Hello....my BIG assumption...

[Prairie Salt]

...Sailboats are cheaper than Trawlers.

Alright, I'm sure that's trigger way to start.

My wife and I live smack dab in the middle of Canada on the Prairies. We are in our 50's planning retirement and cruising Bahamas is high on our winter get away list.

My assumption was the motor cruisers would be hundreds of dollars a day to run. That would take the fun out of it. (talking just fuel, not the whole usage cost)

Having shopped for the last 6 months for sailboats some of my issues have been, interior space, power, draft, wife's knowledge of sailing, waiting for wind, running diesel anyway, etc....

The fact that Bahama's is largely sitting around and someone mentioning that sailing is the most expensive way to travel I came over the Trawler side of things and am very intrigued.

There are a lot of pluses!

Just a "Hello" as I won't ask a bunch of newby questions, but use the search button first.

See you in the forums!
Paul

 

[FWT]

Welcome. That's a fun first post.

Doing anything, going anywhere, on any kind of boat is guaranteed to blow past any budget you might create. Acceptance of the problem is the first step in the addict's rehab plan. Don't do it to save a dollar. Do it because its a helluva way to enjoy the dollar.

 

[HopCar]

Welcome Aboard!

 

[mvweebles]

Welcome aboard. If your assumption is powerboats are much more expensive to run compared to sail, your assumption is WRONG, at least at displacement speeds comparable to sailboats. See attached chart- total cost is around 4%-5% more (at most).

You may want to check out CruisersForum- a sail oriented sister site to TrawlerForum.

Recent thread on Efficient Bluewater Trawler in TF might be interesting, though please ignore the noise about what exactly does "efficent" mean.

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65701

On CruisersForum, there's a guy who is a fulltime cruiser in Florida/Bahamas and has compiled 6-years of detailed costs on his sailboat - all-in including insurance, transient dock fees, trips home, dental insurance, repairs, etc. Does not include initial purchase of boat. Works out to around $53k/yr.

I worked out the attached chart showing that if you run at modest speeds and 2000 nms per year, full time cruising would be around $2500 additional per year. Around 4%-5% uplift for power. A rounding error.

Hope this helps. Definitely helped me plan costs for retirement.

Peter

 

[Prairie Salt]

Welcome aboard. If your assumption is powerboats are much more expensive to run compared to sail, your assumption is WRONG, at least at displacement speeds comparable to sailboats. See attached chart- total cost is around 4%-5% more (at most).

You may want to check out CruisersForum- a sail oriented sister site to TrawlerForum.

Recent thread on Efficient Bluewater Trawler in TF might be interesting, though please ignore the noise about what exactly does "efficent" mean.

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65701

On CruisersForum, there's a guy who is a fulltime cruiser in Florida/Bahamas and has compiled 6-years of detailed costs on his sailboat - all-in including insurance, transient dock fees, trips home, dental insurance, repairs, etc. Does not include initial purchase of boat. Works out to around $53k/yr.

I worked out the attached chart showing that if you run at modest speeds and 2000 nms per year, full time cruising would be around $2500 additional per year. Around 4%-5% uplift for power. A rounding error.

Hope this helps. Definitely helped me plan costs for retirement.

PeterView attachment 133110

Thanks this is great info.

Some variables....

Retirement for us is living on a boat 4-5 months a year and spending our summers here. We have a great social community and have no interest in cutting ties.

All we need/want to do is cruise Bahama's for 5-ish seasons to start.

This is not hard core daily cruising. The cost narrows with that timeframe and I am feeling the luxuries of a Trawler is worth the extra money.

Initial buy in cost seem fairly similar for what we would want. 40' or so.

My research is fresh however.

 

[Comodave]

Welcome aboard. And then we discuss quality of life…

 

[Prairie Salt]

Welcome aboard. And then we discuss quality of life…

Looking at your boat I believe you figured that one out.

