Boating on budget - no such thing anymore
 

I am a working slob - not some trust fund kid - and have always tried to keep boating in my life by doing things myself. I am not a mechanic or electrician by trade but for the last 30 years I have always managed to keep a boat running and usable for family fun, scuba diving, and just trolling around South Florida waters.

Recently after an A/C hose broke and old 454s got wet I decided to repower my 1988 40-footer with arneson drives. She is old school, cosmetically about a C+, but good hull and normally floats. Perfect for overnights and cruising the Keys.

Post Covid I am finding some challenges:
1) Marinas are closing to become condos and those staying open are geared for rich dudes who dint mind paying $8k to get their props painted (WTF)
2) Do it yourself marinas are extremely rare and require $200k of insurance and "proof" you will not abandon your boat
3) ALL rates have quadrupled since pre-Covid. Got a quote for a bottom paint (2 coats and some light scraping) $4,200 or more than $100/foot (Wow)
4) Mechanics willing to work on older boats with inboards are charging $200/hour and you wait weeks for em to get started if they ever show up. I had one younger guy show up and he had never seen a counter-rotating motor before - ???

Sorry to ramble but things have changed significantly in S Florida and I now understand why everyone is going outboards. At least those can be pulled and worked on elsewhere but at $50k a piece - the convenience is at a cost I cant swing. Do it yourself boating is dead.

Might be my last repower then the old Kayak will have to enough

;-)

I don't think it's dead, you just have to lower your expectations. If you have something with less than 550 hp and can be trailered and kept in your backyard it's pretty affordable, no marina costs at all, work on it in your driveway, no crazy expensive driveline repairs.
I run a 24x7 nearly every summer weekend on LSC and Huron and my biggest yearly cost is gasoline and Coors.

I'm considering a shift from trailer-sailor to the marina slip life. Convenience goes WAY up but so does the overall cost. But as you get older, the ability or the desire to do your own wrenching goes down.

You need $$ for this hobby, so hopefully your life choices and career decisions, as you get older, keeps you on the water.

it's definitely getting tougher just like every hobby. Last season I fried my ECU. Luckily I was able to get it repaired at Whipple for 1/2 the cost of a new one. The cost of parts has sky rocketed. My slip fee has gone up 20% every season for the last few. My boat is a 2007 but a new one is out of the question!

Last year i started to look buying a condo in south florida...
pretty expensive and had hard time to find one with big enough dock available
so ithen thought about why i wanted that and the answer was to go boating
so i then thought lets add a big motoryacht to my fleet. Plenty nice one available between 45-70k
besides the fact no dock space were cheaper than 10-12 k a year, they all had waiting list for 2 plus years, at least the 18 i called... so back to start, will buy a condo with available dock when i see one that fits the bill! Savings on marina will pay all if not more of the hoa on the condo!

sad but true!

Working slob here too, and I came to the realization that if I ever want to be able to retire, I have to rein in my spending. Running a twin BBC go fast boat wasn't helping me to make any progress towards financial security, especially with the costs of everything lately. So, the go-fast is gone, and now I'm cruising around in a single SBC Shamrock. Fast, no... not at all. But still good fun, some good exhaust rumble, easy to work on and cheap. The old saying, speed costs money, how fast do you want to spend?, is more true now than ever before.

I can get to the same sandbar I went to before, on 1/3 the fuel, and I don't spend the whole time worried about my boat. I'm not the poker run type, or the kind that needs to run WOT everywhere I go, so I'm not missing out on all that much.

Boating on a budget CAN be a thing, but it depends on what you can be content with.


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Cool boat!!! Is that a stern drive or shaft drive?

Straight shaft inboard with a keel, so the running gear is protected and I can beach it without worry. Draft is about 18".

With a small block you say?
That's cool.

Yep, 350 Mag MPI. It's a neat little rig. Originally these came with Ford 302s but since marinization parts for 302s are hard to come by these days, a lot of them have been repowered to Mercruiser/GM power.

Is Shamrock still making boats?

I think so. If they are, it's not the same ownership, company changed hands in the 90s, I think. The current website looks like they're making boats, but I dunno.

New 300 Suzukis are 27k ea. you’d probably need 3 though.

