Wealth ! . . . How Yacht Owners Are Perceived

[capttman]

Wow only in the ood ole USA do we worry about these things...LOL why

[Pelagic]

Thanks Gord for providing us with the ideal measuring stick. (As usual)

Charlie’s history and work ethic is similar to my own and while I don’t worry about what others think of me, I do strive for accuracy whenever I interact with them.

As Redcobra illustrates those judgments are selective with certain items like “yachts” as red flags.

Captman, this is not a US discussion, but I do admit that the recent debt ceiling debate where “Private Yachts” were being spoken in the same sentence as “corporate jets” in the context of paying your fair share… got me thinking…

Will yachtsman become one of the scapegoats in a struggling world economy?

As others have said…the dream of going to sea in your own boat, is what stimulates many to create industry, jobs and comparative wealth to earn that freedom.

If that incentive is demonized, would it help the economy and is there anything we can do about it?

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by smurphny

Boat equipment and materials vendors think we are all rich.

I dont really think that statement is fair...
I hear often the remarks of how much I'm charging, or how much the cost of something is.. The facts are, it costs to own a Boat, be it 28 or 45 foot,, and most owners had the knowledge going into the ownership of a boat the cost would be around 10 to 15 % yearly to maintain or up keep on the vessel.. not counting the up-grades..
A boat is a luxury,
The cost of owning and maintaining a boat is expensive.. suck it up and get on with your life... or give it up and go back to living on land...
I get tire of hearing people bitch about how much it cost to own a boat..
Like I've always said,
If you cant run with the big dogs,
Get your butt back up on the porch.........

[JDGreenlee]

IMHO, in one sense being thought poor or rich is inconsequential, rather it is crucial to be judged strong, knowledgeable, and fair. While Machiavelli argued it is better to be feared than loved, today one might better settle for "respected" for manliness, usefulness, and honest frugality. I, much like you, had the misfortune to know both rich and poor bastards, and the true pleasure to know both rich and poor gentlemen - but most fall in-between (btw, my experience is that both profound poverty and profound wealth breed mostly bastards). It is one's ability to quickly and accurately judge where on that continuum each new acquaintance falls (and the discipline to act accordingly) that earns one friendship and respect of honorable men, or simply respect of lesser men - not the size of your toys. But with women it is different, “If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.” Aristotle Onassis

[Capt Phil]

What is so different about ones home being on the water as opposed to one who lives shoreside? Just because I have a comfortable home is it different because it floats or has a basement?
Having lived in both, I prefer a boat and if someone calls it a yacht, I'll just raise the price when I sell her.
If someone calls my home ashore, a mansion, does it garner the same derision?
I've never owned both at the same time so one is a boat and the other is a house. Go figure... Capt Phil

[Butler]

Pelagic gets at the most relevant aspect of this thread for boatowners U.S. or not. All of us who use boats will be painted with the same brush when it comes to raising revenues. That's the big problem. Beuracracies don't do well with the fine points like, this woman owns the Maltese Falcon and that guy lives on a Coronado 27 on some tiny pension check and there isn't much chance that that John Q Public will be worried about the distinction much either. The exception would be in large long established boating communities where there is a history of working stiffs who indulge in boating. These days in SoCal that history is forgotten because the communities are scrambling for money and it is convenient to lump boat owners together ... we are an easy target because of the perception of wealth and that we engage in a frivolous past time and as usual it's the working stiff who gets the bad end of that schtick.
So cultural perceptions of boatowners as wealthy can have a very real impact on the boating communty. I don't care what people think of me until...

[savoir]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

I dont really think that statement is fair...
I hear often the remarks of how much I'm charging, or how much the cost of something is.. The facts are, it costs to own a Boat, be it 28 or 45 foot,, and most owners had the knowledge going into the ownership of a boat the cost would be around 10 to 15 % yearly to maintain or up keep on the vessel.. not counting the up-grades..
A boat is a luxury,
The cost of owning and maintaining a boat is expensive.. suck it up and get on with your life... or give it up and go back to living on land...
I get tire of hearing people bitch about how much it cost to own a boat..
Like I've always said,
If you cant run with the big dogs,
Get your butt back up on the porch.........

Of course it's fair.

Wander down to your local hardware and check out the price of some basic boat items that they will probably carry such as paint or string or rope. They are always 20% cheaper and then some. Do the same check next time you are in your local fishing or camping supply place.

Chandlerys cost a bomb. Stop by Westmarine some time.

Consider one small example. Home Depot charge $2.24 for a 5/16" gal anchor shackle while Westmarine charge $3.79. For stainless the prices are $4.70 and $12.99.

[Boracay]

My feeling is that's its not the money that gets on peoples nerves, more its the freedom we have.

Most know that they will never be able to move as freely or as comfortably as we can, nor will their environment be as good.

Of course if a cruiser is rich as well that's really rubbing their noses in it.

[Dick Pluta]

Sadly, the question of perception is right at the core of this issue. We are retired and planned our retirement carefully. We are of modest means, but use them to the fullest extent possible. We live in Europe each summer and travel around the continent. This year we went to Tuscany for a couple of weeks. We toured Cornwall as well. We have a boat in Florida where we spend time in the winter. Rich, fat cats, right? Hot shot jet setters, right?

