How often do you use your boat

50+ boats on the marina ranging from $1.8m to $30000 some have never moved in 3 years some are polished every month and never taken out .Most are used as somewhere to spend the afternoon on with friends but never go out . Of the 50+boats I see 8 are used as floating weekender's .Is the marina I'm on any different to where you live ? I'm out and about and away from the marina at least once a week am I strange ?

Probably typical of marinas here in the states also. Never have really figured out why. From a cost/benefit standpoint it does not make a lot of sense. But perhaps $500 a month (or whatever) for slip rent is just figured into the budget, and is not a big deal. I dunno. Good question.

I have managed on average to leave the dock roughly 12 times a year At my particular marina, that puts me in second place only to a small converted life boat the owner goes fishing in.

On the other hand, I live on my boat. . .so depending on the meaning "use", I'm using my boat 24/7/365 (which is one reason I moved on)

Most of the boats here are derelicts. Slips get paid, I rarely ever see anyone down here though. Couple a live aboards. . .one old guy working on his fishing boat. . .my slip neighbor comes down when it's nice and hangs out, boat never leaves the slip.

I did see one boat leave after 5 years of watching it sit. There is a Catalina 350 or 381 on the other dock. . .never seen an owner, never seen it move, never saw a light on. Last 4th o july, gone for e the day. Next morning, tied up like it never left It looks now like the frame has been removed and the canvas, but now has had a brow tarp on it for a couple weeks.

Most of the marinas out here in Little Creek are full of boats that go no where. I'd say 90% of boat traffic is small fishing boats from back up in the creek. . .

Having a 90 footer I know what you are talking about.
I think a boating family with boats start out small and grow bigger and bigger over time but also the age of the family
as the kids get older they have their own families and no time to get together as the family group like they did in the past .
Just to busy with their own lives.
"Cats in a Cradle and the silver spoon" song from Cat Steven's
Is pretty much it.

I use mine every day unless it is fogged in. Then I sit aboard. We have a short season here so it only makes sense to use the boat. I was out three times yesterday. First on the powerboat, then I went for a row, then for an afternoon sail.

To the OP. Not sure whether you are strange or not. But to get away at least once a week you have certainly got your life organized!

My 1981 boat had done 1950 hours when I bought it, and for all but 18 months of that it was owned by the same guy. So he averaged around 63 hours a year. He had one trip to Alaska which would have accounted for a fair bit of that though.

I've done about 160 hours a year since the refit, but intend to be doing a lot more than that once I get some house stuff sorted. I'm on the boat a few times a week but other life activities are stopping me getting away on it as much as I'd like.

Across from me is a Hatt Sportfish with 12V92's in it. I've only seen the owner down there twice in the last 3 months. He cant drive it anyway, he has to get a Skipper to move it for him. Nearby are some liveaboards who go nowhere, some transient folks in yachts and a charter boat that is used quite a lot. I go out more than most!

Every other week is my norm. Lately and with above average rainfall in Florida, this has been extended to once every three weeks. Work, a house to take care of, and a lengthy commute to the marina (~2 hours) makes more frequent trips difficult.

My goal is one day a week with several hours of engine operation each, but it averages about 35 days a year.

Two to there times a month on the average.

I've steamed 1000 hours over nearly 3 years. This includes a few lengthy passages as well as regular day trips and overnighters. Add, say, 500 hours at anch[STRIKE][/STRIKE]or = average 9.5 hours per week.

Now to get this amount of use, maintenance (old woody, old Gardner, too many systems) would average out to around 10 hours per week of my (slow) time.

Of course, retirement is a given for my kind of boating.

I am on my boat spending three nights or more at least once every four weeks from March Through October. Thats the bare minimum.

The reality is that during March I dewinterize mot of the boat and start my upgrade and or maintenance projects. This is generally four nights aboard, but this year was 10 nights.

April is finishing up getting the boat ready for summer, thats another four nights.

May we start going out and this year was six nights aboard.

June was 11 nights aboard

July was another 11 nights aboard

August so far has been 6 nights aboard with another three to four yet to go.

Spetember is maintenance time four nights generally

October I winterize the boat, three or four nights aboard.

