New Rib - Any Views :-) ?

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by Paw_patroller

Annual cost estimate, average over 10 years

Dry stack - £3k
Depreciation - £5k
Maintenance - £1k
Total £9k

I reckon you should be budgeting around £4k a year for the dry stack (based on 8m boat at KB in Portsmouth which is the pricing I have to hand). I think your maintenance budget is significantly optimistic and should be considered a best case scenario.

For less than £11k a year you can have an exceptionally well fitted out and immaculately maintained boat from Solent RIB Charter for 2 full weeks and five weekends of completely hassle free boating. And your £100,000+ can stay invested and will earn you back a good chunk of what you spend.

[Pipster100]

Yes, Cockwells boats, beautiful boats and very very well made.

[Paw_patroller]

Hi thanks for this. What would you say a reasonable maintenance budget should be?
All the best

[Pipster100]

I pay around £400-500 for a service on my Yamaha 150F depending what service is required, everything else I do myself which is really just giving the RIB/trailer a clean down after use. I find the RIB so much easier to maintain than my hard boat, I prefer washing down a set of tubes to spending hours polishing GRP!!

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by Paw_patroller

Hi thanks for this. What would you say a reasonable maintenance budget should be?
All the best

I would at least double it, possibly more if you're unlucky. You're looking at £500ish to service a big outboard, and your trailer is likely to need occasional attention too. It's going to depend how hands on you are (and I'm assuming not very) but £1000 pa doesn't leave much slack if anything actually breaks or needs upgrading over your ten year period.

[Pipster100]

Paw_Patroller try not and get hung up too much on the running cost.....its a boat, its going to cost money and more than you think.

The other thing is to really think what you want to boat for, marina hopping, beach BBQs, messing about with the kids jumping off, swimming, wakeboards etc??

If you haven't been already, I'd get in touch with the guys at Ribeye and arrange a demo, also get in touch with some yacht brokers and go visit some cabin boats.

[Wave Rider]

Are the Quicksilver Activ 905 weekend any good? Its not a rib but may be of interest to you.

https://www.quicksilver-boats.com/uk...v-905-weekend/

[Limecc]

Originally Posted by Pipster100

I find the RIB so much easier to maintain than my hard boat, I prefer washing down a set of tubes to spending hours polishing GRP!!

Funny you say that, I found the opposite.

Dirt, oil and scum would get ingrained in the light grey tubes thus needing a scrubbing brush and much effort to get it moving. On top of that I had oxidation to keep at bay, requiring TFR and expensive 303 Protectant. This needed to be done every few weeks and I was getting really fed up with the chore. Then the starboard tube developed a really slow leak which was only going to worsen and it was too much.

I don't spend hours polishing my hard sided boat, I have a machine and can quickly get it done, I've only used it one time in 6 months of ownership. Gelcoat is much tougher and harder wearing than Hypalon or PVC.

[GuyC]

Welcome to the forum.

I think if you are currently very restricted on the frequency you can use the boat, the chartering option is good. You could charter a few different boats and then see what you like - hard boat, RIB, cabin, open etc before buying one.

I'll chuck another boat in the mix - Botnia Targa.

[TwoHooter]

My two-penn'orth is that it's very hard to really know what you want from a boat until you have a boat and discover what you want to do and where you want to go. And if there's a family, you need to find out what the rest of the family want to do. They might say, 'Oooh, yes, that's great, let's have a boat' and then 6 months after you've bought one you find out they don't like it for any one of dozen different reasons. We have met several couples whose kids get bored stiff after an hour or two on the boat and as a result it only gets used when the kids are doing something else.

Reading about boats, thinking about them, watching them when you go to the seaside is NOT the same thing as owning a boat. Boat ownership is a special combination of pleasure/torture/euphoria/depression...

6 years ago we thought we wanted a small sailing boat and bought one. A year later we had sold it (thankfully for the same price we paid for it) and spent ten times the amount on an ocean-going motor yacht (with a RIB as tender, which is why I'm here). Our whole idea of what boating is all about and what we wanted to do changed in that first year.

If you were thinking of spending £10k of surplus pocket money on a RIB I'd say go for it and be ready to trade up (or get out) after a year. But your budget is a bit different to that.

If it were me I would spend the first summer hiring, different boats in different places, and find out what everyone wants before you buy anything expensive. And do the RYA Day Skipper course. Please don't buy an Axopar and come anywhere near our boat until you've had some training. We've been hit 3 times by incompetent skippers and I'm fed up with it.

We have just bought a new RIB tender and a friend wants to buy our old one 'cos he thinks he'd like a boat. I've said the same to him.

[TimB]

Welcome to the forum. My 10 pence worth. Book on the RYA power boat course at somewhere that uses different sizes of ribs on the course. Then as others have said, with your qualification, hire a rib and take the family out on a nice day, see how you and they like it. I've skippered our clubs 7.5m rib and clubs 6.5m rib, but own a little 4.8m. I love ribs and everything about them. Thinking of buying larger in next couple of years, but that's after 25 years of being on different sized ribs.