The Plan to Get a Boat

/ Ben Starling

 

  
Part 5 of Captain Cat’s Invincible Plan to Get Cruising: 

After confiscating Captain Cat’s crystal decanter-ed Lagavulin 16 Year Old (he’ll never find it in the laundry basket) and interrupting his 22 hour nap (“Zazen meditation”? I don’t think so… ), we sat down and hammered out our plan.


Well, I sat down. CC draped himself over my paper, complained endlessly about the quality of tuna for sushi these days and bapped my pen about. Typical.


Here is what we came up with: 




The Plan to Get a Boat

  1. Research price points by age of boat for the top 3 yacht designs we have narrowed it down to
  2. Research and price in costs of:
    • Refitting (for now, assumed at +50-100% of cost of boat depending on age of boat) 
    • Marina and hauling fees by length – survey
    • Sales tax on boat purchase 
    • Registration costs? 
    • Insurance costs
    • Other costs/s? 
    • Expected resale values after 5, 10, 15 years use

  1. Compare all these same costs in a country by country survey – where can this most cheaply be done? 


         Also consider vs.
    • cost/availability of ongoing offshore training 
    • purchase process in region? Is local infrastructure helpful/sane to facilitate/enforce a major purchase like this?

  1. Identify short list of potential boats to buy and their real total cost (see 2 above)

  1. Research cost/feasibility of a boat loan
  2. Compare cost of boat vs. age vs. safety vs. budget

  1. Decision node:            
    • Go ahead and start purchase process (great advice on ‘How to buy a used sailboat‘ at ‘Messing About in Sailboats’ blog)      OR
    • shared purchase – share cost and time share with another owner      OR
    • Find right boat to crew on as interim solution – training readiness may get ahead of pulling trigger on purchase solution 




What other critical points should be considered? There’s always more… but we’ll get it done.






Guest post by


— The Can Opener



N.B. Part 6 of Captain Cat’s Invincible Plan to Get Cruising is: The Plan to Refit the Boat.



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