Mid Size Power Boats

Winter Lay Up

If you live in a place where the water turns solid part of the year, there are also winter lay up costs to consider.

If the boat has to be hauled out, there is the cost of hauling, shoring and storage during winter months. There is also the cost of covering the boat.

Even if the boat can remain afloat, if frequent subfreezing temperatures occur, the engines and plumbing systems have to be winterized.

These are time-consuming tasks that, if done yourself, will take a full weekend, otherwise you pay someone else to do these things at rates exceeding $50/hr. A summary of these expenses for a 35’ boat often looks like this:

Winterize vessel, 16 hours@$55/hr. $880.00

Shrink wrap vessel 400.00

Winter storage, 6 mos@$300/mo 1800.00

Haul, launch & shoring 200.00

____________

Total $3280.00

These, of course, are expenses that occur every year. Prices will vary widely from one area to another, most often depending on availability of facilities.

A call to the service manager of your local boat yard or marina can likely land you a reasonable estimate of what it will cost in your area.

Why Boat Repairs Are So Costly

While I’ve been listening to boat owners complain about the high prices charged by boat yards and marinas, I can’t say that I have a lot of sympathy for them.

Boat yards and marinas have to have large amounts of waterfront property which is both costly to purchase and maintain, as well as being subject to higher tax rates and extreme pressures from developers that drive prices and taxes ever higher.

Secondly, throughout most of the country, theirs is a seasonal business that makes it difficult to hire and keep highly qualified personnel.

Added to this are the difficulties imposed by the huge range of products wherein standardization is almost non existent.

Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect repair and maintenance work on a boat to be priced similarly to that of cars or most other products.

Conversely, if they do manage to find what they consider reasonable prices, boat owners often end up complaining about the quality of work and service.

Therefore, no one should contemplate getting into boating without also realizing that this is an expensive recreation. Although it is promoted as a mass market recreation, the truth is closer to it being the pastime of the more affluent.

Typically we do not find “fast, friendly service,” to be the norm at boat service facilities. While many may try hard, it’s a tough business that has to live with short seasons, terrible working conditions, and a clientele that is almost never satisfied with the cost.

Boat yards simply cannot survive doing small, ordinary jobs at low cost, which is why so many mobile services have sprung up around major boating centers to deal with one-shot, smaller jobs.

However, these tend not to be very cheap either, since the customer has to pay for things like travel time and all the delays associated with not having everything at their fingertips as the boat yard does.

Thus, prices charged by mobile services frequently rival those of boat yards.

The bottom line is that boats are very expensive and the costs of maintaining and repairing them are equally so, no matter how good a deal you got on the original purchase price.