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Everybody talks about the purchase price and almost nobody about the rest. The rest is what decides whether a boat stays a pleasure or turns into a burden: berth, winter storage, lifting out, fuel, antifouling. Those prices are in no brochure, because they differ from one area to the next.
So we collect them. Below, each item says what we know and where it comes from. What we do not know is there too, as a gap. Anyone with an invoice in front of them can fill one in.
In bold is what we publish ourselves. Underneath is what owners have reported. The two are never added together: a range from experience is not an invoice, and an invoice is not an average.
euro per metre and year
For an annual berth we deliberately publish no range: the difference between an inland river, the Baltic and the Mediterranean is far too large to average. That is exactly why this line is here.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
euro per metre and night
two to four euro per metre and night, depending on area and facilities
In the Baltic the rate is usually two to three euro per metre, in the Mediterranean in high season well above that. Electricity, water and a tourist levy come on top.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
euro per metre and season
shed 45 to 90 euro per metre, hard standing 20 to 45, afloat 12 to 30
Lifting out and winterising are charged separately in almost every yard. Anyone leaving a boat afloat through a hard winter should check what their own policy says about lay-up before the frost, not after.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
euro per operation
We publish no range for lifting: the price hangs on the crane, not on the boat, and a travel lift in a busy marina charges differently from a mobile crane on a river bank.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
euro per year, everything together
ten to fifteen per cent of the value of the boat per year
As a rule of thumb the running costs come to ten to fifteen per cent of the value of the boat per year. Insurance is the smallest item in that figure, which surprises most people.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
euro per nautical mile
Annual costs divided by the miles actually sailed: the most honest figure in boat ownership, and the only one that separates the owner who sails from the owner who does not.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
euro per litre
Fuel on the water is almost always dearer than fuel on the road, and it varies from one pontoon to the next. A range for it would be a guess, so we do not publish one.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
euro per season
Whether you do it yourself or have it done makes the biggest difference here, larger than the choice of paint. Both are worth reporting.
No report yet. Yours would be the first.
What is not here: the insurance premium. This page cannot estimate it, because it depends on the boat, the value, the area and where the owner lives. For that there is the quote calculator, which names it precisely in two minutes.
As things stand: not one reported invoice yet. That is not a fault of the page, the page is new. From about five reports per area a column starts to say something.
Only figures you paid yourself. No quotations, no estimates, no prices from hearsay. The year belongs with it, otherwise in two years nobody knows what the amount was worth.
We will look at your figure and add it to the table if it fits. If we have questions we will write to you.
What happens to your figure
Your figure arrives here as an email and goes nowhere else. A person in the office reads it, checks it and only then puts it on the page. Nothing is published automatically. Your name does not appear anywhere, nor your address: what gets published is the substance itself. If we do not understand something, we write to you. If we decide not to publish your figure, we tell you that as well.
Some of the eight items have a calculator behind them that uses your length and your area instead of a range. Those calculators are on the German pages; the cost overview below is in English.
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