* Wilbur Hubbard wrote, On 3/22/2007 5:32 PM:
....

Tirade? Since when is fact tirade? Since when has a valid point backed
up with figures about how people waste their money on boats become
trolling?

As usual, it was backed up by made up numbers. Let's look a bit more
carefully:

The average idiot buys a boat for say 100K

hardly, but let's leave that fro the moment

and finances it for ten years.

Financing a boat only makes sense if you have a job that easily covers
it, most prefer to pay cash. However, if you were to finance a $100K
boat, you would probably need 20% down, so you're financing $80K, with
a current rate of 6.37% (Essex Finance Boat Loan). For 10 years,
that's $903 /month, for a total of $108K. So the cost of the boat,
plus outfitting is $40K down, and $108K spread over 10 years.

He fits it out and keeps it in a slip. The fitting out
costs 20K, the slip costs 5K per year, the insurance
costs 1K a year. Haulout for bottom paint 1K a year.
Fuel 1/2K a year.

These numbers are rather high and would represent "top end"
accommodations. However, there are numerous costs not included so I
won't quibble.

After ten years the idiot has spent 250K paying back
the loan, 20K fitting out,

your sloppy math has you off by roughly a factor of 2 here - total
cost was $148K ...

50K slip fee, 10K insurance, 10K haulout, 5K fuel, oil, filters,

we'll give you th $75K of annual fees

345K invested in a 100K boat that perhaps can be sold
in ten years for 75K. Net loss of 270K.

Nope, it was $40K invested, plus $108K in payments, plus $75K in
expenses, for a total of $223. The sale price of $75 seems low,
but that would mean a "loss" of $148K.

You pay 27 thousand dollars a year to use your boat a dozen or
so weekends a year. Stupid, just plain stupid!

Nope, it was only $14.8K a year, you're off by a factor of 2. Of
course, 2800 was finance charge, by keeping the boat on a mooring you
could save at least $3000 a year. Further, the "average" boater
doesn't buy an expensive new boat. Very few people have a boat worth
more than $50K. So it would be easy to keep the total cost at under
$10K per year. Clearly a lot of money, but everyone knows that boat
ownership is a form of mental illness.

Is this not a discussion group about boats?

I agree its a reasonable topic of discussion, but basing it on bogus
numbers is counterproductive.