The purchase price is the part everyone researches. It is also the part that matters least.
The usual industry rule of thumb is that annual running costs land somewhere around ten per cent of a vessel’s value. It is a crude figure and it varies enormously with size, age, flag and how much you do yourself — but it is the right order of magnitude, and it is the number most first-time buyers have not internalised.
What the ten per cent contains
- Berthing
- The largest single line for most owners. Annual contracts in the Adriatic are far cheaper than the Riviera, and a catamaran is commonly charged at one and a half to two times a monohull of the same length.
- Insurance
- Varies with cruising area, crew qualification and whether the vessel charters commercially.
- Maintenance and winter
- Haul-out, antifoul, anodes, rigging checks, servicing. Predictable, annual, and the thing people defer until it is expensive.
- Depreciation
- Real, and usually larger than any other line. Steepest in the early years on a new boat.
- Crew
- If she is crewed, this dominates everything else.
- The unbudgeted
- Sails, electronics, tenders, the watermaker. Everything aboard has a life and they do not end at the same time.
The usage question
The number worth calculating before any of the above is how many weeks a year you will genuinely be aboard. Most private owners use their boat for two to four weeks. Some manage six.
Set the all-in annual cost against that and the per-week figure is frequently several multiples of what the same vessel would cost to charter. For many people that is fine — ownership buys availability, familiarity and the ability to leave your things aboard, none of which appear on a spreadsheet. But it should be a decision made with the number visible.
Divide the annual cost by the weeks you will actually use her. Then decide.
Where charter income fits
Placing a vessel into charter offsets running costs and can materially reduce the net annual figure. It does not turn a yacht into an income asset, and any projection that implies otherwise is built on optimistic occupancy.
It also has costs of its own: more wear, more turnarounds, a management fee, and the loss of the best weeks of the season, which are precisely the weeks you wanted.
The honest recommendation
Charter first, for at least two seasons, on the class of vessel you think you want. It is the only way to discover that you actually want a catamaran, or six weeks rather than twelve, or a boat two metres shorter than the one you were about to buy.
The people who regret buying a yacht are almost never the ones who chartered first.
Nothing here is investment or tax advice. Figures are indicative and vary widely by vessel, flag and cruising ground.