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Average costs


Tony Bergman

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There is a big difference between average cost, and the cost in any one year. This is because many items are  expensive , Above sides repaint, below waterline recoat, engine replacement. Inverter combi replacement, fuĺl set of six leisure batteries.  Repumbing and new joinery to fit a replacement washing  machine that no longer fits where the deceased used to live. Leaking black water tank. Required  expenditure is not even but decidedly lumpy.

 

 

 

 

Edited by DandV
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The big variable is mooring cost.  In the South away from London, Bath etc you will struggle to find a mooring on the canal for less than £1500pa, in a marina say £2500 min but go into the cities and cost can be huge, for a residential mooring I have heard of over £12k per year.  So where are you thinking of keeping your boat and maybe someone that keeps a boat in that area can give a better idea of mooring costs.

 

added - for canal side moorings for £1500 (and there are few places, and they are not the nicest) you will get a couple of rings to tie up and that’s it.  No water or power or car parking.  Want something more and the cost is going to be a fair bit higher

Edited by Chewbacka
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4 hours ago, Tony Bergman said:

Hello . Can anyone help please . I am trying to find out what the average costing per annum would be to heave say a 60 foot narrow Boat , inclusive of insurance just a ball park figure ?

thank you

Regards

Tony

My 35ft boat £3k a year.

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I'd go along with the £5K - 0.1p for owning the boat but as DandV says, it's all down to what work is needed on the boat. When you buy the boat, there will be essential repairs that could cost thousands and non essential improvement which the wife wants which then become essentials and they cost more thousands. 

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Take your original estimate double it and add 50%.

then add variable costd

If you look in my other recent posts you will see at the begining of the week i had a fuctioning bilge pump and battery charger. Both were branded marine items Even with self fit i have spent 350 on  random replacements.

this week its self service engine 200.

 

next year its warm over engine estimate .???? 1500 ? 3000?6000

depends what we find on opening the box.

 

Fixed costs 4000 year . Non residential mooring bankside private.

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I'm pretty much inline with the above comments.

One year it will be £2500 and another year it will be £8000, then it will be £15,000 when the engine and gear box 'blow-up' These figures are maintenance costs and EXCLUDE MOORING fees.

If you do not have a mooring and CC then your fuel costs will be very high (and getting higher) but you will have no mooring costs.

If you have a 'floating flat' and never leave the marina then you will have zero fuel costs, mooring costs (£2500-£15000 pa) and electricity costs of £XXX

 

You will have peaks & troughs - you will be blacking the bottom of the boat alternate years, you will be painting the 'top-sides' probably on a 5 year cycle, etc etc.

 

Your 1st year expenditure will very much depend on where the seller was in his 'maintenance schedule' when you bought it - it could have just had a new engine fitted, the hull overplated and had a full repaint. In that case your 1st year expenditure will be only £2500 ish (engine services, a bit of fuel and the insurance and licence fees)

 

However the reverse could be true - I once bought a boat that the survey showed as "good condition and a 'good buy'" and had to spend over £20,000 on 'maintenance' in the 1st month of

ownership.

 

ALWAYS KEEP £5000+ IN THE BOAT 'BANK ACCOUNT' FOR THE UNEXPECTED.

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To keep costs under control you need to become v. good at doing everything yourself. Also be realistic about what you need on a boat, the more electrical gadgetry  and complicated systems you stuff into it the more it'll cost. Its quite shocking if you only do a 100 miles or so a year how much it costs per mile.

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1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

BOAT is short for Bring Out Another Thousand. £4999.95 per year is a good ballpark for a typical 60' narowboat.

Someone has short changed you by 5p on one of those thousands Jen.  It might not be much, but every little bit counts when you've a boat to run! ;)

 

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11 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

If you do not have a mooring and CC then your fuel costs will be very high (and getting higher) but you will have no mooring costs.

Hmm... I'm not sure 'having a mooring' vs. 'continuously cruising' is really the issue. I mean, the difference between the two in terms of fuel requirements for travel might be negligible - e.g. it might cost you an extra £100 to travel 200 miles a year CCing rather than leaving the boat on its mooring the whole time; that's a heck of a saving compared with mooring costs of £2000+.

 

More relevant, surely, is the question of how much diesel you use to heat the boat and generate electricity, which is going to depend on availability of shoreline power, solar panels etc.

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1 hour ago, Chewbacka said:

The big variable is mooring cost.  In the South away from London, Bath etc you will struggle to find a mooring on the canal for less than £1500pa, in a marina say £2500 min but go into the cities and cost can be huge, for a residential mooring I have heard of over £12k per year.  So where are you thinking of keeping your boat and maybe someone that keeps a boat in that area can give a better idea of mooring costs.

