A former boss told a story once that was super relatable.
It was about change and how it’s not always necessary… He went on about how one business changed their payment policies so that everything was done by some kind of payment card, they wouldn’t accept cash/cheque with their new system.
He was basically bitching about having to pay by card for something he usually pays for by cheque.
The super relatable service that “pulled this on him”? It was a dry dock for his boat.
Yep. Super relatable bossman. I can barely pay my bills on what I’m paid, and you’re being super relatable talking about how you store your boat in the winter. 🖕
Last year, my CEO said if we finish the project on time, he’ll buy a new truck and bring it around the office for everyone to check it out.
This would be his 20th truck he bought.
Jesus, that is even worse than a “let them eat cake” moment. This would be like Marie Antoinette eating cake in front of the starving peasants and then saying “be grateful for the opportunity to watch me eat cake!”
What happened to us? When did our spirits become so broken that the rich figuratively spit in our face and we thank them for it?
Thank you for your moisture.
If you want to check out a new truck that you don’t own, just go to a dealership not looking like a bum and they might even let you drive it.
Don’t even need to not look like a bum, I’ve gone on a few test drives looking like a bum.
Yeah, I had a hobby in high school of test driving whatever sports cars they had at the various dealerships in town. I didn’t look like a bum but I was obviously a teenager. Worst case was the Mazda dealership that told me to come back another day before I could test drive a miata.
Most of them just let my friend and I take it out on our own, though the most expensive ones I drove were the WRX and Maxima (and the sales guy joined for both of those).
Actually, the worst was the Toyota matrix, where they didn’t let me drive it at all but ride while the sales guy was driving. But that was after they let us take a celica out, possibly even because of that car being used for joy riding, since I saw others taking it out, too.
As long as you don’t smell like a bum.
Some people in charge of the world would fail the Sally-Anne test.
So relatable!
The elites don’t want you to know this but the boats at the marina are free you can take them home I have 458 boats.
Yup, if you can get it running, it’s yours.
No one, take them, they’re free.
Some people would be so relieved.
Boat = a hole in the water that you throw money into.
maybe that should be an addendum or footnote to the “best days of a boat owner’s life”
Boat = Bust Out Another Thousand
Sorry to call you at this hour sir, but the boat your paying to moor here, it has been stolen.
"Of my fuck, thank you! Thank the Gods!!‘’
A city of 250,000 people could have 250 boats (that’s enough for a marina or two) and it would be 0.01% of the population (the one percent of the one percent). That seems to not really be that crazy.
And if you consider that a small percentage of the boat population may have 2 or even 3 boats, than it gets even less weird.
I also think that if you live near water, people are generally at least a little more likely to get a boat instead of a nice car or bigger house or other luxury item.
Edit: I was off by an order of magnitude so it would be 0.1% not 0.01, however, I think the broader point is still valid.
But 0.01% of 250,000 is 25.
(Sorry 🙁)
Yea that’s my mistake, but even scaled up an order of magnitude I think it still works. That’s still 1 in 10 one percenters.
You’re also forgetting all the people who live on a boat instead of buying or renting property. I live in a coastal state, and some marinas work like trailer parks, where you pay the moorage fee and they supply water/sewer/electric to your boat.
What about fibre link?
I don’t know of any nearby marinas that offer internet connection. You’re pretty much stuck with satellite if you want reliable internet on a boat.
Crap, I was planning on confusing the geolocation algorithms by moving my server around.
Guess I’ll have to figure something else out.
Just had a look at used sailing boats in Norway and there are a fair number for under $10 000. Basically cheaper than a used car or camper. I’d have one if I had somewhere to keep it.
That’s the real kicker. a place to moor your boat is often more expensive and even then maintenance costs will be a lot.
Cheap to buy maybe, but expensive to moor and maintain. A friend who bought a small second-hand yacht said his new hobby was tearing up £20 notes in a cold shower.
They say the two happiest days in a boat owners life are the day they buy their boat and the day they sell their boat.
IIRC the rule of thumb for boat costs, is that annual upkeep costs for a boat are roughly the purchase price of the boat.
That’s wildly inaccurate, even as a rule of thumb. Upkeep (excluding storage, which varies widely by location) shouldn’t be over 10% of the purchase price, unless the boat was really cheap or the boatyard doing the maintenance is crooked.
