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Old 10-22-2019, 12:45 AM
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Well since you guys asked, and my wife doesn’t read this forum.... the answer to the money question is: A lot. Seriously though I’m not bashful about ”opening the books,” especially since I’m always hoping to help others learn from my mistakes. A friend of mine once made the recommendation, “if it’s a hobby, don’t save receipts.” Unfortunately I didn’t take his advice and I have a spreadsheet documenting everything I’ve spent over $5. Every stainless bolt, every bottle of simple green, every waxing pad, everything.

The seller was asking $6500 for the boat but I paid $5000 after negotiations. The tow to the boatyard was covered by the towing insurance and the aforementioned exercise in foolishness saved the cost of the tow back. We ended up spending just under $4000 during the haul out including haul & splash, yard expenses, equipment rental, and materials. I spent $1000 to buy a spare A-4 that ended up being scrap (story to follow) and I’ve probably got close to $2000 more in rebuild expenses at this point for my engine. But those are just the “big expenses.” All the $100 trips to West Marine have added up to quite a bit.

I was going to make this point in a future post, but my philosophy on old houses, cars, boats, and airplanes remains unchanged: If you plan to pay someone else to do the work, you can’t afford it....unless you’re wealthy. To Neil’s point, would I have been better off buying something already in seaworthy condition? Absolutely. In fact I recently found a 1986 C-30 for co-worker that he ended up paying $15k for and is a much better boat, for probably $4k less than I have into mine after 5 years of on-again-off-again work. When it comes to the A-4 specifically, if I had to do it over again, I’d buy the $3500 “short block option” from Moyer no question. Even though I’m not under a deadline to get the engine running, I’ve spent much, much more time working on the engine than I wanted to. Multiple trips to the machine shop etc. (I have two kids now after all).

Ultimately, the boat is serving its purpose well. It’s a private, clean, quiet-ish, always-available place for me to sleep 4-6 nights/month when I’m in SF for work that I don’t spend on hotel expense. (“Cheap” hotels in San Francisco can frequently run $200+/ night when they’re not sold out for some tech conference in town) We allocate $400/month into a dedicated bank account for the boat to cover slip fee ($275ish), with the remainder going to insurance, quarterly bottom cleaning, and repair expenses. The way we see it, we’re money ahead. If I’m being totally honest, in hindsight taking out a loan for a larger 2-cabin Catalina 34 might’ve been a better fit for us in the long run but five years ago taking out a $40,000 loan for a boat was unfathomable. It would still be very hard to justify given this boat is paid for. Sometimes it’s hard to look at the total dollar amount we’ve spent on the boat without a tinge of remorse but surprisingly, my wife has the more sanguine outlook on the issue. She’s quick to point out “for a mountain kid from Colorado who’d never been on a boat bigger than a canoe, you’ve learned a lot about boats!” The difference between the cost of a turn-key boat and what we’ve spent on our fixer-upper has been deposited in the “the bank account of experience,” and that account balance is growing by the week
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Jonathan
1979 Catalina 30 #1497
An old Airline Pilot proverb: "If we don't help each other nobody else will."

Last edited by Launchpad McQ; 10-22-2019 at 01:12 AM.
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