 

added - for canal side moorings for £1500 (and there are few places, and they are not the nicest) you will get a couple of rings to tie up and that’s it.  No water or power or car parking.  Want something more and the cost is going to be a fair bit higher

I moor 62ft for £120/month (Midlands) with small private garden area/elec hook up/water and a parking space!  BUT just down the road you get less for 3 times the price - you need to shop around 

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2 minutes ago, magictime said:

Hmm... I'm not sure 'having a mooring' vs. 'continuously cruising' is really the issue. I mean, the difference between the two in terms of fuel requirements for travel might be negligible - e.g. it might cost you an extra £100 to travel 200 miles a year CCing rather than leaving the boat on its mooring

You are entirely correct, but I really meant "proper" continuous cruisers (and before anyone asks, I know there is no legal definition of a 'proper' CCer) ie one that is not doing the minimum to be allowed to claim they are CCing.

 

It is not 'really the issue', but some think that CCing is a cheap way of boating, but it is a cost that has to be borne and needs to be budgeted for.

 

Take some very rough figures :

 

500 miles per year (that's only 10 miles per week)

At 2mph average that's 250 hours.

At 1.5 litres per hour that's 375 litres

At £1.20 per litre (full propulsion duty)

That's £450 pa

 

On the 5 days a week it is not moving the boat will need to generate electricity heat water (maybe) so will be running the engine.

Say (conservatively) 2 hours per day

At 265 days per year

At 1 litre per hour

At £0.90 per litre (Full rebated domestic duty rate)

That's £475 pa

 

So a CCer doing just 10 miles per week will be spending just under £1000 per annum on fuel.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

You will have peaks & troughs - you will be blacking the bottom of the boat alternate years, you will be painting the 'top-sides' probably on a 5 year cycle, etc etc.

 

Wow....every 5 years. I am budgetting on every 15 years. Unfortunately this is the year as the boat is now in for top sides painting. £'s, £'s, £'s. I was getting quite used to rust. I like rusty things.

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6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

You are entirely correct, but I really meant "proper" continuous cruisers (and before anyone asks, I know there is no legal definition of a 'proper' CCer) ie one that is not doing the minimum to be allowed to claim they are CCing.

 

It is not 'really the issue', but some think that CCing is a cheap way of boating, but it is a cost that has to be borne and needs to be budgeted for.

 

Take some very rough figures :

 

500 miles per year (that's only 10 miles per week)

At 2mph average that's 250 hours.

At 1.5 litres per hour that's 375 litres

At £1.20 per litre (full propulsion duty)

That's £450 pa

 

On the 5 days a week it is not moving the boat will need to generate electricity heat water (maybe) so will be running the engine.

Say (conservatively) 2 hours per day

At 265 days per year

At 1 litre per hour

At £0.90 per litre (Full rebated domestic duty rate)

That's £475 pa

 

So a CCer doing just 10 miles per week will be spending just under £1000 per annum on fuel.

 

 

Fair enough, but you'd still be spending more than half of that total (by your figures) on a home mooring without shoreline power; and even the cost of travelling is only loosely related to the question of whether you have a home mooring or not. You could have a home mooring and cruise twice the distance you suggest (in a three-month summer cruise, say), or CC and cruise half that distance (while unambiguously complying with CRT's guidlines).

 

14 minutes ago, Nut said:

I have budgeted 10k per year 5k costs and 5k pub

We've budgeted 9k, but that's without a mooring; and thankfully we don't drink, so hopefully we'll be able to feed and clothe ourselves instead!

 

(Roughly: £200 a month for the basic annual costs of licence, insurance, RCR membership, servicing etc.; £50 for  direct debits (phone, broadband etc.); £500 for food, fuel etc. We also have £10k in savings for those 'lumpy' maintenance costs.)

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19 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Wow....every 5 years. I am budgetting on every 15 years. Unfortunately this is the year as the boat is now in for top sides painting. £'s, £'s, £'s. I was getting quite used to rust. I like rusty things.

 

My boat is approaching 30 years old and still in its original coat of paint. Nicely matt finish now - the gloss has pleasingly weathered off. 

 

I've re-done the scumbling a couple of times and recently painted one handrail. "International Matting Agent" mixed in with the paint to get rid of the gloss so it matches the existing. 

 

Need to turn the boat around now to paint the other handrail (rope wear and tear) but I seem to have run out of weather for it. 

 

  • Greenie 1
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13 minutes ago, magictime said:

Fair enough, but you'd still be spending more than half of that total (by your figures) on a home mooring without shoreline power; and even the cost of travelling is only loosely related to the question of whether you have a home mooring or not. You could have a home mooring and cruise twice the distance you suggest (in a three-month summer cruise, say), or CC and cruise half that distance (while unambiguously complying with CRT's guidlines).

Agreed - last year we did over 3000 miles.

 

Until the OP decides to give more information about his planned 'status' and usage it is all going to be speculation

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