quote:Originally posted by ENP
And I've looked into hire of boats for the day but it's insanely expensive ($300+ a day)
You have obviously never owned a boat! $300 per day for anything half decent is insanely cheap. Have a quick think. Some guy wants to charter out a 6.5m boat.
Cost say $80k
Annual costs
Interest $9000 (boat loans are typically 12% - 13% interest rate)
SSM $1000 (cost to keep a small boat in commercial survey)
Maintenance $3000 (assuming no damage and lots of owners time for free)
Depreciation $8000 (approx 10% per annum for charter boats)
Insurance $1000
Marketing costs $1000 (if doing it on the cheap)
Overheads $2000 (phone, internet, stationary, accountant etc)
So total 'fixed costs' are around $25000 per annum
Add to this approx 2 hours of labour for each booking to brief the client, get them away, clean and check the boat upon return etc. Say $50 per booking for labour @ $25 per hour (you learn to work real cheap in the charter industry).
A 6.5m boat chartering around Auckland would typically get 40 - 80 days of work per annum. If you market really hard, you might get 100, but I am not sure if anyone has achieved this. Lets say that the owner gets lucky and gets 80 days of bookings.
Fixed costs are $25k, so divide this by 80 to get say $310 per day. Add your $50 per trip and assuming some trips are multiple days, the cost per day is now say $340. This is with the owner running the company, doing his SSM stuff, and doing all the paperwork, marketing etc for free.
Bottom line is that any hire under $500 per day is not worth doing on that boat, but moaning bloody clients won't pay $500 "because it is a rip off" so the poor owners typically do it for less than cost until they get some fool blowing up the engine or smacking a reef and finally realise that chartering out boats this size is a fools game. They then sell the boats and move on to a better life. This is the history of this business in Auckland.
Now lets look at it from the clients perspective. It must be heaps cheaper to buy a boat than pay those rip off charter guys!
First thing you do of course is decide you only need a boat that is half the value of the rip off charter boat so lets say you spend $40k. You won't have the same capabilities, equipment list, safety, or comfort, but that doesn't matter because it is your boat!
Annual Costs
Interest (either paid or lost) $2500 (lets say ~6%)
Depreciation $2500 (6% - 7% is typical for private boats over a long period)
Insurance $500
Maintenance $1500
So assuming that you do quite a lot of your own maintenance, that you don't have any major failures, that you don't need to pay for storage, that you really did need to buy and drive that 4x4 even if you didn't have a boat etc etc, your cost of ownership is ~$6500 per annum. Don't bother adding in any cost for your time because that is irrelevant, right? You really enjoy cleaning your dirty boat and fixing trailer brakes etc.
SO if you go out 22 times per year in your old/little $40k boat it will be cheaper than hiring that over priced nice shiny, bigger, hire boat from that rip off merchant who cleans it for you after you cover it with Kawhai blood and squid bait. He also doesn't mind fixing the gelcoat chips from your clunky tackle and where you drove the boat up onto a stony beach so your girlfriend wouldn't get her jeans cuffs wet. But then again, he shoudn't bloody complain for the amount he charges AYE!
www.dreamboats.com
Bareboat Charters - More Options, Less Cost, More Time, More Fun on the water
