Total $ Cost to Buy a Boat & Run it From Maine to Florida

for those of you that don't know me my name is gus and i took a boat from portland maine to miami florida this is exactly how much money it took me to buy a boat and take it down the entire east coast yachting is not only reserved for the rich and famous and i'd like to be living proof that even those without a lot of money like myself can live the wonderful boat life you don't need a multi-million dollar yacht like these to have just as much fun so this video is going to be all about how much it cost me to take this boat from maine to florida [Music] wow [Music] some of you may be thinking how did this 23 year old kid afford to do this i saw everything in the comments section from he's a trust fund kid to mommy and daddy supported this trip well my parents offered me every piece of support that i could ever need but no financial support this was on me this is actually not as expensive as you may think and with some hard work it's possible for anyone the first and main expense of this entire trip was buying the boat the boat was 25 000 but rest assured you can spend a lot less than 25 000 and still get a boat capable of doing this trip the total amount of money that i had to put into this boat before we left for the trip was 11 956 dollars this number reflects material only since i was able to do all the work myself i saved a ton of money this included everything from wiring to heavy duty alternators new bilge pumps new float switches two new battery charging systems a new main battery switch new batteries a new inverter rebuilt toilet pumps all new sewage lines a new sewage tank a new fuel tank all led lighting throughout the cabins a new hot water heater a state-of-the-art garmin navigation system loaded with some of the best charts available a fresh coat of bottom paint a new oil pan on the starboard side engine a new shaft coupler on the starboard side transmission all new shaft packing for the rudders and the prop shafts and much much more so now for the question that i've heard again and again how much fuel did it really take to get this boat from maine to florida our total fuel burn on this entire trip all the way from portland maine to miami florida totaled to be 3732.86 the 1031.12 gallons at an average of 3.62 cents per gallon some of the cheapest fuel we got was in chesapeake city maryland and it was three dollars and 10 cents per gallon some of the most expensive fuel we got was in atlantic city that was four dollars and 20 cents per gallon now fuel is rising and uh it's going to make this trip a little bit more expensive our average fuel cost down the entire east coast was 3.62 cents per gallon my boat is designated as what's called a fast trawler meaning the hole is a modified v-hull type boat it is also known as a semi-planing hole this is so that you can cruise at a faster speed than a full displacement trawler well you might be wondering why would you buy a slow trawler if you could buy a fast trawler well one of the main sacrifices is that you lose your full peel a full kill helps a lot with stability so when you don't have one you lose some stability also the keel provides some prop protection for this boat that doesn't seem to be much of an issue however we decided to take the cruise at full displacement speed which immensely helped with our fuel savings my average cruise speed was eight knots at 1300 rpm with an average fuel burn of four gallons per hour some of you may remember the day that we cruised up the delaware bay to the cnd canal we had to get some miles under our belt so that we wouldn't get stuck in the delaware bay that day we ran the boat at 16 knots at 2200 rpm just to give you an idea of the difference in fuel burn at that speed we burned an average of 32 gallons per hour that day that was an expensive day but our total fuel costs for the trip reflect that day as well one of the biggest costs for people that are traveling by boat is transient dockage and transient mortgage that is one thing that we did not spend a lot of money on we mostly anchored this resulted in insane cost savings when it came to transient dockage a lot of boaters like the security of being tied up to a dock at the end of their trip and they don't have to worry about dragging their anchor they're also supplied with shore power fresh water and other amenities of being at a marina in my opinion anchoring is what really ties together an amazing boating trip we anchored in extremely remote places like sandhol creek in north carolina you go outside and there is nothing around you it is great and the best part about it it's free if you wanted to factor transient dockage into your trip expenses you'd need to consider at least two to four dollars per foot per marina that you stop at the pricing depends mostly on the location of the marina my total transient dockage and mortgage costs were 371 dollars on the entire trip down the coast the only places that we paid for mortgage and dockage were new york city it was 120 for the night we wanted to go into the city and we weren't comfortable leaving the boat on anchor so we could have the peace of mind of leaving the boat safe while we explored the city in moorhead city north carolina we paid 20 dollars to stay on the sanitary restaurant dock we did this because it just made sense in saint augustine we rented a mooring for 26 because it was rather windy and we wanted to go to shore once we got to miami we spent 205 dollars on a mooring for a week another huge expense on any boat trip is maintenance costs i made sure my boat was in tip-top shape before we left for the trip which resulted in very few issues one of the issues that i had was one of my rebuilt raw water pumps fell apart unfortunately i check my engine bay at least once a day while we're underway and i noticed this pump was leaking before it completely failed so i decided to just buy a brand new pump 450 raw water pump most of the issues that the boat had on the trip were small issues that did not require any parts to fix rather just some labor and diagnostics a lot of repairs are what i'd call labor only repairs wiring issues little leaks things that just need a hose clamp and a new terminal saltwater boats have this inherent issue with corroding parts everything turns to crap in salt water anybody can fix their own boat it's just a matter of taking the time to go on the internet and learn about fixing your own boat if you do this you will save a ton of money i did not keep track of the hours that i put into my boat labor-wise however i would estimate at the very least i put 250 hours worth of labor into my boat i would say the average marina charges about 100 to 120 dollars per hour for their time yeah do the math on that one my only other maintenance cost on this entire trip was one oil change that i did in west palm beach that oil change cost me 178 dollars if i were to have done this trip on a sailboat i could cut my fuel costs at least in half if not even more one totally avoidable expense that i'll call personal pleasure which includes going out to restaurants and bars and stuff like that was thirteen hundred and fifty six dollars that's what i spent total on restaurants and bars and also includes a new wetsuit that i bought in south carolina a spear pole that i bought in south carolina and some other goodies some of that 1356 dollars also includes free dockage at restaurants that we went to for example shem creek charleston south carolina or the charleston crab house thank you guys for that so we didn't go out to eat every night we also spent a lot on groceries our total grocery bill all the way down the east coast was 609.26 this was all the meals that i cooked and all the food that we ate while we were on the boat insurance the only recurring cost that i have boat related is insurance i have a plan through progressive it's 230 dollars per month and it's an agreed value of 40 000 if my boat were to get totaled crashed into a rock sunk swept away by a hurricane you name it it's covered 230 dollars a month you can't go wrong some other expenses beer we spent 130 on beer down the entire east coast all the way to miami so what did we cover the cost of the boat the cost of making this boat seaworthy the cost of the fuel the cost of dockage and mortgage advantages of anchoring the cost of groceries personal pleasure costs like going out to eat and going to bars cost of beer and the recurring expenses like insurance and any applicable maintenance costs that applied during this trip for anybody interested in traveling down the east coast or wherever by boat i'd highly recommend a taiwanese trawler if you're on a budget i posted a really interesting article on the facebook group about taiwanese trawlers their advantages disadvantages and why you may or may not want to buy one if you'd like you can check it out the link for the facebook group will be posted in the description so with that said the total amount of money that it took me to do this trip was 43 784 dollars and that includes absolutely everything that i had to pay for to make this trip happen including the price of the boat for anybody that wants to do the full boat trip i will say 50 000 is a realistic budget for buying a boat and taking it down the entire east coast if any of you are at all curious of what it takes to drive a boat from maine to florida check out my youtube series if you like the videos let's rack up the likes and hit that subscribe button as always thank you for watching [Music] [Music] you

Channel: InTooDeep

Views: 677,407

Keywords: Boat Trip, diesel trawler, money, invest, boatlife, yolo, live free, icw, cruise, great loop

Id: dksLvkA_nIo

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2022