Boat Bucks to Date

Boats have a semi-famous acronym Break Out Another Thousand, which certainly has some truth to it, especially when paying someone else to do all of the work for you, compounded by the fact that once something gets labeled a speicality part of some kind, in this case for marine/boat use, prices seem to skyrocket a bit.  A car wash bucket? $5.  A boat wash bucket?  Expect the same part to ’suddenly’ cost more.  In some cases - it’s at least somewhat warranted where the part is indeed special and has lower production quantities, such as guaranteed no-spark engine and bilge compartment components, in some others - not so much.

Regardless, I’m going to lay this out best I can, with both the original purchase and getting ship-shape as the initial round of work to the boat and trailer, compared to fair market value of the boat at time of purchase, followed by a rolling misc expenses as we go. This may give someone an idea of what may be involved, noting that doing the work yourself can certainly reduce the costs in some areas, sometimes significantly, and labor prices may vary.

The ‘ready for fun’ state includes a remanufactured Bravo 3 lower, HVAC replacement and a thorough end-to-end mechanical inspection and extended sea trial. If the boat were already local, I would have probably done at least some of the work myself, but really wanted our first season and on-delivery to be as enjoyable as possible, so in this case, I chose to pay in $ versus time to get her to the ‘starting point.’

The other expenses range from intial slip setup and basic boat ownership bits to ‘I felt like it’ items.

Initial purchase and ‘ready for fun’ work and maintenance totals

Misc other Expenses