 

[Comodave]

My boat isn’t as economical as our last one but we had reasons for trading away from our trawler. But the myth that sailboats are cheaper is just that. And unless you like living in a submarine like setting trawlers are much more open and airy.

 

[Prairie Salt]

It took me awhile to figure out the variables of sailboats in our range.

Starting over.

 

[psneeld]

Both have their places.

In the tropics where little time is spent below, sailboats come into their own, especially Cats and Trimarans where the extra deck space for lounging is more than welcome. Some trawlers with the larger houses with lots of windows become greenhouses compared to some sailboats that with good awnings can be kept reasonably cool even below decks in the trade winds.

Sail can be economical, but then so can trawlers unless the miles add up.

If OCD about sailboat rigging and sails like some sailors, the tide reverses and fortunes can be spent replacing sails and rigging long before many other sailors do.

You can have a budget and still fulfill a dream (though roughing it may be part of that depending on the budget) or you can have a dream and then you better be prepared to finance it. There is no easy answer there are so many variables that can be factored in.

Simplistic opinion....coastal cruising, a possible loop or more and short (1-3 month) trips to the Bahamas annually and I would heavily lean towards a trawler. If spending 90% or more time cruising Florida, the Bahamas and even thinking of further south into the Caribbean.... I would go sail or motorsailor with serious consideration towards a Cat if the budget allowed.

 

[Simi 60]

On CruisersForum, there's a guy who is a fulltime cruiser in Florida/Bahamas and has compiled 6-years of detailed costs on his sailboat - all-in including insurance, transient dock fees, trips home, dental insurance, repairs, etc. Does not include initial purchase of boat. Works out to around $53k/yr.

Always amuses me
Spends a fair bit more than us running a sailboat boat half the size

 

[Prairie Salt]

Both have their places.

In the tropics where little time is spent below, sailboats come into their own, especially Cats and Trimarans where the extra deck space for lounging is more than welcome. Some trawlers with the larger houses with lots of windows become greenhouses compared to some sailboats that with good awnings can be kept reasonably cool even below decks in the trade winds.

Sail can be economical, but then so can trawlers unless the miles add up.

If OCD about sailboat rigging and sails like some sailors, the tide reverses and fortunes can be spent replacing sails and rigging long before many other sailors do.

You can have a budget and still fulfill a dream (though roughing it may be part of that depending on the budget) or you can have a dream and then you better be prepared to finance it. There is no easy answer there are so many variables that can be factored in.

Simplistic opinion....coastal cruising, a possible loop or more and short (1-3 month) trips to the Bahamas annually and I would heavily lean towards a trawler. If spending 90% or more time cruising Florida, the Bahamas and even thinking of further south into the Caribbean.... I would go sail or motorsailor with serious consideration towards a Cat if the budget allowed.

Good assessment, thanks.

Budget is a funny thing.

Balance of compromises.

 

[Portage_Bay]

This tale may help you gather your thoughts. A buddy, his wife and two young boys cruised from Puget Sound to Mexico to Hawaii to Alaska and back to Puget Sound abroad a sail boat. They were gone a year. It would be a serious challenge to accomplish that on most power boats. Yes, I know there are boats that are capable but they tend to be expensive to purchase. While an affordable sailboat can make that voyage.

While they were gone I was living abroad a Tolly. Getting ready for retirement cruising the PNW.

They arrived near my dock upon returning. Late in the day and low on provisions. I greeted them and said I'd head back to my boat for dinner fixins. The boys tagged along. Seeing my boat and comparing it to their familie's cruising boat they said "It looks like a living room!"

I got a good laugh out of that but they were absolutely right. I kept my thoughts to my self that they lived in the bottom of a wine glass piled on top of each other.

Do you want to make long blue water passages? Or shorter voyages in comfort? As Mvweebles says total costs aren't that different.

We want our living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Yeah, I know, landlubbers terms.

 

[Simi 60]

Comfort level and performance needs to be taken into consideration as well

To get a sailing boat that can do a consistent 7.5 knots AND offer us the same comfort level we enjoy now will be many times more expensive than what we have now.

