Repossessed Boats and Their Costs: Current Prices 4

In common with most repossessed boats of her size and type currently on the market, the Ericson 30 + comes with a single standard layout and a standard package of basic equipment.

We have spelled out what is standard; our list of supplemental items consists of other gear we think is needed for a reasonable use of the boat.

Of course we omitted personal gear such as bedding, bikinis, pots, pans, and toilet paper; we want to talk about what it costs to buy a boat, not to support a lifestyle.

For a similar reason we did not include financing costs in our list. However, because in this day and age, financing is so often a consideration, we did work out separately a typical financing schedule for our total "purchase."

In shopping for our boat we went to Larsen Marine Service in Waukegan, Illinois, and yacht broker Don O'Keene.

In our opinion, Larsen Marine is a fine yard and O'Keene a knowledgeable and honest broker.

His first step in dealing with a client is to try to tell the client how much the boat he wants is really going to cost, so he was quite willing to price out the Ericson 30+ and our choice of gear.

Note that in providing prices for the items we chose, O'Keene gave us only list prices.

In negotiating the bottom line price of a boat such as the Ericson 30+ many dealers offer discounts, "packages," optional items as "standard," and so forth.

Such price variations are so numerous that they make it impossible to discuss boat pricing as we have done here were we to take them into account. Instead, we chose to price our boat with no "deals" (which might reduce the total by 5%).

Larsen Marine is what might be termed a moderately expensive boatyard.

Its labor rate is $23 per hour; all yard-installed gear on our list is installed at that rate.

Larsen Marine also has a flat rate of $885 for commissioning an Ericson 30 +.

Many owners would choose to do all or part of the commissioning themselves, but, again, the variations would make the alternatives im­possible to explore here, so we give the flat rate. Note, though, that the Ericson 30+ comes from the factory with bottom paint.

Note, also, that we have included professional documentation costs and the insurance premium for the first year in our evaluation of the cost of repossessed boats .

Although we do not ordinarily consider these costs part of the price of a boat, we include them because many buyers do have to figure them in the pur­chase price, just as they may add the rental of marina space or a mooring (we did not include marina or moor­ing prices, however). Incidentally, usually insurance and sometimes documentation is required for financing.

In the end we wound up with a $8,500 base-priced boat that cost us nearly $10,000 by the time she was fully fitted, commissioned, documented, insured, and taxed, almost a 50% increase over the figure we started with. Realistically we then played with our long list of options, culling the more extravagant and less essential ones.

In doing so we could have dropped the final price by almost 8% yet still a figure that can be disturbing and discouraging if we had hoped to buy the boat at close to the base or listed price.

We would like to emphasize that boats are not an "investment" in the sense that you make money on them.

They are toys, expensive toys. Accepting the general rule of boat value, the typical new boat depreciates at 10% the first year after purchase, 5% the second year, and does not depreciate the third year.

Thereafter, you can expect about 5% per year appreciation on the "average" well-kept repossessed boats, assuming a continuing high inflation rate.