Dear Skip:

I have followed your search for the perfect boat intermittently over
the months.
Anyone with such obvious record keeping skills should have also
calculated the following:

Time
1) "literature review" total hours (lost hours sailing).........
2) travel time to view boats (lost hours sailing)…..............

Money
1) transportation costs..........................................
2) professional services costs...................................
3) per diem.............................................. ........
4) marital counseling and divorce................................

So what is the amount that you are going to ADD to the purchase price
of the perfect boat to reveal its Total Purchase Price?

The longer you wait the more it is going to cost.


Chris

Greetings...

"chris" wrote in message
om...
Dear Skip:

I have followed your search for the perfect boat intermittently over
the months.
Anyone with such obvious record keeping skills should have also
calculated the following:

Time
1) "literature review" total hours (lost hours sailing).........
2) travel time to view boats (lost hours sailing)...............

Entirely valid. However, if all I wanted to do was sail, I could go out my
back door. We're talking about selling the houses, giving away everything
that won't fit on the boat, and cutting the lines. A little work now will
pay dividends well into the future.

As to the time, I'd estimate that I've got about equal the research time
compared to the actual time in search/boarding/review. The latter is about
30 days, so the former is about the same. In work-week terms (I traveled
for three weekends, included in that 30 days), that's about 12 weeks, or one
quarter of a year. In real time (availble to sail or sit on the hook, as
may be the case, as is our preference), it (two months continuous)
represents a very small chunk of the next 20 or so years. If I could have
compressed that time into one week, I'd still only be gaining 7 weeks (of
full time life activities), and if it were the wrong choice, I'd have the
next 20 years to regret it. Act in haste, regret in leisure, as the
aphorism goes.


Money
1) transportation costs..........................................
2) professional services costs...................................
3) per diem.............................................. ........
4) marital counseling and divorce................................

This one happens to be pretty reasonable, for a variety of reasons.

1) I drive where I'm going, which was included in the above time numbers.
At $1.50 per gallon (about 5 cents per mile at worst), average (not really,
but I'm trying to be generous in cost accounting), plus mileage costs of 1/2
cent for oil changes and 1/3 cent for tires on my fully depreciated
vehicles, it cost me about (call the total 6 cents) $180 in fuel, plus a
prorata $20 in insurance, on my fully depreciated car(s). $200 so far.

2) I use brokers. They're included in the end cost. If I have to do rehab
to the boat, that will, of course, be included (added into) in the end cost.
It's one of the reasons I demand having a substantial reserve above purchase
price.

3) This last trip of 12 days (11 nights out) I had two hotel nights. My
daughter is in hotel management so she gets me family rates of $39 at places
which feed me for the day. The prior trip of 12 days (11 nights out) I had
only one non-hotel night, for a total of 12 in the last two trips. In the
previous trips, I had 3 hotel nights. The rest of the time I've been with
family or friends. Call it 16 nights at $50, to be generous. $800 so far.

4) My wife is driving this process. She wants it done yesterday, but
concurs that we need to make the right choice. Until we doubled our budget
and moved our size parameters to larger, there was *nothing* on which we
could have been happy. She's very glad I'm the one doing all this work.
Invest now for future returns...

So what is the amount that you are going to ADD to the purchase price
of the perfect boat to reveal its Total Purchase Price?

We're not searching for the perfect boat - it doesn't exist. However, just
to throw a number on the wall, we started trying to do this with a purchase
budget of 60k, with 50% left in reserve for upgrade and ouchies. Call it a
boat buck to round it. I'm up to a grand in expenses so far. A one percent
investment is pretty cheap to get the right choice, wouldn't you say? And,
if, as it looks, it is substantially more than that (perhaps double), the
incremental cost is even less significant.

Perhaps you have more money than time, and can fit on any boat made. I
don't fit either scenario, so I'm forced to be a bit more creative :{))

And on that subject, you forgot a couple of things.

1) Lost wages. I've been unemployed for 16 of the last 20 years (sometimes
someone sticks up their hand and asks for my help - if I'd enjoy it, I do
it, which helps build the cash stash, but it's only happened 4 times in
those years). I could, of course, have been working at any number of
'jobs' - but those would have made such research and boat search impossible.
But, let's just say that I'm working at some job, and get vacation time.
I've used two years of vacation in this time, assuming I can do the research
on my own time when not working and have to use the travel time in vacation
periods, and only get two weeks a year. No change in cost.

2) Opportunity cost on capital. My capital hasn't earned anything for
years. It's cold cash. Fortunately, in recent years, there's been a very
slow bleed in purchasing value, much better than in prior years. However,
empirical evidence suggests that my money bled at a slower rate than boats
in the time when money bled faster than it does now. The economy and the
boat market seem to be picking up. Now appears to be a good time to
acquire, with some potential for boats holding their value in the short
term, perhaps even rising in value slightly (for well depreciated ones such
as we'd be buying). I'd see it as an offsetting gain, but call it a wash,
just to preserve your contention that this is horribly expensive when
compared to our (perhaps) having bought a boat less than a year ago when we
first got to looking at the reality of it.