Or, for the same money as what we have now we get a sailboat with about 1/3rd of the space

 

[Prairie Salt]

This tale may help you gather your thoughts. A buddy, his wife and two young boys cruised from Puget Sound to Mexico to Hawaii to Alaska and back to Puget Sound abroad a sail boat. They were gone a year. It would be a serious challenge to accomplish that on most power boats. Yes, I know there are boats that are capable but they tend to be expensive to purchase. While an affordable sailboat can make that voyage.

While they were gone I was living abroad a Tolly. Getting ready for retirement cruising the PNW.

They arrived near my dock upon returning. Late in the day and low on provisions. I greeted them and said I'd head back to my boat for dinner fixins. The boys tagged along. Seeing my boat and comparing it to their familie's cruising boat they said "It looks like a living room!"

I got a good laugh out of that but they were absolutely right. I kept my thoughts to my self that they lived in the bottom of a wine glass piled on top of each other.

Do you want to make long blue water passages? Or shorter voyages in comfort? As Mvweebles says total costs aren't that different.

We want our living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Yeah, I know, landlubbers terms.

Yup....that's exactly why I'm here.

We've had many forms of camping. Northern remote canoeing in small tents, tent trailer camping, trailer camping, cabin, 5th wheel.....we've accepted we like to be comfortable.

 

[Delta Riverat]

One bathroom?

Nah, ya need 2 bathrooms. Not to mention both heads have bidets -

 

[Portage_Bay]

One bathroom?

Nah, ya need 2 bathrooms. Not to mention both heads have bidets -

Oh yeah. We have two bathrooms. One has a stand up shower. The other a tub and shower. No bidets. We don't want 'em.

 

[HopCar]

If you’re headed to the Bahamas, you’ll want air conditioning. You’ll also want a flying bridge to navigate in shallow water.

 

[Crusty Chief]

You’ve come to the right place for a wealth of information. Take your time and soak up everything you can. Only thing I have to offer is, 40 feet may close in on you if you cruise on it for more than a couple of month’s at a time.
Cheers

 

[DDW]

If you are thinking sailboat in the Bahamas, make sure you check the draft. We were down there in ours, 6.5' draft, which made about 1/2 of the cruising area off limits. On the other hand you can safely visit all of the Caribbean on a 24' sailboat which will cost next to nothing, I would not feel comfortable doing that on a 24' power boat.

 

[socalrider]

This seems obvious, but important: do you and your wife love sailing? If you don't, or are ambivalent about it, then you probably shouldn't get a sailboat.

Personally I'd want to go back to a sailboat if I were doing serious ocean passages, or if I was younger & childless & broke again, living and dirtbag cruising on a 32-36' sailboat would be a blast.

I do love sailing, but my wife and kids not so much. Still have the itch - just looked at a Tayana 52 - gorgeous boat, but really any more room than our CHB 41, and pretty scary loads on the rig in a breeze for my newbie crew. We passed. I'd consider a cat, but they are a lot of $$ and the cruisers don't provide the sensory experience of sailing that I'm used to.

 

[Prairie Salt]

This seems obvious, but important: do you and your wife love sailing? If you don't, or are ambivalent about it, then you probably shouldn't get a sailboat.

Personally I'd want to go back to a sailboat if I were doing serious ocean passages, or if I was younger & childless & broke again, living and dirtbag cruising on a 32-36' sailboat would be a blast.

I do love sailing, but my wife and kids not so much. Still have the itch - just looked at a Tayana 52 - gorgeous boat, but really any more room than our CHB 41, and pretty scary loads on the rig in a breeze for my newbie crew. We passed. I'd consider a cat, but they are a lot of $$ and the cruisers don't provide the sensory experience of sailing that I'm used to.

Good points and its not an straightforward answer.

I love sailing, but I don't have big water experience. As you mention I love the sensory experience.

