Hi Verconium,
You pose an almost unanswerable question. In the boating world, the true answer to your question is "it depends". Not the answer that you're looking for! But the only true and honest answer, nevertheless.
Your true answer will only be revealed to you AFTER you have owned your boat for some time. And, as nobody can see into the future, opinions on what that answer may be (10% of boat value, 24%, blah blah blah) are only opinions, and most of them are stinky. Therefore, I can only offer you anecdotal evidence on what MY true cost of ownership for a similar vessel was.
To set the stage, my previous boat was a 1984 Canoe Cove 53, an aft-cabin fiberglass motoryacht, bought used, owned and operated by myself 95% of the time in the full-displacement (<10kts) mode over a 13 year time span here in the Pacific Northwest. The PNW is far from a 3rd-world country, but probably somewhat less expensive than the southeast US. And FAR, FAR from any $25 per hour labor! I am a confirmed DIY owner, only subbing out ownership tasks such as haulouts and major repairs that were outside either my expertise, or facilities to accomplish. Probably not atypical for the majority of those that participate in this forum.
And here's the numbers over that 13 year time:
Fuel: $41,474
Insurance: $16, 461
Repair and upgrades: $230,689
Moorage: $105, 112
Taxes: $30,369
Depreciation: $53,000
Total: $477,654
Average money per year to own: $36, 743
Note that this table does NOT include my cost of money over those 13 years. Had I chose to invest the money I paid for the boat in 2002 in Southern California real estate and financed the purchase of the boat instead, my money to own this boat would have been several hundreds of thousands of dollars additional.
And also please note that I chose to use "money" for my metric, rather than "cost". I firmly believe in that timeless adage that sums up similar financial calculations for leisure items with the summary:
"Cost-PRICELESS".
It's been worth every penny to me to date.
Regards,
Pete
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