The drive from Botolph Claydon to Arisaig is around 400 miles taking 11 hours - and costs £75 worth of petrol. This week I spent around £150 on paint and anti-foul and I will have a £350 bill to settle before leaving the boatyard so >as I was driving up I did the usual thing of thinking that sailing is a stupidly expensive thing to do and not worth the candle. However, by the time I had settled into the boat, got a glass of scotch in my hand and settled down with a good book it all felt better.
Today I wire brushed the rusty spots on the keels, hammerited them, antifouled the whole hull except the keels and masked up some of the deck.
This evening the sun went down over the Island of Rhum - beautiful sunset.
Aiming to get the boat back afloat on Monday and then sailing up to Stornoway. Really looking forward to it
Looking at pictures 1 and 4 it seems to me you got a bargain.
Well, we will be looking forward to your visit. Nice moorings or the marina to chose from – or anchor in Cromore perhaps. Kettle is on :-)
Careful Dylan, with the vote tomorrow, Scotland will close the border and you have no way home…Good Luck
Hope you brought your passport !!
I know the feeling. My boat has been in the yard for almost a week now, and I hope to be able to launch her tomorrow or the next day. Between the yard bill, bottom paint, a new propeller strut, and all the inevitable odds and ends, the total will be close to $2000 this time around (not to mention all the time spent grinding, sanding, drilling, painting, and fretting). It’s been five years since the last haul-out, so I suppose $2k every few years isn’t too bad (and it could have been quite a bit worse, had the prop shaft been bent). But it’s still a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.
“The drive from Botolph Claydon to Arisaig is around 400 miles taking 11 hours – and costs £75 worth of petrol, as I was driving up I did the usual thing of thinking that sailing is a stupidly expensive thing to do and not worth the candle”.
But it will get cheaper the further south you get…….well….up to a point any way….. and then it will get more expensive again….and then it will get cheaper …..
Not sure where this is going…but you get my drift.
Are you on two bags yet or is that just us wimps ?, and did you know that your ‘ heat your home with a tea light’ vid has passed five and a half million hits on you tube !
All the best
The cheapest way to maintain a Centaur is to KTN (Keep Going Nowhere) like the character up our creek off the Chesapeake Bay. He is anchored first, last, and always. There is apparently no legal way to force him to vacate. Unless there is some sanitary/pollution statute being violated. Shame to a Centaur going nowhere.
Not being pedantic but from Arisaig to Stornoway is turning right, going north again!! What’s happening?
You should not worry to much about Money spend on sailing. It is expensive, but you would probably spend them on something else if not sailing. Financially it won’t make any difference.
Its costing you a heap right now, but you’re on a fantastic adventure, something that most of us would love to have the time, energy and money to do! You will still be selling DVDs long after you have done the big lap! Then you can buy a cheap tow hack and keep Katie L in the backyard, and the cost of owning a small boat and sailing will be quite reasonable.. There will still be DVDs for you to make and sell us then too. I’d like to see you do one exploring the Lake district and telling us all about the history of that area.
I had similar thoughts when I had a power boat, which seems infinitely more expensive to run than a sail boat.
I had an epiphany when sailing with a friend of mine that this boating lark could be a lot cheaper if done with some forethought, hence the skint sailor ethos of doing things as cheaply as possible, so I enjoy the sailing and don’t have to keep an eye on the bank account.
Hopefully you’ll feel better once the boat is in the water and you’re doing what you enjoy doing. But for me I couldn’t enjoy it if it was costing me an arm and a leg.