Aventura 34 brandnew VS 40ft' excharter 10yo

[rancher44]

Maybe he will survive but why risk small children?

[rabbi]

Axiomoixa has to have some minimal experience otherwise he would not have the licenses required (beeing German he has to have a SBF See and SRC). And He is talking about a season in the med.

So nobody will die unless he does something really stupid.
Only risks in season in the med is to die from overcrowding, be buried under jellyfish, or get a heat stroke while waiting for any sailing wind. Or get a heart attack after beeing the tab for that cute espresso.

[jmh2002]

@axiomoixa

With a wealth of real life experience I can only confirm that rabbi and the other members are all giving you 300% good advice about what the real situation will be. In fact if anything, they are still sugar coating it a bit and trying to be positive. It could easily be worse... We have all seen it.

But again as others have said, nobody is saying don't go, don't do it, we are saying do go, and do it, but within more realistic parameters.

Once there doing it you will actually find that out what is important, and that is being there and doing it, and having a fabulous time with your wife and children, and not worrying about what boat you have and if you can afford it.

This is by far the best comment and should never leave your thoughts:

Originally Posted by Rumpi

As for the money part you need to think like this: the boat has no value and every single euro spent on it is forever lost.

And the whole post is a very good practical working example of how to achieve what you want - not about the sailing part, but about the OWNING part.

Originally Posted by Rumpi

Going to the bank for big money is just crazy, you definetly don't need to do that. Let's make an exercise on this boat: https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/200...ea-37-3543164/
Advertized price 29 000€, VAT paid, Croatia, we asume the boat has no structural problems like soft decks or osmosis.
The good things:
It has a three cabin layout, meaning it can serve as a family boat for the next 10-15 years even if one of the kids is a girl.
It has hot water and an oversized bathroom with shower. This is important since you need to fit a child with you in there to be able to wash it properly. Actually a rare feature even on bigger boats. It also has a cockpit shower. Tankage might seem big at first glance but is barely adequate with 3 kids.
It has a refrigerator. Must have for cruising with kids.
It has a sprayhood and bimini. Must have in the Med.
It has a sugar scoop stern with a closing walk trough transom. Essential for boarding from/to a dinghy while handling a toddler.
The not so great things:
There is no room for a generator. You can put flexible solar panels on the bimini but you will end up with a Honda on the sugar scoop.
You will need a watermaker, preferably a high capacity AC one.
There are a few items that will need to be adressed, but they are not actually specific to this boat, they likely will be the same for any boat older then 5 years. Engine service including changing all hoses and wear items. Toilet service (very important), water system inspection. Trough hulls replacement. Keel bolts replacement, standing and running rigging inspection and replacement. Propane system inspection. Autopilot backup. Etc.
At a budget of 60 000 spending half on the purchase leaves you with 30 000 for the needed work. Even if you have to spend it all (wich could be the case if you need to repower) going to the bank for 10-20 000€ in order to have a comfortable cash cushion while cruising is vastly differrent then having to repay over 100 000€.
My advice: buy a boat in this price category and do the needed upgrades. Take it when you find it, even right now, the work will take some time. Haul it out and keep it on the hard until ready to go, it's cheaper this way. When you are done cruising keep it on the hard and launch only for the anual cruise.
What you need to do for the actual cruising part is: get a radio operator licence and do a boat manouvering training with your wife (it actually is important that both of you understand what is going on and what will happen next). The most challenging things you will have to do are the docking and anchoring maneuvers in crowded harbours. Best is if your wife is driving and you are doing the deck work not the other way around. Normally, women have better hand-eye coordination and men superior strenght and it makes little sense to have you turning a wheel with your finger and her fending the boat of. There are trainings designed just for this aimed at charter capitans.

As for the money part you need to think like this: the boat has no value and every single euro spent on it is forever lost.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by axiomoixa

Still waiting for their reply.
Our manager is on his Elternzeit, and his substitute is on her summer vacation.
We should hear back early August.

And their response?

[axiomoixa]

Originally Posted by rabbi

And their response?

Sorry for the late update.

The bank has approved our 6-digit loan.
Now we are think what our options are...
leaning toward something new or relatively so to not have any unexpected repair bills.

[rabbi]

Normally I would say congratulations ... but somehow I am not convinced you have any clue what you are doing.

You are playing with 2x of what you managed to save in your entire life and the outcome may very well be a financial desaster you will never recover from.

