The reason we are collectively giving a bit of warning is you are about to jump into a whole new world of both much bigger $$$ and much bigger forces. Not to say it isn’t worth it, but it helps to know what you are getting into. To start with, the loads on a 40 foot boat are exponentially bigger than a 23 foot boat. Accidents can be very expensive and they can be lethal. Maintenance likewise can be financially lethal. I’ll get into the cash aspect here first. Everything scales up by the foot, pound, and square yard. Slips cost more, haulouts cost more, bottom paint costs more, sails cost more, engines cost more, even cushions cost more. There are things you don’t even think of like batteries. It is easy to spend over $1,000 on batteries alone! These are all OLD BOATS now and you always have the potential for repairs that cost a good fraction of what the boat is worth. You also have to add the DIY factor. Most of us this list do a lot of DIY repairs. I could never ever afford to keep my boat floating if I had to pay anyone to maintain her. My wife sometimes questions my sanity when I come home exhausted with a few bloodstains on my shirt, epoxy stuck to my arm, and tell her how much I love sailing ☺ I could not even begin to make something like a spreadsheet. If I saw the hard numbers, it would probably scare me off sailing for good! I’ll give you a rough guess here and this is for a 35 foot boat. Fixed costs: Slip: $2400/yr. I have a good deal, it can be a LOT more! Insurance: Around $600/yr. This is the rock-bottom minimum for the boat to just float in one spot and not move. Electricity: What, you didn’t think you would have an electric bill? You’re in the big leagues now! About $10/month in summer, it has hit $60 in really cold months between the cabin heat and ice-eater. Fuel: Somewhere between 50 and 150 gallons of fuel in a year, depending on where we go and how much wind there is. Repairs/upgrades/etc. This is HUGELY variable. I cannot imagine a year without at least a few hundred bucks in random stuff I don’t even keep track of. Over the years I have done things like: Rewire the boat – I think I was about $3,000 or so in supplies on that one. Batteries – The house battery is about $600 or so for a 4D. The engine start battery is about $150. Engine – I am on my third engine. The first one lasted for 20 years until salt water corroded it to death. We bought a used replacement that was not that good and that one got junked for a really nice rebuilt engine that was a hobby project for a laid off chief engineer waiting for his ship to get out of drydock. My expenses on this were incredibly low by boat standards because I have an Atomic 4 gasoline engine. They are somewhat plentiful used compared to many and I got each engine for under $2000 and *did all the work myself*. A shop installing a rebuilt Atomic 4 would likely bill you around $6,000 or more. I got quotes for diesel engine replacements in the $12K and up range! Note a C&C 40 does not use the A4, swapping that diesel out if it dies would be well over $10K if you pay to have it done. Even totally DIY, used diesels that fit your boat and are not junk are not easy to find and usually not cheap either. Sails – they get worn out. They are not cheap. Used sails to fit a furler are very hard to find, no one wants to get rid of them. I got incredibly lucky when I got the sails from a dismasted 35 in great shape, but you can’t count on that. I was racing a C&C 40 up a windy river under chute with my soon-to-be wife and the 40 could not get past us for a while, they were slower under jib. Then a gust came across the river, our sail turned into mulit-colored nylon confetti, the 40 passed us, and I had to explain that was several thousand dollars’ worth of pretty colors flying all over the place. Bottom paint is not every year for me and I do it myself, even so that usually adds up to a kilobuck more or less with yard fees and supplies. I had to remove the mast once and rebuild the mast step. That too probably got close to a kilobuck if not more and that was me doing 100% of the work, but I can’t haul a boat and remove the mast myself, there are still yard fees. That would have easily been a $5K job or more if I paid the yard. I have fixed the head, replaced the head, replaced seacocks, replaced bilge pumps, replaced water pumps, replaced instruments, replaced keel bolt backing plates, replaced port hole Plexiglas, and 1000 other things I can’t even remember right now. We are starting cushion replacement. I got a big memory foam king mattress and carved it into a v-berth mattress so far. If I just pay the local shop the rest of the interior will be $4K or so. Canvas is not forever, the dodger and bimini are wear items and eventually that will be a few thousand bucks again.
The best quote on boat expenses is from a buddy – “it costs all you have”. You can easily find $100,000 of improvements to a 40 foot boat if you have the cash and if you only have $345.78, the boat will happily take that too! Joe Della Barba Coquina C&C 35 MK I www.dellabarba.com From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Brideau via CnC-List Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 6:30 AM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Cc: Jeffrey Brideau <bride...@gmail.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Stus-List New-guy C&C 40 Shopping questions Hi Ron, Thanks for the words of caution. We are definitely balancing the size situation and appreciate a 40 will be over 5X larger than our 23 and would love the opportunity to sail on one prior to purchasing if that were an option. I'm selling a 40' diesel motorhome that costs us an arm and a leg in repairs and maintenance (~$5000 in just the past few weeks) in exchange for this "money pit" but would be very interested in what your annual cost may have been. I've been building a spreadsheet to estimate annual costs especially now that we will be paying for a slip. Thanks, Jeff yPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
_______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
