Logistics - South Coast British Columbia

[tecmo]

I am interested to understand some of the logistics of owning a 30 ft boat on the BC South Coast.

First some background - I don't live in Vancouver, but have in the past and my kids are starting to gravitate to that area (through university etc...). Plans would be to come up each summer for 3-5 weeks and I thought owning a boat and exploring would be a fun way to get into cruising.

Being in Vancouver, of course having a boat there would be preferable - what are the typical marina rates for a 30ft boat? Do most people keep it in the water all year or haul out (it is very unlikely that I would use the boat in the winter).

What about keeping a boat on Vancouver Island or on the Sunshine Coast? Is that easier access to better cruising areas? Note: Much of the cruising would for extended weekend type stuff - say out for 4 days at a time. Are the marina fees comparable to Vancouver?

Also - if out of the city what are the logistics for getting to -from the marina? and provisioning (without a car - as an example). Is this do-able?

thanks for any help you can provide - still in early planning right now but thinking about some options.

[beatlebug7]

Transient fees in the summer are generally about 1.50 a foot almost everywhere. Then if you want power add like 5-8$ to that to plug in. I have a 32 and budget 50$ a day if I want to be on a dock. If you want to be right downtown in the summer you can anchor for 14 days in a 40 day period for free in False Creek - though the water is a bit nasty. They do actually have a boat that comes around to pump out people now, so that's nice. There you are close to all transit. Fishman's Wharf is a great marina there really close (very walkable) to granville island, Steveston Marine and Hardware, a No Frills grocery store, and tons of restaurants.

Note: if you are planning on a weekend during things like Canada day or the fireworks festival book your slip ahead!

Hope this helped!

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by tecmo

I am interested to understand some of the logistics of owning a 30 ft boat on the BC South Coast.

First some background - I don't live in Vancouver, but have in the past and my kids are starting to gravitate to that area (through university etc...). Plans would be to come up each summer for 3-5 weeks and I thought owning a boat and exploring would be a fun way to get into cruising.

Being in Vancouver, of course having a boat there would be preferable - what are the typical marina rates for a 30ft boat? Do most people keep it in the water all year or haul out (it is very unlikely that I would use the boat in the winter).

What about keeping a boat on Vancouver Island or on the Sunshine Coast? Is that easier access to better cruising areas? Note: Much of the cruising would for extended weekend type stuff - say out for 4 days at a time. Are the marina fees comparable to Vancouver?

Also - if out of the city what are the logistics for getting to -from the marina? and provisioning (without a car - as an example). Is this do-able?

thanks for any help you can provide - still in early planning right now but thinking about some options.

Pretty much anywhere you keep the boat you will find access to food, supplies and boat maintenance—BC is a pretty well populated place and set up for the industry. The further north you go the harder it is to find boat lifts, but that is about it. Dry storage isn't a big thing in BC, but there are some places to do it and probably easier for a smaller boat.

If you are just dropping into Vancouver, I would definitely think about keeping the bat on the Island or even more out of the way places (I know someone who often has slips in Degnen Bay, Gabriola). Just come in, get the boat ready and bring it over to Vancouver for the duration. As previously mentioned you can get 14 weeks in False Creek before you take off for a cruise. Not as good an idea if the cruises are all shorter though.

If you are talking about keeping a 30 footer in Vancouver I think you will find that exorbitantly expensive for just 3-5 weeks a year. I think we figured around 6-8 weeks minimum of cruising to make any sort of sense to win a boat on the coast—otherwise just charter.

Speaking of which, that is another option. Buy a slightly bigger boat and put it into charter (Coopers is based out of Granville Island and super convenient to everything). Book your own time and let the charter co. take care of everything else. On a good year boat ownership will be close to zero (if you don't take all the prime weeks for yourself) and in a bad year it will still cost way less than owning in YVR. This is pretty much what we decided to do after we moved off the boat.