Is it better to buy or rent a boat?

Editor

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Created on Jan 30, 2021

Jan 30, 2021

Categories: Bareboats Sailor's Stuff Life Aboard

First things first, we agree with you; owning a boat is a great source of happiness for us, sailors. Though it is a wonderful idea to buy a boat, it is also a life changing decision. Many people who bought a boat are quite happy with the change and have no regret at all. At the same time, many other people who bought a boat, sell their boats in a short period after buying it because they struggle with the maintenance of the boat, they can’t sail as much as they want to and costs related to owning a boat becomes a problem for them.

What about you, which group do you think you would end up if you own a boat?

Look over your life first

Owning a boat or pursuing this passion by renting one, each have their pearls and pitfalls but more importantly, what type of a life style you have and your character is what matters the most. A boat is not something you can own only with investing a good amount of money and adding marina costs on top of it. A boat will require your time, your effort and your love. And it is always good to be prepared for unexpected costs.

If you are working at a very demanding job in a big city, your boat will stick in your mind all the time. Even though it feels a little romantic to have a lover that you can’t meet anytime you want, it sure is not sustainable either. Moreover, your boat may not welcome you every time you visit. Sea water oozed into boat from your last sail two weeks ago may have already started to damage wooden furniture inside the boat, bird droppings on deck or empty batteries etc.

If you are living a small place at seaside or have a very flexible job and if you are experienced in sailing, you may act more bravely to buy your own boat. You can learn how to do all this work by yourself and you will have a boat which is always ready to sail because you take good care of her.

A boat belonging you

One of the most attractive thing about having a boat is you can have your belongings on the boat. On a rental boat, you have to bring all the stuff you would need on the boat, you may even forget to bring some of it from time to time. But your boat is like your second home. Everything you need is already there. You get to know more and more about your boat. Even when a problem occurs on the boat, you can easily spot what is going on. Nevertheless, all of these depends on how much time and money you can allocate for your boat.

Keeping the motivation up all the time

Let’s be honest to ourselves, could it be possible that you are a little temperamental? Maybe even though you love seamanship very much; sandpapering, oiling, leaving your warm bed in the middle of the night and running to your boat when a storm breaks out or following paperwork for your boat could turn into a burden for you? How many of your hobbies were you able to pursue with the motivation of the first day? When thinking about buying a boat, you should also objectively look over your own character.

If you can handle multiple task simultaneously and have a high energy all the time, all this chaos may turn into something that keeps you alive. Living in outdoors all day long, working across aft and fore of the boat can give you happiness and health. On the other hand, being a very energic person, you may also prefer a boat at different seas to a boat that sits at the same marina always.

Which one is more costly? 

The balance between your work life and sailing life is an important issue to consider while calculating the costs. If you prefer renting a boat, you would not need to worry about maintenance of the boat, paperwork related to boat or winterizing the boat. If you know where to rent your boat from, you would get a perfect boat ready to sail anywhere you want. Enjoying sailing by renting a boat three to four times a year is much more cheaper compared to owning a boat.

If you have so much time to be on the boat and you would like to spend your summer on the boat or you would like to sail every weekend, this time renting a boat turns out to be more expensive.

Maintenance of the boat

Maintenance of the boat is a priority for your safety on the boat. It is also important to keeping the value of the boat. If you don’t take good care of your boat, service the boat and do the routine maintenance, be sure that your investment will result make a loss. For charterers who rent a boat have no concern regarding the maintenance of the boat. They even don’t do the final cleaning before leaving boat, depending on the charter company.

You can get professional support for maintenance work but if you are not hiring a full-time captain on board, there will be many tasks that you would have to take care of at the end of the day. If you are going to buy a boat, you better get your hands in how to handle a toolbox.

Freedom of sailing anywhere in the world

You can choose to sail in Adriatic, the Mediterranean or in the Caribbean at GotoSailing.com for instance. All you have to do is select your boat and get on a flight to your destination. In contrast, if you’ll sail with your own boat, you have to consider fuel cost and marina costs until arriving to the destination you want to sail, and spend weeks if not months just to arrive there.  When your sailing holiday is over, you can’t just leave the boat there and get on the return flight. You need to navigate your boat all the way back. In distant places, if you have a problem on your boat, you won’t have a charter company to call for getting help and you would have to figure out a way to solve it by yourself.

The boat as a source of happiness and anxiety

In addition to being more economic, chartering a yacht provides you the freedom of sailing in any destination you like around the world and a stress-free life. When you have a boat, if you leave your boat in a cheap boat yard instead of a marina to save cost of berthing fee at a marina, you may worry about the safety of your boat. If your boat is at sea when a storm breaks out, you’ll fret about your boat. When the time of annual maintenance comes, because of the complexity of the work that needs to be done, you’ll have to think about how to organize them, you’ll maybe feel a little guilty to spend so much money from your budget to your boat.

In the past, renting a boat was a little cumbersome because of the inconvenience of chartering a boat and limited supply in the market. However, renting a boat is now as easy as renting a hotel room so, it is fair to say that renting a boat is a stress-free alternative.

Rent first, buy later

This would be our advice. We want each passionate sailor to own his/her own boat but seeing if sea life is for you will require you to rent a boat, more than once. Finding the right time to buy a boat considering your work/life balance and financial status is also important.  One additional benefit of chartering a boat is to rent different type/model boats each time and choose the one you liked to most.

Yes, with this approach, you’ll not own a boat right after you start to dream about it. Instead, when you choose renting over owning a boat; you’ll have the chance to sail with different boats, to see if sailing and sea life is for you, to sail in anywhere in the world you like and to experience a precious and joyful period of time in which you’ll discover what you need to change in your life to own a boat and enjoy it.