Talking US rates here, I have no experience overseas.
Fair I have zero experience owning a boat. However, if I bought a boat for $10K and my annual upkeep was only $1K I’d certainly be thrilled.
Holy shit used cars must be expensive in Norway. I live in Estonia and my first used car was 550 euros 10 years ago. Nowadays the same model (early 90s Audi) could probably be had for 900-1100.
The thing to consider is that while my crappy old Audi received less than 200 euros in maintenance and repairs in the first year, yachts are said to cost you roughly 10% of the initial purchase price per year in maintenance and mooring costs and I doubt those under 10k yachts were 10k new.
You can get a car that runs for around €3000 in Bergen or Oslo, but used cars get progressively more expensive the further north you go. But getting work done on a car is the expensive thing. I payed around €5000 for my car 3 years ago and last year I spent €3000 getting it passed the control. The problem is that Norway has a harsh coastal climate (salt spray, constantly going above and below freezing etc), and shit roads outside of Oslo. I’ve broken 2 springs, cracked my oil sump, and punctured a tyre just because of shitty roads. And because Norway is outside the EU we pay toll on everything we order from outside Norway, which is most things (including car parts) because Norway doesn’t actually produce anything).
I mean most of that is the same here in Estonia. Have to work on your own cars if you’re buying used. We salt the roads and getting work done is expensive. Though I did not know you guys had tolls for EU goods, I thought being in the EEA took care of that.
Nah we just have to follow EU regulations without any of the benefits or ability to influence policy.
Interesting, toll.no calculator says there’s no toll on car parts, period. Wikipedia says there’s no toll (customs fees) on EU goods other than food and beverages (which EU subsidises so they would be too cheap for Norwegian market otherwise)
Do you perhaps mean the 25% VAT? Most countries have that and it’s not specific to imports. If I go to a grocery store and buy milk, that includes 22% VAT in the price. It’s just that when you order from abroad, you may have to declare values and pay VAT and if the store you ordered from did a fuckup and paid VAT to their own country instead of declaring that they sold to Norway, you might get double taxed.
Ok, I just looked it up on the post office website and it seems you’re correct. I guess it must have been changed recently.
Well then, you’re now free to drive shitboxes until ICEs are completely banned!
It’s fun, frustrating and best of all, cheap as fuck until you stumble on the wrong shitbox (any mid 00s Audi for an example)
I remember a craiglist post (from like 2000s) that was for a small boat. It was like $600 a month on a payment plan, or $30000 total.
I was in college looking for a place to rent, just a bed. And I really thought about living on a small boat.
It’s possible to get a small boat (couple of berths, simple galley and a shitter) for around $5000 total in Norway. But as with all things this gets progressively more expensive the further north you go. But overall boats are not that expensive here because there are a lot of them. (Supply and demand)
Some people don’t even really sail them but live in them.
Boats aren’t even that expensive everywhere. In America they’re priced as luxury objects for the richest of the rich from what I’ve heard. Sailing as a way of traveling is actually a kinda cheap and rough activity, like camper vans. Not very “rich” stuff at all. My grandparents had a 30 footer and it wasn’t exactly luxurious, definitely camper van vibes. They’d sailed it all over around Europe though.
A new camper van in the US can easily cost 6 figures.
And a used one can easily be had for less than 15,000
I can’t even get a used car with less than 100,000 miles for less than $15,000.
Uhh you’re not looking hard enough. Hell there are pickup trucks for less than 15k with less than 100k miles.
Where I live used pickups are the worst, costing almost as much as buying new.
Yea that seems to have calmed down a bit recently though.
I bought a used car several years ago. I put 70k miles on it. It is now worth $4000 more than what I paid for it. This shit is ridiculous.
I once bought one for less than $1000… Granted it needed a lot of work to get roadworthy, but about another $2500 later, it had good tires and could drive without overheating, and more importantly, stop too. Girlfriend I had at the time made me give it up, I still resent her for it.
Yeah, everyone’s got a camper van everywhere because of how cheap they are
Actually not everyone has a camper van everywhere because not everyone desires or has the use for a camper van.
