How the Numbers Stacked Up

NOTE: All numbers in Australian Dollars for USA readers simply reduce numbers by 30% to get to US$.

Every year I review the costs involved in running and maintaining Pendana for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I am a firm believer that all expenses should be budgeted for and secondly, I am often asked by folks (actually, it is the question I am asked most) wanting to get into boating, “How much does it all cost?” So with this in mind here is how this year’s numbers stacked up compared to the previous three years.

Budget vs Actual – Remember these are AUD$

As you can easily see we blew the budget this year by a much larger margin than any other year.

Budget vs Actual Bar Chart

Actual spend over the last four years (+/- 5%)

Note: As expense categories in 2015 have changed comparison is difficult. Apologies in advance.

Much of the over-spend in 2015 was due to maintenance with a large portion of the overall maintenance expense being preventative maintenance. The fact is, Pendana is now in much better shape than she has ever been and certainly in better shape than when she left Australian shores.

Maintenance Overspend

The main overspend in this category came directly from Air-conditioning (20K), New outside cushions (4.5K), new helm chair parts (2K), new washing machine (4.5K), new shore power cables (3.5k), new engine dampener (5K), new inverters ($6.5K), new batteries (9K), jet ski foredeck supports (2.5K), new stabilizer rams (5K) which, give or take, equates to the $60K overspend in this category.

Flights and Accommodation

The main overspend in this category comes directly from our return trip to Australia early next year. This equates to almost $20K of the overspend and is more a timing of expense issue than a real overspend.

Communication

The main overspend in this category comes directly from setting up our US mobile phones with the balance of the overspend coming from our satellite communications during the months of June and July, accounting for a $3.5K overspend in this category.

All other items came within budget or slightly under.

So what does this all mean? Well, including all of our annual expenses it means that:

From Sydney to Honolulu cost $289.36 per hour or $7,012.23 per day, or $4.83 per minute while at sea – I know not fair but a bit of fun. FYI the transit took 727 hours or 30.2 days!

We travelled some 5,400nms meaning that each nautical mile cost $38.96

Each day we were away between Sydney and Hilo cost $3,627.02 per day (58 days)

Average annual expenses over the four years is now running at $167,000.00pa

This year we spent $575.00 per day, each day, three hundred and sixty five times!

I realise some of the above sound-bites are a ridiculous comparison, as full year costs are included, but as I said, just a bit of fun with the numbers, nothing more!

As I have always said, buying a boat is one thing, maintaining it and running it is another thing altogether. I have also said that to run one of these boats comes in at between 5-10% per annum of its value and I stand by this rough estimation and the numbers so far prove it. One can easily see that taking on a boat of this type, requires a real commitment to fund her and maintain her.

For those out there that who possess a little more electrical and general maintenance skill than I, you could potentially shave $20K from the overall number as well as another $10K in one particular spare part I didn’t need to buy, but realistically no more than that. You simply can’t cut the bill in half and think you will be ok. The reality is that these boats are complex machines with key areas of competence required in electronics, I.T., mechanics, plumbing, navigation, customs entry requirements, pilotage and on and on it goes. There are only maybe two or three Nordhavn owners that I know who currently possess all the skills required out of the hundreds going to sea! So a word to the wise, do not under-estimate the costs involved of running a boat if you want to own it longer than a year or not go broke!

So the average annual expense per year to run Pendana is now A$167,000.00/US$116,000.00 (after tax dollars) not including food, entertainment, school fees, fuel for the car, clothes, doctors, dentists and the list goes on (easily another $100K++). While there is no doubt that this is a material number it is a number that some of my fellow Nordhavn owners in larger models, would no doubt love to see on their spreadsheets. I remember Claire and I looking at the Nordhavn 86 and thinking emm that would be nice, until the reality of between half a million and a million dollars per year to run the thing would cost. Sadly, our pockets are simply not deep enough!