It’s challenging for sure. I live in Hawaii. I have a ‘72 SeaCraft Seafari 25’ in the backyard. Painted it myself. Did all the glass work. Built a LS for the sterndrive. Am rebuilding the b3, did all electrical myself. Local yards, marinas, workshops were outrageous. Costs are up. I see only 2 options truly do it all yourself (that’s rough on time when we work 50+ hrs) or bring our expectations way down. I’m not ever selling this boat and making more money is a challenging prospect without giving up a career you love or losing yet more time that’s needed for repair work.

I just make a list of projects, set aside some money each month and knock it out as I can. Good luck and don’t give up the passion but adjustments need to be made sometimes.

I just do side jobs on others junk to fund my hole in the water. Buy used parts low when I stumble across them and resell for a profit. Things like that. Plus I make as much of what I need as can. I live in an area that pays below the national average. Even with a below average cost of living, the after expenditure monies is less than it would be for most. I just figure a way to make it work. Fortunately I'm a patient old soul.

So motor #2 is in the boat. With work interruptions (she sat for week without work as I was out of town on business) and forklift guys who don work on Mondays, Friday or after 3 if it rains (which is every day in FL this time of year) it has been an absolute test of patience.

Thus far for this repower job to work we had to upgrade all motor mounts, drive shafts needed to be refurbished which was $3k - they were toast so basically replaced with all new - trans mounts didnt work either so had to replace them. Mechanic time during all this trial and error has been almost $4k and the yard fees keeping adding up. What a sh!tshow. At this point I go to the boat every night until dark after work and do everything I can myself....hope to see her float and run next week.

Well she is running, got home and everything under water has been completed but some engine room work is still needed. The trim motors for the arneson drives and trim tabs got wet so I will need to pull them, clean em out, and fix whatever needs fixing. Also need to tweak the engine/drive shaft alignments and add mufflers. This thing is SO loud now it is almost unusable without ear protection LOL.

Once we get her mechanically stable (the 496 EFIs are very smooth and idle great) but shifter cables need adjusting, throttles cables are not right, some gauges are not working ... we can then focus on cosmetics and soft spots in the cockpit floor.

Cautiously optimistic.

Keep chugging along, I just finished up a 26 month project of similar magnitude, sans repowering. Transom and stringers were replaced and turned into a mild restoration with 2 mechanics, 1 structural repair tech. and 2 interior techs. including small claims court. Due to being laid up so long, non-usage issues surfaced as well that had to be addressed but I wasn't going to be defeated. I was finishing final preps. yesterday for the first semi-pleasure outing today and the engine cover actuator crapped out and then it rained outside of the forecast so it's still in the driveway. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"

If at all interested, my official rant haha https://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/...d-project.html

vroom - she is alive but LOUD! Added in-line mufflers but still obnoxious for a cruiser. Going to fab up some down tubes to try out.....then on to cosmetics and some some soft spots in the cockpit.

Found that some downturn PVC pipe cuts noise in half at idle and up to about 1200 rpm ... good for slow cruising down ICWW.
And ... we ran her up on plane last night for a few miles .... water temps never climbed above 175, held a good 30mph cruise at 3200 rpm ... not bad for a big Pig of a girl. Still need to do some retightening of everything in the engine room before we do an ocean rip. Need to pick up a second Vesselview Mobile dongle so I can all the stats on both motors in real time.

Congrats

You don't need a second VVM, you need to add some wiring. Also make sure one engine is set to port.
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Thanks BAM

pics of your old Tub ?

To be honest she looks like hell right now - been a rough road last few years but on the upswing for sure. Will post some when it stops raining.

Next projects - repaint interior cockpit after fixing a few soft spots, new zip-in enclosure as I am tired of snapping in the tonneau cover every time I want to board it. Replacing fried A/C in cabin .... and need to run through a few tanks of fuel to get em clean enough to run single fuel/water separator per motor (currently breaking Merc 496 rules by doubling up).

Thanks again for the info - found a couple of the Vesselview Mobile dongles on facespace cheap - like $80 each - so will use two of those and my old IPad minis that were retired years ago. Was cheaper than cables and running them all over the place. Was just looking to compliment the existing analog gauges with some real-time digital data and this will work well (and I dont have to re-swizzle the entire dash). It has been interesting to see how inaccurate the analogs are.... Oil PSI off by 20% for example was surprising. Also very cool to see Water Temps on each side of the motors and the water (block) PSI. Too bad my MPI 496HO do not seem to have oil Temps. I also have a Rinda just in case though I have not seen anything it can do that the Vesselview Mobiles can't except "rename" a motor to Port versus Stbd.