Cruising adventures are great - but finaincial adventures like this are not.

Good luck - you will need it!

[axiomoixa]

Originally Posted by rabbi

Normally I would say congratulations ... but somehow I am not convinced you have any clue what you are doing.



You are playing with 2x of what you managed to save in your entire life and the outcome may very well be a financial desaster you will never recover from.



Cruising adventures are great - but finaincial adventures like this are not.



Good luck - you will need it!

In fact I figured that we have less cash than I thought we had. Maybe we have only 40k.

Why is it so bad to have a loan for a boat? We are getting a pretty good interest rate.
Comparing this loan to our property loan, it isn’t thaat big. I mean we are not clean from debt anyway.

A relatively new yacht shouldn’t have any surprising repair bills. What are things do we need to watch out for?
Of course decision and responsibility are ours, we would still like to hear more to make informed decisions.

[rabbi]

This is not the board for financial advice but lets be really naive. Say all goes perfectly well:

You manage to get a 100k loan on a 100k used mono.
You manage to find a 100k boat in perfect condition three months ahead
You cruise 6mo and nothing breaks.
You manage to sell the mono three months after the trip for 90k

So you have 12months of ownership, based on the wild guess we had before that will be 12k for mooring, insurance, maintenance and 12k for financing.


Of these 12months you want to cruise 6months. During these 6 months you have greatly reduced income. Say you need an additional 1k per month to feed your family and pay the costs at home. Another 6k.

So you lost 10k on the boat, had 24k boat expenses, and 6k living expenses. This nicely matches your 40k savings.

Is this realistic? Nope.
Obviously we forgot all the costs around the main trip, trips to find the perfect boat, survey costs, preparation costs, all the little things you will buy to prep the boat.
And we forgot the broker to sell the boat. Another 5-8k.
Rip a sail, touch a dock, kill an engine and things get nasty.

The economy seems to be going down. Boats are expendable assets and prices drop sharply in a recession (unless over-compensated by increasing demand like in the cat market). The 10k loss on the resale of a mono could well become 30k.
Especially since you are an unexperienced buyer and that perfect 100k boat was probably worth only 80k from the beginning.


Now what will the bank do if you want to sell the boat, but the proceeds are not enough to pay it off and you have no money left to cover the missing 30k?
Is it the same bank that holds the mortgage on your house? Read the fineprint on that contract as well.

[real_goat]

I can only repeat myself. Charter some boats in different locations, use airbnbs in between, tour around the Mediterranean. This will be cheaper in the end, you will enjoy the sailing part more and you can calculate the costs beforehand.

Your plan will not work and it will result in a huge financial loss.

[CrazyC]

Don't listen to nobody, live your dreams!

The financial part of it is not a big issue, I'm a Greek from Kavala and I can tell you that if you open a charter company in Greece with one boat (almost no paperwork needed) its going to cost you almost nothing and you can easily charter your boat for 12-16 weeks per year. Except that you can rent out your boat as a nice home, tourists that are not going to sail just to live on the boat that is a other good income as it is very popular at the moment.

To do that I would buy the aventura 34, it looks like a nice boat and I think for around 200k tou can have it done with all comfort, brand new. But I'm also pretty sure you can not have it delivered the next day.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by CrazyC

Don't listen to nobody, live your dreams!

The financial part of it is not a big issue, I'm a Greek from Kavala and I can tell you that if you open a charter company in Greece with one boat (almost no paperwork needed) its going to cost you almost nothing and you can easily charter your boat for 12-16 weeks per year. Except that you can rent out your boat as a nice home, tourists that are not going to sail just to live on the boat that is a other good income as it is very popular at the moment.

To do that I would buy the aventura 34, it looks like a nice boat and I think for around 200k tou can have it done with all comfort, brand new. But I'm also pretty sure you can not have it delivered the next day.

just wishful thinking...

[purvisgs]

Doubtful you will listen, since you've blatantly ignored plenty of good advice from more experienced folks, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

-Find yourself a used boat that's been recently upgraded/refit, within your budget. (You decide what the budget is). You've made it clear you have expectations of "newer good quality" and want something that won't break down often.....but you don't yet have an understanding of value/quality in the yacht market. A new cookie cutter monhull is just that, built to a pretty thin profit margin and nothing special, with no guarantee of reliability. The first month or 3 whether we're talking new or used boat will involve quite a bit of breaking things and replacing or upgrading either way. The good deals (value) in the yacht market are on boats where someone has already, recently spent the money.


