Running Costs

Originally posted by redback sails £300

Originally posted by redback On my boat the sails are expensive

Your sails look quite cheap to me. Surely you must get through at least a spinnaker every year with the chute....

It all depends how bothered you are about having latest equipment. I reckon I actually made a profit on my last Fireball. I only spent about £50 on fittings over two years, and £1300 on a new suit of sails. However, when I bought the boat, it had pretty much two of everything which I didn't sell on with the boat. OK so it's not cash, but I do have a spare nearly new mast, a centreboard that has absolutely nothing wrong with it, a decent spare rudder blade. The cost of buying replacements for these would easily be more than the £1350 I spent.

If you start counting petrol, accommodation etc into it as well, the costs would get quite high though. I reckon my boat does about 10-12000 miles per year behind the car!

The costs are still very small in comparison to other sports though. Unless you're fairly well off, you can't run any kind of motorsport campaign without sponsorship. Even something like Golf gets pretty pricey if you take it seriously..

Well I think my boat appreciated - it seems to have happened to Radials, but in fact is irrelevant as I'm not going to sell it in the near future. However I have driven about so many miles this year all in the name of my sailing (lots of car running costs), had all my kit stolen (except the hull & spars)(boat insurance premium doubled), 3 car windows broken at an event as a consequence, I have to include this too, which makes my Radial sailing rather costly.

Then I also eat twice as much in the name of sailing that my food bill increases!

However no boat parking costs (car roofs make good boat parks), club membership is peanuts, & think I have won enough T-shirts this year I don't need clothes for a while!

So I guess how much one pays for sailing is related totally to how much sailing you do. As long as you don't do more than you can afford (I'm not a good example at this) just enjoy it!

PS Voiles et Voiliers (French sailing magazine) proposed that you spend 10% of the purchase price in a year. It seemed to work with Dad's 37footer, less so with a Radial.

 

Glad I Don’t sail a RS800 or a 49er etc if you put the fun per pound scale on the info so far that’s 2500 per year for the fun of sailing those boats, unless this includes all the expenses going to and from events and entry fees. I can’t see that worth while as my 300 cost’s me £350 tops a year and that includes a new sail every two years and say another £400 a year for events which would include my accommodation and transport costs. And I am still racing at the top end of the 300 fleet and my 300 cost less then that to buy in the first place. Just seems a bit daft unless your doing a Olympic campaign.   

well they worked out how much they spent on the boat in the year the devied it by the number of days they went out sailing and it came to £50 a time some times they would not brake any thing so it would not cose any thing but other times they could snap a mast so that would cost lots so for every time they want out its £50 more you sail it without braking any thing the less it is

from what iv heard at my club people the sail there 49er every sunday say they cost about £50 every time they go out if they go out more ofen it cost less so more you sail the less it costs