COUNTING THE COSTS

HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU BUDGET FOR WHEN PLANNING TO GO BLUEWATER CRUISING? JEREMY WYATT QUIZZES SKIPPERS ABOUT TYPICAL EXPENDITURES

- JEREMY WYATT

During my 20 years of hosting World Cruising Club's Bluewater Seminars, one of the questions I was most frequently asked was: "How much money will we need to go bluewater cruising?"

The seminar programme is aimed at trying to answer this difficult question - among others - and to put the challenges of boat ownership and liveaboard cruising into perspective. To do so, experienced cruising skippers join panel discussions and share their experiences, and talk about different equipment choices and ways to live the lifestyle. I would also discuss in broad terms the types of expenditure to expect, share tips for mitigating some costs and give a range of budgets.

However, the problem with trying to give a definitive answer, a magic figure in dollars and cents, pounds and pence, is that the question is almost impossible to answer. Each individual cruiser has their own lifestyle, income, boat choices and cruising plans. So is it even possible to give a meaningful figure? In an attempt to quantify the true cost of liveaboard cruising, I recently asked a range of experienced bluewater cruisers for more detailed information about various aspects of their cruising lives to paint a better picture of their true budgets.

The questions asked were specifically about living the bluewater lifestyle and deliberately excluded the costs of boat purchase and refit, or pre-departure preparation. An aspiring cruiser will have greater control over these expenses, and once they've set sail, this money is already spent, so does not factor in day-to-day living and cruising expenses. Here are their (anonymised) responses:

1 RUNNING THE BOAT

Owning a boat incurs costs which need to be included in a cruising budget, such as insurance, registration, docking and operating and maintenance costs. I have excluded any cost for depreciation, or the opportunity cost of the funds tied up in owning a boat.