This year the wife has spent 24 nights aboard with 20 of those anchor'd out.

So we take our boat out 7 times a year and I sleep on the boat something between 50 and 60 nights a year.

Not bad considering our short season, and the issue that we have a lakefront home that we really like to be at in the summer as well.

Not nearly as often as I would like. However, when I get the bills for things on the boat I feel like I am yachting. Does that count?

The good thing is when we leave the dock we are usually gone several days or weeks.

My reply to this question used to be "as often as I can, but not as often as I'd like." This worked out about once every two months actually going out, but I go down to the boat on average once a week, never less than a fortnight, just to do stuff. Eg, check bilge pumps, battery status, clean off bird dodo, etc, and have a coffee while I'm at it, especially if I'm going to run her up to temp, so it feels like I'm using it, sort of...

gaston said:

some have never moved in 3 years some are polished every month and never taken out .

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I'm a bit strange too. I've never polished it in 3 years, but I'm out at least once a week.

Sea Q said:

Having a 90 footer I know what you are talking about.
I think a boating family with boats start out small and grow bigger and bigger over time but also the age of the family
as the kids get older they have their own families and no time to get together as the family group like they did in the past .
Just to busy with their own lives.
"Cats in a Cradle and the silver spoon" song from Cat Steven's
Is pretty much it.

Click to expand...

Harry Chapin.

Usually once a year:

Launch in May or June, cruise SE Alaska and/or BC for 2-3 months, and pull her out in late August or early September.

Last two years every day. Sold meridian 6 weeks ago and closing on new one next week. Hope to be full time cruising for at least five more years. Spent almost forty years doing weekends only.

We bought this boat in 2010. That year, and 2011 and 2012 and 2013 we put about 100+ hours a year on the clocks. Then in 2014 we put in a swimming pool. Now we're lucky to get 50 hours on it.


The flip side is I find I'm spending a lot more time IN the water than ON the water.

Moonstruck said:

Not nearly as often as I would like. However, when I get the bills for things on the boat I feel like I am yachting. Does that count?.

Click to expand...

I hope so as I spend 3 hours a day...five days a week, on board doing projects!

Could it be that a boat to many, is "The Other Woman" even though it may be more costly? While we achieve at a minimum. over 100 hours away per year, I spend agoodly amount of time chewing the rag with like minded Harbor Hounds between. It would seem a cult at times discussing boats, mugging up with telling and retelling of dreams, voyages, and money spent.

I hear between the lines of above posters similar sounds. Using our boats is a highlight. caring and house keeping is the pleasure of their harbor time.
Good subject, thanks for offering it.

Al-Ketchikan

It's only a 5-6 month season where I am. I'm generally out of state working for all but 2 months of it. So to most people, my boat probably seems to sit around a lot. I still manage to put a touch over 100 hours a season on the engines. When I am home, I spend as much time aboard as possible. I'll take her out 5-6 days a week. Last time I was home, I basically lived aboard for the two weeks I had off. I'm planning to do the same thing next time I'm home.

I'd say well over half of the boats in my Marina get regular exercise.

I think that what the OP has noticed seems to be the same for just about every marina I have ever been around. I know in our current marina, Shilshole is SEattle, we have about 1,000 slips. And it is amazing how many boats never seem to go anywhere. And these are not wrecks, old junkers. I see many boats in the $1M plus range that just sit there. Even on holiday weekends, the times you would think everyone would want to be on their boats, I look around and at most maybe 20% of the slips are empty. We use the boat as much as we can. We average 300-350 engine hours a year. We are on it around 50 nights a year, we do day and evening cruises just for fun. I paid a lot of money for it, put a lot of hours into keeping it up, and I damned sure am going to use it as much as I can.

I would say our Marina is similar the boat next to mine has been here 8 years and never been out

in the winter (our season) I use mine 2 times a week at least if not daily the rest of the year 1-2 times a month

We live and work about a mile from the boat. Being on dauphin island, AL we have a long season. We usually head for the boat nightly for a couple of beers and go out at least every other weekend for an overnight stay. In the winter we head south and made it to Key West last year and were liveaboards for four months or so. Still need that diver though to keep the stuff off the bottom.

