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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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".

Pretty sound thinking.

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

It beats sitting around looking at the Wall St Journal.

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".

Got to go .. time to turn on Ebay. I'm looking to buy a few things for the
boat!

================================================== ======



"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in message
...
The average idiot buys a boat for say 100K and finances it for ten 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.

After ten years the idiot has spent 250K paying back the loan, 20K fitting
out, 50K slip fee, 10K insurance, 10K haulout, 5K fuel, oil, filters, etc.

345K invested in a 100K boat that perhaps can be sold in ten years for
75K. Net loss of 270K. You pay 27 thousand dollars a year to use your boat
a dozen or so weekends a year. Stupid, just plain stupid!

Think about it.

Wilbur Hubbard