While I do not wish to dissuade people from following their dreams, after all, we are a long time dead…..I think it is important to have some sense of what these boats require in real terms before it all ends in tears. There is no doubt that we wouldn’t have our lives any other way as the freedom we experience from the material world is life giving. After-all, it’s the time we now have to spend together (priceless), the time spent travelling and exploring our world and the time spent meeting new and exciting people which is what really satisfies the soul. Not, and I repeat NOT, the material trappings of the modern world.

To have a larger home, a faster car, a smarter watch, a better handbag, the latest shoes, brand name clothes or to collect ‘things’ for the sake of it is, to completely miss the point. To quote Mark Twain, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” I have often said, and continue to say, life is for living and life can only be truly lived by the brave who are prepared to challenge life’s norms rather than succumb to them.

Challenging life’s norms is for Claire and I, something we have always done and I guess we will always swim against the tide. Don’t get me wrong, this life of ours, this brave life of ours is not without its problems. Four people, on a boat with limited space is sometimes a recipe for disaster. Have there been arguments? Sure there have. Is it a challenge living in a confined space? Yes, no doubt about it. Do we miss our friends? Of course we do. Would we have it any other way? No. The fact is we struggle with the same things most families do and we celebrate and enjoy the same things as well. With one teenage daughter and one soon to be a teenager there are the inevitable conflicts that I believe everyone has to deal with. As such, doing what we do does not make us the perfect family - far from it - but it does make us a real family.

When we all think back to our land based life we laugh and find it hard to comprehend that we spent as little time together, as a family, as we did. Busy with this and that doing the school runs, after school activities, tennis lessons, music lessons, drop offs for sleepovers and play dates etc, lunches, brunches and whatever else. Going to Bunnings / Home Depot to see what was new and the latest must have tool or simply filling our days with more of nothing. We are now a family, and I know for me personally, I now know my children better than I ever had before and surely that has to be a good thing? I now have the time to spend talking with Abi for hours on end as we discuss everything from her latest science experiment to why she can’t learn to drive in the US (she, is still struggling with the concept that she can’t get a social security number!!). Bianca is doing things we never thought possible and is always so excited to help out in the engine room! Yes! Can you believe it? That being said, she is more excited by going to the beach with Claire. Claire, well she now has more time on her hands than even she thought possible. Time to read, time to spend with the much loved cats, going to the beach, going for walks and time to spend with all of us in abundance is what she now has. For me, well, there is always something to do on the boat and the view is always pretty stunning. To have loved ones always close and available; well, that is priceless. So is it all worth it? Yes!

The Year That Was…….

2015 Miracle of the Year!

Removing broken bolt from stabilizer mount.

2015 Most Memorable Moment

Crossing the Equator

2015 Most Frustrating Moment

Trying to fix the potentiometer on stabilizer

2015 Best Sea Photo

In reality it was much bigger than it looks here

2015 Best Photo of more than one Nordhavn

Infinity and Pendana together in the Port of Hilo

2015 Biggest Fish Caught

Actually heading should read, “The only fish caught”!

2015 Best Anchorage

Musket Cove, Fiji

2015 Scariest Moment

Refuelling in Kiribati alongside the jetty from hell!

2015 Word of the Year – ‘Mermaid’

‘Mermaid’ Word created by Martin from the Chasse Spleen – Lots of mermaids passing Pendana each day here in Waikiki that’s for sure!

2015 Best Sunset Photo

Waikiki Yacht Club

2015 Best Burger

Cheesecake Factory

2015 Worst Job of Year

Replacing the Fresh Water Pump -eleven hours in all for a job that should have taken one!

2015 Sadness Moment

Saying goodbye to our precious, Caesar The Magnificent

Pendana is no doubt in better shape now than when we left Sydney and my hope is that next year we can keep our expenses under $175K, a little higher than I would like but next year we will be hauling Pendana out of the water and doing a wide range of jobs to renew her and prepare her for the next few years of travel.