Oh, and, of course, since my wife is still earning very well, that year
would have cost us a substantial portion of the boat purchase price. We
looked at that reality when we started this process, and at the time I was
also very highly employed. We considered that perhaps we'd make a conscious
decision to continue working, because of the startling amounts of income we
could pile up. As it happened, I was a victim of the dot-bomb explosion, so
my income wasn't relevant. In her case, she makes mortgages, and it looks
rather as if the market is about to tank, there, so soon is a very good time
to go. To have quit a year ago would have resulted in a very much higher
net cost. So far we're quite a bit ahead in the calculations...

The longer you wait the more it is going to cost.

Agreed. But, as one admiral observed about crash programs in the Navy when
trying to build a ship, you can't get nine women pregnant and expect to have
a baby in a month. Some things just take time. And, in this case, the time
I've been researching and searching and sorting and sifting and analyzing
and refining has been well spent in capital generation on Lydia's part. So,
it's been an excellent investment, as the amount earned as incremental to
the cost of earning it has allowed us to change our parameters to where we
are today.

That said, I'll come back some time this week with the current report. I've
not done the analysis yet, but suffice it to say that we're on the home
stretch.

L8R

Skip and Lydia (by proxy - she's continuing to slave at the boatfund)
--
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away
from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover." - Mark Twain

Subject: Total cost of Skip's boat
From: "Skip Gundlach"

Dear Skip:

I have followed your search for the perfect boat intermittently over
the months.

It sounds like a great quest, hope you're enjoying it.

Dennis

"Den73740" wrote in message
...
Subject: Total cost of Skip's boat
From: "Skip Gundlach"

Dear Skip:

I have followed your search for the perfect boat intermittently over
the months.

It sounds like a great quest, hope you're enjoying it.

I have to admit, I was getting weary by this last leg. But I got
re-energized when I got put in front of (well, more correctly, in - I later
got out and in front of it!) a boat which looked like someone was looking
over our shoulder when we were writing our wish list, but accidentally put
it into a larger package than we wanted.

We're on the home stretch, weighing which of the several choices we now have
on which to offer. More to follow, later.

L8R

Skip and Lydia

Dennis

"Den73740" wrote in message
...
Subject: Total cost of Skip's boat
From: "Skip Gundlach"

Dear Skip:

I have followed your search for the perfect boat intermittently over
the months.

It sounds like a great quest, hope you're enjoying it.

I have to admit, I was getting weary by this last leg. But I got
re-energized when I got put in front of (well, more correctly, in - I later
got out and in front of it!) a boat which looked like someone was looking
over our shoulder when we were writing our wish list, but accidentally put
it into a larger package than we wanted.

We're on the home stretch, weighing which of the several choices we now have
on which to offer. More to follow, later.

L8R

Skip and Lydia

Dennis

Subject: Total cost of Skip's boat
From: "Skip Gundlach"

Dear Skip:

I have followed your search for the perfect boat intermittently over
the months.

It sounds like a great quest, hope you're enjoying it.

Dennis

You forgot to deduct slip rent he didn't have to pay. The longer he
waits, the cheaper it gets....(c;



On 17 Dec 2003 09:18:18 -0800, (chris) wrote:

Dear Skip:

I have followed your search for the perfect boat intermittently over
the months.
Anyone with such obvious record keeping skills should have also
calculated the following:

Time
1) "literature review" total hours (lost hours sailing).........
2) travel time to view boats (lost hours sailing)…..............

Money
1) transportation costs..........................................
2) professional services costs...................................
3) per diem.............................................. ........
4) marital counseling and divorce................................

So what is the amount that you are going to ADD to the purchase price
of the perfect boat to reveal its Total Purchase Price?

The longer you wait the more it is going to cost.


Chris

Larry W4CSC

NNNN

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
You forgot to deduct slip rent he didn't have to pay. The longer he
waits, the cheaper it gets....(c;


Nah - I'll give him that one. We hope to not be in slips except for
emergencies. If we get the boat before we're able to go aboard, likely it
will remain on the hard, getting whatever work needs doing done while we're
not having to live in it...

L8R

Skip

--
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away
from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover." - Mark Twain

Boats for sale in a slip at $400/month are a good target for a
discount, especially if the boat isn't a real expensive one. Doesn't
take long for an owner of a $20K boat to think about that $4800/yr
check he's gonna have to write for it....(c;



On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 22:45:33 GMT, "Skip Gundlach"
wrote:

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
You forgot to deduct slip rent he didn't have to pay. The longer he
waits, the cheaper it gets....(c;


Nah - I'll give him that one. We hope to not be in slips except for
emergencies. If we get the boat before we're able to go aboard, likely it
will remain on the hard, getting whatever work needs doing done while we're
not having to live in it...

L8R

Skip

--
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away
from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover." - Mark Twain



Larry W4CSC

NNNN

Boats for sale in a slip at $400/month are a good target for a
discount, especially if the boat isn't a real expensive one. Doesn't
take long for an owner of a $20K boat to think about that $4800/yr
check he's gonna have to write for it....(c;



On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 22:45:33 GMT, "Skip Gundlach"
wrote:

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
You forgot to deduct slip rent he didn't have to pay. The longer he
waits, the cheaper it gets....(c;


Nah - I'll give him that one. We hope to not be in slips except for
emergencies. If we get the boat before we're able to go aboard, likely it
will remain on the hard, getting whatever work needs doing done while we're
not having to live in it...

L8R

Skip

--
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away
from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover." - Mark Twain



Larry W4CSC

NNNN