In this episode of Sailing A B Sea Baz breaks down the cost of buying a yacht. Including the cost of haul out fees, custom built davits, solar panels, dinghy...

Closed Captions (CC):
What does it all cost? Quite a few people

commenting either via our blogs or our

YouTube videos have expressed an

interest in what it's cost us so far to

get to the point of actual sailing.

So that's what I'll be breaking down in

this video. I'll talk a little bit about

our thought processes behind each decision

and also give you a cost of the

individual items in Euros and also in

Australian dollars I'll put those on the

screen right here. I'm purposely not

including any of the scuba diving gear

that we purchased which is quite

expensive but of course that's a

personal choice and it's not going to be

everyone who's going to be buying that

sort of stuff so we're leaving that out

for the purposes of this video. As

permanent liveaboards with aspirations

of sailing back to Australia eventually

we had an idea of certain things that we

wanted when it came to boat buying time.

Let's take boat lengths as an example.

Crossing oceans comfortably meant we

wanted a vessel over 40 feet but we

didn't want anything bigger than 47 feet

because generally there's just the two

of us on board unless of course we're

crossing an ocean then we would have

extra crew and sailing a bigger boat on

a short-handed crew can be quite

difficult. The other factor about boat

length is the maintenance and the haul

out berthing cost in marinas and of

course the costs increase rapidly the

more footage you have in your boat. With

that in mind we eventually bought a 1995

Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45.1. Her length overall is 14.15

metres which is 46.42 feet so she just scraped into our size

rang. We paid 75,0000 euros which

may have been a tad high but she is in

good condition for a 23 year old.

Condition of the vessel leads me on to

our next major cost which is the

pre-purchase survey. This is a

non-refundable expense which the buyer

pays in full so the key for us was to do

a lot of online research in the key

things to look at when first inspecting

a vessel. For example if she's out of the

water does the hull show signs of

blistering which is osmosis? If it does

then walk away as fast as you possibly

can.

Other things to look for is there a lot

of water in the bilge? Tracking down

leaks can be very time-consuming and

quite expensive. How many hours are on

the engine? Does the engine compartment

look clean and well-maintained? Is there

an actual service history record of the

engine maintenance? Now if the vessel

passes the initial viewing and she's

obviously not falling apart now's the

time to book you surveyor. A handy little tip

here try and find a surveyor who's not

associated with the marina or the broker

that you're buying from. This reduces the

risk of any bias. I would also say that

if it's practical and possible then you

should be there on survey day too so

that you can follow your surveyor around

and ask lots of questions. It really is a

great way to learn lots about your

vessel in a very short space of time. And

the bonus is it also provides you with

lots of information for negotiating on

the price once the complete survey is

issued. Our total surveyor cost was one

thousand two hundred and forty euros

which is broken down like this:

The pre-purchase survey was nine hundred

and ninety eight euros the sea trial was

eighty two euros the travelling expenses

for the surveyor was 160 euros and also

included in those prices is 21% Spanish

VAT of two hundred and fifteen euros.

It's also highly recommended to haul out

boat two days prior to the survey

day. This is another cost that you're

going to have to cover yourself and in

our particular case with an extra two

days on the hard stand to let the hull

fully dry before checking the moisture

levels our haul out the cost was five

hundred and forty three euros.

As liveaboards with long distance

cruising in mind there were certain

additions we wanted on our boat to make

daily life easier

and to give us as much self-sufficiency

as possible. The first thing we wanted

was a custom-made stainless steel davit

on the stern of our vessel and basically

this is just to make life easy for two

people raising or lowering the dinghy. A

secondary function of our stainless steel

davits is that they serve as a mounting

for our solar panels. The total cost for

the davits was four thousand seven

hundred and twenty-five euros - that is

made and installed.

We also had 600 watts of solar panels

installed and of course when it's sunny

this provides us with all the electrical

power we need to run our two computers,

watch movies, power the fridge and light

us up like a Christmas tree at night. The

total cost for the materials and the

installation of the solar panels was

three thousand two hundred and thirty

three euros and it breaks down like this:

Four x 150 watt polycrystalline panels - one

thousand one hundred and thirty six

euros. A 12 volt 50 amp MPPT controller -

320 euros a 220 volts 800 watt inverter 315 Euros

A Victron BNV 700 battery

monitor - 187 euros. Cables connectors and

sundry items - 284 euros and the labour of

413 euros. There is also again 21%

Spanish VAT of 561 euros that gets added

on to those prices.