We will be late 50's when we take this on and to sail there would be plenty of skill prep to do, more so for my wife. We are active people with busy summers...short summers. Is it realistic to dedicate the time to ready?

Trawler cuts the learning curve significantly.

The goal is to escape our cold winters and have freedom of movement.

Thinking out loud....

My concern is does looking out on the sunset get spoiled with constant generator sounds? Do we have to raise our voices to talk when cruising?

 

[mvweebles]

Engine and generator installation (including sound proofing) is typically much, much better on a powerboat than a sailboat. Part of the refit of my tiny Willard 36 was to install 2-inch Soundown deadening material (lead with special foam). It was expensive, but I have zero desire to have a loud diesel. My Generator is encased in a sound shield and is within the engine room. Are they audible? Yes - sort of a low-frequency hum. I find it soothing.

That said, many of my top boat-related memories are sailing. I remember crossing from Bahamas back to Florida on a friend's Irwin 52. Perfect 12-15 knots of wind on beam reach, flat seas, 85-degrees, and a light rain that felt wonderful. Really a beautiful day to be alive- I don't remember being happier to be on a boat. But....on that same trip, we side-tracked 10-miles to get around a shallow area that my W36 could easily have gone through; anchored up to a mile off the beach due to 7-foot draft; and were faced with the Hobson's Choice in West End of either opening hatches and being devoured by no-see-ums or closing the hatches and being slowly roasted by the heat and humidity.

One of my best friends was an avid sailor. He single-handed his Brewer 46 Pilothouse Cutter out of San Francisco. In any given week, I could find him aboard 3-4 times. That all changed when he started to crew for me delivering mostly Nordhavns up the California coastline - pretty tough rides but he immediately fell in love with being aboard a powerboat and no longer constantly exposed to wind, spray, and cold. He now owns a 52-foot Powercat (not really a trawler) and loves being out on the water.

Personally, I think the hot setup would be a trawler big enough to carry a pair of Lasers (or similar). Many anchorages are stellar for dinghy sailing. And let's face it, dinghy sailing is perhaps the best sailing experience possible. I'm surprised this type of compromise isn't more common (in fact, I've never seen it - have seen dinghy's setup with a sail rig, but usually not a great example).

In closing, as someone up-thread alluded, if you're really crazy in love with sailing, a trawler won't cut it. But if you're goal is to be on the water and live a reasonably comfortable lifestyle, trawler is hard to beat. And a 36-foot trawler is probably 25% faster than 36-foot sailboat simply because they make 100% of their headway in the desired direction, sailboats are sometimes under-powered, and the props on sailboats tend to be less efficient.

The numbers speak for themselves: I'd guess 50+ sailors convert from sail to power for every one powerboater who coverts to sail. All that said, as SoCal said, if I wanted to cross an ocean, I would opt for a sailboat simply because an ocean-crossing powerboat is out of my budget.

Good luck - hopefully you can hitch a ride on a decent trawler (or charter one) and get a firsthand answer to your question about noise.

Peter

 

[Hippocampus]

I love sailboats. Everything about the sailing life. But now have power and life is good. If you’re going to do skinny water like the Bahamas draft is everything. Last sailboat drafted 6.5’. Felt comfortable in Georgetown (chicken harbor) but stressed elsewhere. Power has multiple advantages for Bahama cruising over sail unless you’re on a Omni or Boreal or similar extremely low draft center boarder.

 

[PM]

I have owned my trawler for about ten years. Some years I use it a lot, some years not so much.

I am by no means affluent, I am retired and have enough money to get by. A few bucks in my pocket and a few stashed away for emergencies.

Cost of fuel has never been a consideration regarding boating. It is probably the smallest expense of owning a boat. Some years I only buy diesel fuel once or twice a year. I don't even care how much per gallon it costs.