Where I live, I’ve heard lot fees and utilities or what ever are so expensive, may as well rent an apartment
Camper vans, mobile homes, small sailboats, all wall street rich guy shit, right? Even a CEO is lucky to afford a used camper van.
Have you been to southern California?
Nah I’m uncultured swine and have never left Canada
My dad got a relatively seaworthy one for around £5000. It’s the maintenance and marina fees that cost.
They’re not that expensive, at least not up-front. A guy I know bought a sailboat for a few thousand dollars, but the catch was that it was almost 50 years old and needed a lot of repairs. He saved money by doing the repairs himself, but the $400 per month slip fee was still too much for him eventually and he sold the boat.
You got the right idea I think. The boats are all smooshed together in a Marina so it’s natural for people to overestimate the number of boats relative to the number of people. There are way way way more people then there are boats. Honestly that’s the appeal of boats, the ability to go somewhere there aren’t a lot of people because most people don’t own boats.
For similar reasons, I would like to build a house in the form of a 300’ tall wizard tower in a random suburban neighborhood. But those bastards down at the planning division won’t approve my plans!
There’s a tower house out where I used to work. Built in the 70s I think by a Microsoft exec.
Only about 100’ tall though I believe.
It apparently is an airbnb now: the “Union Skyhouse”.
Dude, you want to get together? I’ve been planning my wizard tower for years. All I want is a parapet around the top with a telescope out there. The best part is that finding an area with low/no light pollution means there won’t be dang pesky jerks that want to keep a certain look to the neighborhood.
Burn all the grass around the tower, and have bands of roving dogs running wild around it.
Socialism is when the planning department won’t approve your 300’ wizard tower on a quarter acre lot. Save us, von Mises!
I picked up a fifty year old English built sailboat (Westerly Centaur) for all of $500. My local yacht club (more a working man’s boat club than the posh social group that the name suggests). Prior owner fell up on hard times in the middle of a refit and stopped paying storage fees. I picked her up from the club after they placed a lien on it. Since the club is full of powerboat owners, none of them were interested in buying a sailboat.
I’m working to finish the refit, doing the majority of the work myself. Helps that the club fees about to about $1100 a year. $400 a month would be excessive if I weren’t living on the boat full time… And refitting a boat while living on her sounds like a miserable experience.
My friend bought a single mast boat for £50 off a guy at his local. The dude had bought another bigger boat and just wanted away with the smaller one.
As a marine engineer who worked and both new build and refit side of the business, I’d say whatever price you pay for the boat itself, be prepared to pay same amount in 5 years for maintenance and marina fees etc.
I’m kinda one of them. Well my dad is. He’s typical of the boat owners I’ve met over the years. Boomer, business owner, white. He bought the first boat with a buddy in their late 20s, cuz that’s when he had enough disposable income after they could afford a house, a rental property, two kids, two cars, a dog and a golf course membership. They had a falling out and my dad bought out his buddy. Three or four boats later I look after the boat, and do all the maintenance. My dad’s in his 70s, he can’t take the boat out on his own anymore. We go fishing 5 or 6 times a year. Moorage is $6000 a year, fuel is $2000, insurance $3000, maintenance at least $2000. Maintenance would be 10x that if I didn’t do most of the work myself.
How much difference would it be if you compare it by renting a boat for those 5 or 6 times a year?
We could do some absolutely amazing charters for the money we spend on the boat. It’s something we have been talking about recently. The engines on the boat are 25 years old, if/when they die my dad wants to replace them to the tune of $40,000-$50,000. I’m trying to talk him into selling it and we plan a couple really nice fishing trips per year. I think one of the reasons he spends so much on it is that it’s one of the only things we have in common. We only really spend time together on the boat.
boats aren’t expensive, especially the older they are. fixing boats properly is expensive, but you also don’t really need to do that. My dad had a racing boat when I was a kid, it cost him $400… I bought a dinghy last year for $200. That’s less than the cost of a game console. And it costs literally nothing to go take it out on the water.