Now on to the cosmetics and I need to find some Engine Flush kits (perko plastic things make me a bit nervous but are elegant to use.....we'll see).

Being from South Florida but being gone the kast few years, your post makes me sad. What areas or marinas are you talking about?

That's the way to go. No outdrives to pour money into.

yup agreed. Biggest expense is the winterizing, and time and effort to keep it covered securely and safely from the snow. Other than that It sits in my driveway, and I don't let the social media run out of control over maintenance and what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing. The scare can cost you thousands. A lot of the maintenance is pretty straight forward, and with a do it yourself approach, you would be surprised on what you can get away with.

BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand....

x30
;-)

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I was on the phone a week ago with my dad who lives in Ft Myers. He was watching a boat get launched with a crane and told me the customer spent 3500 for the crane. Which caught my attention because I purchased a boat in Port Huron last year at a small marina... They launched it by crane along with 27 other boats all the same day. I asked at the picnic later that day how much the crane cost. For all the boats and roughly 8 hours it was 5,000. It's got to be a supply demand issue with people with money basically willing to pay anything and after that happens a couple times... Now it basically changes the labor rates.

I trailered my 42' Harley (same as Swamps above) to the San Juan islands every year for over ten years, up until Covid reared it's ugly head.

Crane cost was around 175.00 dollars for round trip. Price also included two weeks parking for truck and trailer.

I had better make a call to find out what post covid prices are before I make the next trip North!

Probably appropriate for this post.

Saw this on FBMarketplace (the world’s most compelling mistress) for 1500 bucks last Saturday. My wife was baffled when I jumped up and said “I’ll be back in two hours” and ran out the door.

22’ Wellcraft with trailer and a 175 Merc Black Max. Someone had vandalized the plug wires, but that was easily resolved. Spent this week doing the basics, fuel pump, stats, water pump, drive lube, filters, etc……

fired up tonight.

funny that I’ve bought this boat, trailer and motor for less than a tank of gas in Cig. There are good boating deals, you just have to be lucky…..
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...and fast, apparently.

Great find.

Working slob over here too. I'm a union diesel mechanic by day and boat, trailer and classic car repair by night. I currently live in the suburbs of Chicago. I keep my boat slipped in Hammond Indiana because it's half the price of Chicago and they let me have a lift, gotta go where my wallet takes me. Not to mention no criminal activity like Chicago marinas...
As for the prices, everything has gone absolutely insane! The same merc HP transom assemblies I bought 3 years ago for $2700 each are now $4000. Dont even get me started on the cost to buy engine parts now...
Last year I purchased a 377 Scarab with twin 540 blower engines and speedmasters, everything I've doing to the boat is $10k a crack. Fixing a wounded engine, swapping cams in both engines, fixing carbs, $10k. Bigger blowers, $10k. Bigger drives, $10k. Fix all the sh*t rigging, $10k Etc. Etc. Part of me wishes I just stayed with my 29ft Formula with twin small blocks and bravos, which i still have. If I had a family to support I DEFINITELY WOULD NOT have bought my 38. These Big boats with big power burn through a budget 10 times faster than a small boat with small power.
As for Florida, good luck. Friend of mine sold his 38ft Formula because anything over 30ft they stick it in and break it off in you. Rack storage was $900 a month at the cheapest marina. Nothing but crooks down there and overpriced, sh*t labor. Another friend of mine moved from Chicago and started a marine diesel repair service out of Tampa and is buried in work because he actually shows up, works and isn't a thief!
Its tougher now than it ever has been trying to stay in the boating game with the cost of everything now. Im seeing similar cost trends in other activities like snowmobiling, off-roading, drag racing, etc. Everything is becoming a rich man's game and we're being priced out of enjoying things we've enjoyed for years. Somethings gotta give. End rant...

post a picture of your 38 please! Love those models!

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This past hurricane my buddies uninsured sailboat went up on the mangroves in front of Salty Sams and was only 10 feet from what had been his slip .

Crane on the barge was there pulling up sunk boats and old docks and wouldn’t even have to move , I asked them how much to crane it back into the water. $17000 was the best they would do. So they moved it on the states dime and crushed it.

Thats just absurd.