I'm surprised the other boaters on this forum have not made a similar statement although it is a pretty well known fact.

pete

 

[Hippocampus]

Yes agree Pete but OP wants to be a cruiser. We are modest in our travels and try to stay at 70-80% of hull speed but not infrequently go at 10kts for days. Year isn’t over and we’ve burnt 600 x 3 or 1800 g. Expect 2400g before the year is out. Speaking with acquaintances on 40-50’ boats that’s not uncommon for cruisers. Apparently true for folks just going up and down the east coast with side trips. More for those going Maine to Bahamas with the seasons.
Still once your use pattern means you don’t return to your home port except maybe once or twice a year other expenses are greater than fuel.

 

[mvweebles]

East Coast cruising is indeed different - almost exclusively day-trips. And there are a lot of reasons to throttle-up to make time such as bridge openings.

Best I can tell OC Diver (Ted) seems to be somewhere within rifleshot of normal for east coast cruising. I believe he said he averages 4000 nms and 1500 gals per year on his 45-foot Independence, roughly similar to a sailboat in that it's speed-limited. For folks starting up north, 4000 nms may be normal, but many start from Florida and do fewer miles.

When I built my comparison to the sailor-guy with 72 consecutive months of expense records, I used 2000 nms and 750 gals for comparison. No idea whether 2000 nm is the right number - I suspect first year was much higher, recent years lower.

My hunch is that for 80% of the trawler-style cruisers, TCO between sail and power will be roughly the same, maybe 5% higher or lower. Where the gap would become demonstrably greater is with a LOT of miles each year such as a circumnavigation (remember, capital cost of boat is not included). Or where an owner powers-up past hull speed, which is the case the OP fears; and 9 of 10 sailors compare when claiming the low-cost high ground.

Peter

 

[Shrew]

Almost all operating and maintenance costs between power and sail are about equal. (e.g. electronics, various house systems, steerage, batteries and electrical, etc). What is different is very basic IMHO

Power: Larger engine(s), fuel consumption.

Sail: Having standing and running rigging along with sails along with a diesel engine, albeit smaller, has 2 propulsion systems to maintain.

 

[Hippocampus]

Agree with peter. Our numbers are a bit higher due to two trips done mostly at 10kts due to obligations to others. We’d be right on the 1500g if we kept it at displacement speeds only. Still new to this and enjoying the ability to go up to 17kts if we want or need to. Enjoy just speeding up to avoid a crossing or make it to a more pleasant anchorage before nightfall. It’s a trade off as long as you anchor and don’t use slips it’s cheaper to speed up. Wife doesn’t like anchoring at night. I like having enough daylight left to anchor and reanchor if necessary to feel secure for the night. This time of year like to be where we’re spending the night around 4p. While cruising don’t like stress. I’ll burn more fuel to avoid it.
Sailing numbers vary greatly depending upon use pattern. If doing passage you can’t take the chance of anything breaking. So standing rigging is replaced around every 8 years. Even with modern fabrics shape is lost to creep so usually at least some of your suit of sails are replaced <10 years. You’re replacing running rigging constantly bit by bit and using stayset or pure none creep, non stretch line. Blocks and such last longer but still occasionally explode. This is very different than the coastal sailor who can wait for something to break before replacement.

 

[socalrider]

Very good posts.

On engine & generator noise: agreed with Peter's posts - my 40' sailboat (Perkie 4108) was significantly noisier under power than my CHB41 (2x Lehman 120). I can fit so much PV on my bimini (700W) that there's no need for a generator for my use case - I really don't like them. Would be tougher to fit that much PV on a sailboat.

My wife and I (and thus our kids) both have serious skin cancer in our family, so being able to pilot on passages from inside, or from a well shaded flybridge, is very important. Passages are much less exhausting when you're out of the elements and noise levels are lower.

One big difference - I very rarely take the trawler out for a day trip. Motoring around SD bay for me feels boring and pointless. I used to daysail weekly in my First 405, but the wife & kids didn't care for it much.

If I had the space I'd keep a sailing dinghy on the boat. A laser like Peter suggested, or something newer & lighter like the RS Aero. With less space and only me and the wife I'd build a PT-11 nesting dinghy with the sailing rig - perfection!