With the boat 1/2 hour away, I'm down there a few times a week just doing "Stuff". The wife and I try to get out, at least for an overnight about every ten days or so with an occasional 3-5 day trip..100 hours so far this season, with the best cruising weather still to come.

You Realize You Have the Ultimate Adventure Craft

RCook said:

Usually once a year:

Launch in May or June, cruise SE Alaska and/or BC for 2-3 months, and pull her out in late August or early September.

Click to expand...

The one thing I miss is having a trailer Cruiser. There are so many places to cruise with a boat that can travel over land at 55 mph to get that distant cruising ground. Then having the advantage of planing at 24 knts and sufficient range to cover 3 or 4 hundred miles between fuel gives you the opportunity to cover so much water in your three month window. Mexico, Alaska, Powell, The Inland Water Way, Mississippi River, 90% of the places most of us want to explore is possible and practical on a boat like yours. I really miss the variety of cruising a trailered cruiser offers. On the road I would pull into a KOA and climb into the boat for the night. Weekend trips pack the boat in the back yard hook up and leave. A lot of good times and a lot of adventure.

This really all boils down to all the posters that come on here and ask....."What kind of boat should I get?"!!! And it is the sort of psychoanalytical advice I think about and the kind of advice that a broker "should" consider when consluting with a client. The reason why these boats sit around is that people have a dream when they buy them. And they want that dream to become reality. Sadly the gap between that dream and reality is just too wide and unrealistic. So the boat sits. It is a dream unrealized. An expectation that was just too out of whack with reality. People don't realize that owning a boat is not all palm trees and umbrella drinks. There is a lot of expense and hard work that goes on between those great times. Also people are unrealistic about how their lives are structured. You actually have to have TIME to enjoy your boat(and maintain it) and make a committment to enjoy it. That sounds simple enough but the truth. The previous poster that bought the pool and cut his boat time in half is a perfect example. The structure of his life changed and so did the usage of his boat.

Anyway, I am always charged with the "person that uses his boat the most" in whatever marina I have resided in. I use it a solid 200+ hours a year in a day/weekend application. Doesn't sound like a lot but averages out to about 2 times a week.

I blame this all on my daughter. She left for college and between the horrific college bills and the trips up to see her once a month we didn't have the time or money to put "Angelina" in the water. Summers were filled with jobs and internships in strange cities. Tuition kept going up then there was the "super senior" semester.

Once we recovered from that my job went away and I had to pickup jobs as I could. This meant no substantial vacation time during the boating season.

This year we've had so many deaths in the family that there was no time between hospitals, wakes and funerals to splash her and little desire to use her.

She sits patiently under her shrinkwrap awaiting next year.

So to answer your question, I haven't been using the boat much lately.

It's a tough question to answer. We took the boat out of the slip about once a month when it was in Carrabelle, about 45 mins from our home. A little less than a year and a half ago we moved it to Stuart, about a 6 hour drive away.

SE Florida is much more conducive to Bahamas trips than the panhandle, but is not (IMHO) nearly as nice a weekend destination. There aren't a lot of anchorages there in my experience, though there are a lot of marinas.

Since the move we have only gone on one weekend trip, but have made 3 trips to the Bahamas, two for three weeks each and one for a week. We also brought our little boat down to Stuart over Spring Break and fished in that area while staying aboard for about 5 days.

In addition, I travel down to South Florida about once a month for 3 to 5 day stretches for my work. When I'm down there I stay aboard and do a lot of maintenance. Not having to stay in a hotel those nights covers my slip fees. All told we put about 120 hours a year on the motors.

I would like to use it more, but I'm not unhappy with my time aboard.

I spend about 5 nights on solid ground every year.

The last time I was at my marina it was about 10% charter, 5% live aboard, 10% that are out a few times a year, and the rest are just floaters. I have been in the great lakes so who knows what has changed.

The marina is not very friendly when it comes to power and water, but dose not bother me. The cheap dock (smaller boats) only has a set of outlets and hoses every 60'. The 2 docks for the small and medium boats has a 15 amp outlet and water for each slip. The dock for the large boats gets a 30 amp outlet with a 20 amp breaker for each slip with water. If you run a good charger 24/7 and us an inverter it's not that bad.