In previous blogs and YouTube videos

we've gone into details as to why we

bought some of the next things on the

list that I'm about to talk about so I

won't rehash those details here. These

are some of the vital things you're

gonna need just for everyday living on

the boat. We bought a Zodiac Cadet 330

dinghy that was two thousand two hundred

and forty nine euros. To go with the

dinghy

we bought a mercury eight horsepower

four-stroke engine - that was two thousand

three hundred and five euros. A vital

piece of safety equipment is of course

your life raft and we bought a brand new

four person Aramir Open Sea 9650 life

raft and the cost for that was 1670 Euros

As liveaboards one of our

decisions is to stay away from costly

marinas as much as possible so we

invested quite heavily in our anchor

because when we drop it we want to know

that when we wake up in the morning

we're gonna be in exactly the same place

as when we started the night. We decided

on a Mantus 38 kilo 85 pound galvanized

anchor and that cost us one thousand

three hundred and four euros. However

because it had to be imported into Spain

we also got slapped with an import tax

of 300 euros. Now the Mantus anchor is a

big anchor, that's why it does its job so

well and lots of other cruisers have

reported having to make modifications to

their bow rollers or of the bow area in

general. We were no different and we had

to make some modifications to our

stainless steel pulpit to make the

Mantus fit and work properly and the

cost for that was 360 euros. We also had

A B Sea's standing rigging completely

replaced but in negotiations Jose and

ourselves agreed that we would cover the

cost of that 50/5. So our 50 percent

cost us 3044 euros. There were a lot of

incidental things that were purchased

and fitted along the way too and these

collectively added up to 21 hours of

labour. They included things like

antifouling, offshore fleurs, anode

replacement and spare anodes, 150 metres

of extra line water and diesel jerry cans

etc, etc and in total they added up to

3540 euros

The whole boat survey took about nine

hours and at the end of the day our

surveyor announced that generally our

boat was in really really good condition.

A week later we received the written

survey report and then proceeded to

share this with Jose the broker. This is

where a good relationship with your

broker and a willingness from both

parties to negotiate and compromise is

essential. So what I'll do here is just

list the items that we negotiated with

Jose as to being replaced or repaired at

his cost. Usually if you negotiate it

correctly it is the owner of the vessel

that will cover these costs. In our

unique case Jose was the owner of the

boat because he'd taken her in part

exchange for a brand new Hanse that

he was selling to the previous owner. The

following items are the ones that Jose

agreed to cover the cost of: Replacement

of five through holes and sea cocks that

were badly corroded, one of them actually

had the handle snapped off; removal of

the rusty rudder stock quadrant and

replacement with a brand new custom-made

stainless steel quadrant; several small

fiberglass repairs were made around the

boat and in particular quite a nasty

little chip out of the bottom of the

rudder; the complete hot water system was

replaced; the three service batteries and

one engine battery were all replaced; the

cooling element and compressor for the

fridge was completely replaced; the bilge

pump float switch was replaced; some

loose stanchions and the teak handrails

were firmly secured; the vessel was

removed from the Spanish ship registry

and also there was a background check to

make sure there were no outstanding

debts or fines on the vessel. Jose also

agreed to investigate and repair the

cause of a pressure loss in the

freshwater system; the green navigation

light was fixed and the steaming light

and deck floodlight was replaced; all of

the flexible hoses on the gas system

were replaced and as I mentioned

previously Jose paid 50% towards the

cost of replacing the standing rigging.

Another thing to take into consideration

is that while all this work is getting

done you will have berthing costs for

the vesse. In our particular case all

the repairs replacements and

installations took three months and Jose

agreed to pay two months of the berthing

cost if we covered one month. And just as

a little side note here, the marina at

Las Salinas cost 800 euros a month

that included electricity water and

Wi-Fi.

How much you decide to spend on

individual items is a personal choice

and of course it is restrained by your

budget. We didn't skimp on important

things like the life raft, life jackets

and the dinghy and outboard. After all

what price do you put on your own life?

Laabour costs are fairly high in Spain and

if we'd had the knowledge and the tools

available to us then we might have

tackled some of the labour work ourselves

but you have to work with what you're

given and overall we are very happy with

the experience we had in purchasing A B Sea.

And we're extremely happy with Jose and

his team at Marina Estrella Murcia. After

three months in the marina we're now

sitting at anchor off a beautiful beach

in Formentera in the Spanish Balearic

Islands. But it didn't come cheap, the

total cost for everything so far is

ninety nine thousand five hundred and

forty three euros. I'll now include a

complete list of the figures I've just

talked about for the number-philes and

for those of you who may be considering

taking this same journey that we've

begun. If you have any questions please

leave them in the comment section down

below, I'm very happy to answer them for

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