My neighbor has a house in Florida. He buys a new Cadillac every two years. If he said I went down to Miami, or the Jersey Shore, or the Tennessee mountains, or the golf country of South Carolina, or the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania or...well, you get the idea...no one would blink twice because lots of them go to their happy place as well. If they go to Dollywood or the Super Bowl or fly out to see the kids in California, it's a family vacation. If I say I went to see the opera in Verona, I'm a fat cat.

It's not about being rich. It's just a choice. I know people who spend the best part of a million dollars on a house at the shore. I spent a hell of a lot less on a small apartment in Paris. Who's the fat cat? Me or the fifty or so people I know who have vacation homes. I can't tell you how many times I have heard "I want to be you". Well, there's a damn good chance that you can. Just make the same choices. Don't get me wrong. We have a great life, but it's not how much we spent. It's how we spent it.

Dick Pluta
AEGEA

[Sabbatical II]

What I like about the cruising community is that respect for the members is not based on the size of anyone's boat. It's more a respect that we all are of value as individuals, we all do it different ................and lets all drink to that!

Greg

[smurphny]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

Like I've always said,
If you cant run with the big dogs,
Get your butt back up on the porch.........

What an inventive and original statement!

[savoir]

Originally Posted by Dick Pluta

Sadly, the question of perception is right at the core of this issue. We are retired and planned our retirement carefully. We are of modest means, but use them to the fullest extent possible. We live in Europe each summer and travel around the continent. This year we went to Tuscany for a couple of weeks. We toured Cornwall as well. We have a boat in Florida where we spend time in the winter. Rich, fat cats, right? Hot shot jet setters, right?

My neighbor has a house in Florida. He buys a new Cadillac every two years. If he said I went down to Miami, or the Jersey Shore, or the Tennessee mountains, or the golf country of South Carolina, or the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania or...well, you get the idea...no one would blink twice because lots of them go to their happy place as well. If they go to Dollywood or the Super Bowl or fly out to see the kids in California, it's a family vacation. If I say I went to see the opera in Verona, I'm a fat cat.

It's not about being rich. It's just a choice. I know people who spend the best part of a million dollars on a house at the shore. I spent a hell of a lot less on a small apartment in Paris. Who's the fat cat? Me or the fifty or so people I know who have vacation homes. I can't tell you how many times I have heard "I want to be you". Well, there's a damn good chance that you can. Just make the same choices. Don't get me wrong. We have a great life, but it's not how much we spent. It's how we spent it.

Dick Pluta
AEGEA

Reminds me of the neighbor who spent $20,000 pa on his hopped up waterski race boat while I spent $5,000 pa on my Etchells. He called me a rich cat as he drove off in his Cadillac and I drove off in my Honda Accord.

You get used to it.

[Kettlewell]

I recall an incident in the Bahamas many years ago. We were anchored in our 30-footer in Hawksbill when a megayacht came in and anchored near us. The crew on the yacht scurried around, lowered the 30-foot "dinghy", set up a set of boarding stairs on the side that lead down to a small floating dock at the bottom where the dinghy was docked, and then stood by in uniform as the owner came out dressed in a bathing suit, an untucked old shirt and a battered hat and practically skipped down those stairs like a kid at the zoo. He gave us a huge friendly wave as he went by headed towards the beach all by himself. There we were in the same anchorage, enjoying the same view, doing the same things, and our boat was worth a lot less than his dinghy. Unfortunately, to the struggling average taxpayer or the lawmaker in Washington we are both "yachtsmen." Same in most countries you will visit. However, I have found that you can always break through that layer of perception with the way you act and the way you treat other folks.

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by savoir

Chandlerys cost a bomb. Stop by Westmarine some time.

Consider one small example. Home Depot charge $2.24 for a 5/16" gal anchor shackle while Westmarine charge $3.79. For stainless the prices are $4.70 and $12.99.

Yes thats true, as I said, your boat is a luxury item and everything for it is also luxury, even though the shackle you feel is a nesessary item for the anchor,
Its the same thing with cars.......few years ago, I checked on a starter for a Cad, it was twice the price of a chevy starter but was the exact same part.. If you can afford to drive a Cad, you can afford to pay the extra price..
the same follows true with Boats........
Because we live and exist in the boating community, we just assume that all are as we are, but they're not..
We live a meak live and store money away for cruising, rent out our homes and do without those things like refridgeration, air conditioning, long hot showers, and spend our free time keeping the systems, and the boat itself afloat.. Most people dont have the time, the effort, or the funds to follow the same as we do, Its a luxury,
The same as the guy, who buys his bar-b-q and his big screen and all his football garb for the weekend games, its a luxury..
Or the Kid who drives his new Chevy Camero Convertable, with a New Harley in the Garage and a jacked up 4x4 for mud runs..its a luxury..
Being you own a boat, and pay for the items at extreme prices, its just the same as the guy with the Cad, the dude with the Big Screen, or the Kid with the Harley, you pay an added price because its a luxury..
Your boat is a Yacht, maybe not to you or your boating friends, but to "joe public" you're living in Luxury

[Lexam]

Originally Posted by scook1

Sometimes I find a great difference in the way the word "yacht" is received, and the way the word "boat" is receievd. Yacht has a negative, rich connotation. Boat is fun and friendly.
Spencer

I aspire to have a Megaboat then