"NE Sailboat" wrote in message
news:a4hMh.13718$dG.4000@trndny08...
Where are you getting these figures? $100 thousand dollars for a boat
that needs $20 thousand in fitting out expenses?
I don't know where you sail but where I sail your figures are nuts!


I'm talking about a new boat. Not a used boat. New boats come pretty
bare. By the time you get all the things you need you can easily spend
twenty grand. You need anchors, chain, rode, extra sails, epirb, radios,
GPSs, depth/wind instuments, radar, refrigerator, extra batteries, solar
panels, wind generators, petroleum generator, air conditioner,
autopilot, bimini, dodger, and on and on and on. Price some of that
stuff and you'll probably agree 20K is rather conservative.


Most of the folks near me own their boats. They have owned their
boats for years, in some cases generations.

But, many financed them and paid more than twice what their boats are
worth because of interest on long-term loans.


They hang on a mooring which they also "own". Pay $65 per year in
mooring fee to the town.

More boats pay for slips. Moorings are much smarter.

They all brag that the first fill up of the season is the last fill up
of the season as they have little diesels .

Good to hear but that isn't the typical sailboater of today who motors
most of the time and unrolls a head sail on perfect days to try to fool
himself and others that he's a sailor.

Everybody hauls out, this is New England. Runs around $1,000 for
haul, store, launch. But, they all work on their boats, have a great
time doing that, meet all kinds of interesting folks, the family gets
to do something worthwhile together, etc.

Money, money, money. You don't store for free. Dry storage is almost
expensive as a slip many places.


After 10 years, 20 years or 30 years .............. they get to sit
around on a beautiful evening ,, light breeze, the smell of the ocean,
rigging singing in the wind, and they talk about friends, family, old
times, places they have sailed to, the time they almost sunk, the
anchorage with the seal, or the great little cafe with the pancakes,
and then they talk about the sailors who are gone ... the mom's and
dad's and brothers and sisters, uncles, the smartest person who ever
lived; my aunt.

Yah yah yah. All that maudlin family smooze! I want none of it. When you
get old and are pre-occupied with the "good old days" and discuss all
your aches and pains ad nausea then you might as well get a room at the
old folks home where you can hear it 24/7.


How much is that worth? $100,000? $200,000? A million?

You can have your cake and eat it too. That's the point. Don't waste
your money on financing, marinas, insurance, and all that crap where you
let others reach right into your pocket and rob you poor.

I pitty anyone who spends his time counting his money rather than
counting his blessings.

I can count my blessings better than you because I can afford a more
expensive caluclator.


A few years back I was bicycle touring way up in norther Vermont. I
stopped in a little coffee place, sat at the table, had one of the
best pieces of pie on earth. An old farmer came in, sat down next to
me. We got to talking about this and that.

I said to him maybe I shouldn't have spent so much on my bicycle.

He looked at me and said "money is like blood, doesn't do anyone any
good unless it is circulating".

Circulating is different than bleeding it out on the ground which is
exactly what you do to it when you finance a boat long term and when you
pay to keep it in a marina, etc.


Pretty sound thinking.

Sound like it makes sense but it's incomplete.

I am not rich, and yes, I probably do spend more on my boat than I
should. So what.

Knock yourself out but don't go around telling everybody how great an
investment your boat is because it's a crappy investment. Justify it
simply the way you did above. Come right and say it's a lousy investment
in monetary terms but the social benefits help ease the pain.

It beats sitting around looking at the Wall St Journal.

Not if what you see in the Journal tells you you just made ten grand in
the last week. . .

And, I don't think I ever met a man yet that said to me "remember the
september ... issue of the Wall St Journal ... that was a great time
wasn't it ... sure wish old .... was here so we could read it again".

Why would anybody do that? It's better to enjoy the wealth and dwell on
how it's growth progressed.

Got to go. Time to smoke a fine cigar and make love with one of my many
female companions who love the life wealth can give them...

Wilbur Hubbard