to do it. There are several known examples of cruisers that have had sailboats and motorboats, and never stopped cruising.

In my experience as a cruiser I will always prefer having as neighbor another cruiser, even if he is a motorcruiser, than a charter boat. At least I don’t have to dive before nightfall to look at his anchor (for several occasions I had to knock on the neighbor’s boat to say that his anchor was on her back and that his boat was slowly moving…in my direction).

In what regards costs, I have opted to consider only new boats. Everything else is too subjective. Take for example Catmando that is a boatbuilder and is building for himself a beautiful and big motorcat and saying that the boat is costing him about 50 000 US dollars. If he could sell that boat for 150 000 US dollars, having a huge profit (after all the boat cost him only 50 000), he would have so many orders that he would have to open a factory and get rich in no time.

About cost we have seen that, unless you really cruise extensively (that means several months in a year) the initial price of the boat is so high that all other cost factors are little more than meaningless.

We have also seen that if you have US $200 000 you can buy a cruising sailboat (Oceanis 400), but the money is not enough to buy a cruising motorboat, I mean boats with the same amount of interior space.

So, about that calculator thing…if you have only $ 200 000 and really want to cruise, forget the motorboat (even if you prefer it to a sailboat). Of course you can buy a used boat, but the difference in price will remain the same, the cruiser motorboats will cost about the double of a similar sailboat (same age, same interior space).

About this, there is no doubt, in what concerns the market.

If you want to cross oceans and are not rich, have a sailboat or a motorsailor. Ocean going motorboats are very, very expensive.

Of course, except that the opposite is also true, I mean the guy that is going to buy the Oceanis 40, would not have the money to buy the 36/40ft motorboat, even if he wanted to.

If he could afford it, he would not buy the Oceanis, but a better boat.

By the way I don’t know where you have got that idea about the 42 motorboat. The conclusion was that depending on the type of motorboat, the interior of the Oceanis would be comparable to a boat between 36ft (trawler) and 40ft (Express cruiser).

What I am doing now is what you are saying that is logical.

I am looking at boats that cost around 400 000 dollars, taxes included, and see what I can have regarding motorboats and sailboats. With this money I can have prime quality sailboats and some good motorboats.

I have already looked to what the American market has to offer (the ones I like) and when I have time, I will take a look at the European Market and finally I will look to the sailboats, all in a personal perspective.

As I have said I welcome other personal perspectives, but I haven’t had any luck with that.

After all, what I am doing is to post the kind of search that I have done some 10 years ago, when I was dreaming of having a new cruising boat ($150 000) and I have searched for what I could have for a motorboat or sailboat.

For the next boat, some years from now, I will expect to have $400 000, so, I will look again at the options. After all, my wife prefers a motorboat, while I tend more to a sailboat, but both agree that each of them has some clear advantages and disadvantages.

For both of us, on the long run, the cruising ability and the living space (quality of life) are the most important.

 

Dave,

That's a very nice boat

 

I would concur with at least some of Hiracer's comments.
I for instance would be unlikely to consider a sailboat, regardless of where I was going to cruise. I've been brought up with powerboats all my life - I like 'em And whilst I agree that there are many who (particularly as they grow older) consider the switch from sail to power, I'm not so sure there are that many who go the other way....

It's also perhpas timely to point out that this thread was started as a result of a comment I made elsewhere - that it is not necessarily less expensive to buy, own and operate a sailboat than a powerboat. This has been demonstrated on a number of different occaisions throughout the thread. It will always be difficult to sensibly compare powerboats to sailboats as they tend to be so inherintly different. And of course, as Vega has chosen to narrow the search (quite within his rights, as he started it afterall) to boats capable of liveaboard / ocean crossing, it is always going to be easier to find example sailboats than power as there are so many more of them.
Its been an interesting exercise - but of course there are so many other things to consider than simply the cost. If that's all you're interested in, it's cheaper to travel by plane!

 

Cruiser

Vega,
After following this thread from the very beginning, I noticed you had some up and wrap up your oppinion and make clear your views about what your need is, I'm very pleased that I had followed this thread flow, it is really contributing for my own purpose.After physically looked at the huge space that needed for ocean crossing power boat diesel tank, something akin to having a 30 tonne road trailer tank on board..I choose to back off from that idea..maybe we will utilised that intended space for a jacuzzi and health centre instead. That will improve the quality of life on board..!Seen one on board 'Merdeka' on the internet yesterday.

 

Vega:

It will be your cruiser, and therefore it's your thread.

My main observation is that your approach is very different from that of most people, which of course is your perogative. Yours is more interesting and educational, for sure. Very logical, in a project that is usually overladden with romance and fantasy.

I will make one small quible about the guy who can't afford a motor cruiser but can afford a new 42' Beneteau. If that's the case, then he might be able to afford a used motor cruiser. So he might have more options than what you have given yourself.

* * *

Here's a thought. Steve Dashew, retired boat builder and armchair designer, now has built a motor cruiser (I'm going to guess that it's in the 75' range). Long and narrow, that is his philosophy if you are familiar with him. He has a lifetime of cruising in his sailboats, which are likewise long, narrow and similarly sized. So it's an apple-to-apple comparion. If I were you, I would track him down, and put the cost comparison question to him to get a real world answer. He has an opinion on everthing (he has several books out), and--while I don't know for sure--I would be willing to bet that he would be willing to share his experience with you. Heaven knows, he has lots of experience. His design style may or may not be to your liking, but he has valuable experience on precisely the question you raise in this thread.

* * *

BTY, I understand and agree completely about the distinction between cruisers and boats. My first boat was a sailboat. I recently acquired a cruiser, for which I again thank you and others here for your help.

 

See post #67 in this thread.

 

OK. Thank you. But if I understand Mr. Dashew's comment correctly, he is opining on operating costs only, and Vega is looking beyond operating costs and is including acquisition costs.

I don't know. What is the difference in acquisition cost between Dashew's motor cruiser versus his Beowolf sail cruisers, if any?

This is an end of the market about which I know precious little.

 

After some more thought, I think this comparison is meaningless until one defines the amount of cruising and location(s).

Lots of miles means lots of diesel fuel and big expenses. Lots of tropics means lots of sails wearing out; less so in temperate climates. Average wind speed probably affects sail life too.

Lots of time on the anchor may mean cheap living. Lots of time in civilized areas berthed at a marina can be costly for long boats (read sailboats which must be longer to equal motor cruiser volume).

Lots of tidal currents (my neck of the woods) can favor the sailboat: less diesel burning.

Remote locations can rack up costs considerably for a motor cruiser, as flying in motor parts for repairs can be very expense and conversely labor can be outrageous in places; a sailboat can wait and still get to someplace where parts and labor are cheaper--or maybe not depending on tidal currents.

Etc.

Too many variables. Depending on the type of cruising and location, either platform can come out on top, unless acquisition costs trump everthing--which I don't know much about because being a hopeless romantic I never entertained the thought of a motor cruiser.

I've always assumed that, given a similar build quality, motor boats are slightly more expensive when compared on a volume-to-volume basis. It's only when you start looking at the Beneteaus of the world that acquisition costs diverage a lot. But then I question whether you have gone outside the call of the question by considering a sailboat instead of a cruiser.