-Set aside some $ for emergencies & repairs, 30% suggested earlier is a good ballpark, though I'd argue for more given your experience.


-At least try to get a clue (do some research) about depreciation on a NEW boat, and time on the market to sell a boat. The theoretical 100k new monohull will be worth 70-80k the day after you buy it. That's in a good, almost ideal scenario with it sitting on the market for only a couple of months before it sells. subtract broker fees, moorage, insurance, maintenance, etc. After a year or 2 it's worth maybe 45k-65k, but again it could easily sit on the market for months or years, while you continue to pay for upkeep. That is the current situation, but extremely variable...

If you MUST have a "new" boat, at least let someone else take the biggest part of that initial depreciation, and look at boats in good shape that are a couple years old. (within your budget hint hint nudge nudge wink - a newer 20-30ft etc weekender could be plenty of fun for the family- you'd just have to plan differently)...

Now this is the multihull forum so people were expecting to find some interesting catamaran discussion, aside from your questionable math..

Again the smart choice is to look for well maintained, recently upgraded older boats. You could go the monohull route or you could look for something like a ~30-37ft Prout catamaran.

Get some time on the water & look at as many boats as you can, without a rush to buy something. Buy the smallest boat that meets your needs, as the difference in maintenance upkeep etc expenses between 30ft & 40 ft is exponential. What you think you want now, having never sailed much will certainly change after a few weeks or months of sailing..

Buy your first boat cheap, figure out if your wife and kids will even tolerate the boat life, figure out what the dream boat actually is, save up a little more money...and buy the big boat later

I didn't search much but...Here are a couple of MULTIHULLS that might be within your budget (I'm not saying they are specifically good boats or good value, just that you may be able to find some similar examples upto 35-37 ft within the same price range).

https://www.apolloduck.com/boat/catalac-9m/616072
https://www.theyachtmarket.com/boats_for_sale/1699554/
https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/197...maran-3119199/

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by axiomoixa

Sorry for the late update.

The bank has approved our 6-digit loan.
Now we are think what our options are...
leaning toward something new or relatively so to not have any unexpected repair bills.

Somehow I just though of you and your plan.

If you followed your dream of buying a 100k monohull to use a year and then place into charter you are now pretty much ****ed I guess.

Any updates?

[axiomoixa]

Originally Posted by rabbi

Somehow I just though of you and your plan.

If you followed your dream of buying a 100k monohull to use a year and then place into charter you are now pretty much ****ed I guess.

Any updates?

Hello rabbi,


thanks for thinking of me.
Yea, we are pretty ****ed. I'll let you know how everything goes as we know more.


Bleib gesund

[Grasshopper1234]

axiomoixa,

I appreciate that this is probably a very touchy subject, but could you maybe write a this-is-what-happened-to-me to end this thread? I'm asking because your last post was absolutely heartbreaking, and I sincerely hope you and your family are okay. Authors like Rick Page, Mark Nicholas, and Beth Leonard all tell similar tales, but they lack the gut-wrenching emotions that go along with the first-person perspective (even though they all have at least some first-hand knowledge). Not that it's any failing on their part or a knock against their abilities as authors. Rather I think they have the survivor's perspective because they made it through their trials and landed on their feet. I'm much more interested in the folks who didn't. There's something parental about their advice that makes it less impactful... it's probably their wisdom.

Also, I feel your pain in looking at lower-cost boats right next to newer, prettier, cleaner, and more luxurious ones. I'm selling my house to try my hand at the liveaboard life, and I'm trying to heed the wisdom on the Rick Pages, and Rabbi's of the sailing world. Boats are easy to get emotional over and lose perspective. It's hard, but threads like this are real-world, first-person gut-punches that can help a lot of people like you and me. If your last post was to be taken seriously, and that's exactly how I took it, your experience could well benefit others, and maybe keep someone from repeating the same mistakes.

The thread played out exactly like what my mind does when I look at how to approach the transition, what type of boat I'm going to buy, and how much I'm going to spend on it. There's the tug of war between my dreams and what is sailing reality. This thread is beautiful and tragic.

Originally Posted by axiomoixa

Hello rabbi,


thanks for thinking of me.
Yea, we are pretty ****ed. I'll let you know how everything goes as we know more.


Bleib gesund