My mom grew up in the '40s and '50s and she told me many times about the surplus PT boat her dad had bought at the end of WWII which the family would take out for boating trips. I was like holy shit a PT (Patrol Torpedo) boat! These things had three Packard engines and could make 45 knots. Later on as an adult I discovered that it was actually just a pontoon boat, one of the things the army would use to make temporary bridges over rivers and that could only go about 3 mph. My mom had just thought “PT” stood for “Pon Toon” so that’s what she called it. It turns out she had always wondered what the hell John F. Kennedy had been doing in the Pacific fighting the Japanese in a pontoon boat.
Later on, I then learned that my mom’s uncle had actually bought a surplus Air/Sea Rescue boat after the war. This boat was basically a PT boat, just with two of the Packard engines instead of three; since it was 15 feet longer than a PT boat it could also do 45 knots. So it turns out my mom did have this childhood experience of rocketing around the ocean at unbelievable speeds. Her uncle ended up selling the boat after the engine room caught fire for the third time (something these engines were notorious for) and we have no idea what happened to it after that. These boats cost about $190K new and he had somehow acquired it for $10K - I expect there was some shady dealing going on there.
Nice read
And it costs literally nothing to go take it out on the water.
You sound like a boat salesperson.
They did say a dinghy so that would be accurate. Anything you can carry is going to be very cheap. Anything you can’t will cost a lot more. Think my kayak was a bit over £1000. Costs nothing to use it. But currently can’t store it at my new house and ideally want to change that at some point. It won’t fit through the gate very easily and I think its a bit heavy to carry on my own.
Tell me how it’s incorrect.
Never said it was.
fixing boats properly is expensive, but you also don’t really need to do that
Yeah, this sounds like really bad advice…
Depends on what you’re using your boat for. A dinghy on a lake doesn’t need the same level of repair that an oceangoing vessel does.
Same people who own all the empty properties, residential and commercial; Fucking leaches, that’s who.
Eh, as someone who knows a boat person its like only half that, the other half really, really like boats.
You’re talking boat-people. The topic is Dock Queens; The vast majority of the boats in most marinas, which never leave the dock.
I’m a boat lover and a (thankfully)former landlord. I seent it.
My family had a boat quite a few years back. Not a massive one, probably cost ten grand or something. People don’t need to be absolutely loaded to own a boat.
Moorage, however…
Yep good point. Expensive to moor and fuel, I’ll give you that.
Yeah the people I know who own boats have it in their garage/near their house/storage unit.
I mean it’s only 3 people.
And I just named all 3 locations.
I don’t know that many boat people.
Not a lot of overlap between bike people and boat people.
When I was a kid, my aunt owned a small one. She’d bring it to my house where my dad and my uncle did repairs.
We were by no means a rich family. It was a two bedroom house with my parents and 3 kids.
I imagine the most expensive part of these are probably dock fees?
Floating homes for alcoholics? Pretty much anyone who can sign a down payment contract.
Having spent a lot of time in Marinas, I can say this 100% matches my experience.
If you really think about it, no human was ever meant to go on a boat for they are not designed around humans. I think they’re for the illuminati lizards.
While I am skeptical of your claims, I am not an expert on boats or lizards so you’re probably right.
Believe it or not. There’s as many reasons to own a boat as there are to own a house. And many more uses for a boat.
Weird thing. A boat is much more affordable than a house nowadays. Hell I’d live on a boat. That shit would be awesome.
Owning a boat
Pros:
- You’ll be able to survive the rising sea levels caused by global warming.
Cons:
- You won’t survive the super hurricanes caused by global warming.
Solution: boat in the mountains.
The lake in Östersund is beautiful and are rumored to have its own monster if anyone wants to visit an awesome mountain lake
Fresh water boating! As a bonus your boat will be worth more should you want to sell it, especially if you can get it to a salt water area.
Depends where I guess. And this also depends on your type of work.
I know that people live year round on narrow boats in the UK, for example. But where I live, unless it’s a very very big boat, living on it year round would be very difficult if not impossible. Most marinas will close in fall/autumn and have a service to lift boats out of the water (and wrap them). If a (small) boat stays in the water for winter, it risks being iced in for months, and having its hull damaged by the pressure created by the ice. There are thawing and de-icing systems for boats and house boats but at this point, one may also want to live somewhere else during winter. Or move to warmer climates, if the job allows it.
Anyways, marinas are still full here in summer, even if people have to lift their boats out of the water in fall and wrap them up in plastic for several months.
