How To Save Money Sailing On A Budget
Sailing on a budget can mean different things for different sailors. We’ve seen sailors with budgets much larger than ours, and sailors with budgets much less than ours. That is one of the beautiful things about the sailing world – you can do it on any budget, with a bigger boat or a smaller boat!
After looking at our 6-month budget check-up, we learned we were slightly over budget for our first 6 months of sailing. We also completed some projects this summer, that we had not budgeted for in our established sailing expense categories.
What does that mean? Time to trim down our spending! I came up with 7 ways we save money while sailing on a budget to help keep our spending in check.
7 Ways To Save Money Sailing on a Budget
1. Do Your Own Engine Maintenance
Cost Savings: Approximately $400 per oil change
Every 100 hours of runtime on our 75hp Yanmar diesel engine and our 9000KW Kohler generator, we change the oil and oil filter. Approximately annually, we also change the fuel filter and the engine coolant. We also periodically clean the air intake filters.
In addition to the diesel engine and generator, we also do our own boat maintenance (oil change, etc.) on our 6hp Yanmar outboard for our dinghy.
Another good reason, besides maintenance costs, to do your own engine maintenance is to know your engine better. When you are out sailing and something happens with your engine, you may be the only person around to fix it!
2. Do Your Own Hull Cleaning
Cost Savings: Approximately $150 – $350 per cleaning per month, depending on conditions and where you are located
While we were still working at our jobs, we hired this work out to a couple of awesome guys in Mobile, Chase Sumrall & Pat Davis, who did a great job cleaning the bottom of the boat in alligator invested waters. They even did one last cleaning for us in the cold waters of January!
We knew when we quit our jobs to sail full time, that we would have to start doing this work ourselves.
Scott cleaned the bottom of the boat a couple of times in the Bahamas, and two more times in the Chesapeake. He uses his Nemo dive system which really helps him stay under water longer and get the hull cleaned much faster. He much preferred cleaning it in the Bahamas, and not the jellyfish infested waters on the east coast.
3. Do Your Own Cleaning and Waxing Of The Hulls and Top Decks
Cost Savings: Approximately $1,500 per wax job on our 45-foot monohull sailboat
This is one job we have always done ourselves to save money sailing, even while we were working.
We had our sailboat hauled out in September 2022 before we left, and we waxed the hull of the boat while she was on the hard. We admittedly had not done this work since we bought her in February of 2020, so we compounded then polished the hull, then finally waxed the hull.
In August 2023, Scott cleaned and applied the wax while she was in a slip.
We did the same thing with the topsides in 2022 and 2023.
4. Do Your Own Sewing Projects
Cost Savings: Approximately $500
Before we started out sailing, I very much fell in the beginner category for sewing. I started out making cell phone holders for the cockpit and other small projects just to get the hang of using my Husqvarna sewing machine.
About 2 years later, and I have made the following items for the sailboat:
- Cell phone holders for the cockpit
- Koozie cover for the French Press
- Winch covers for our four winches
- Grill cover for our Magma grill
- Fender covers for four fenders
- Curtain and pillow covers for the salon
- Two fantail seat cushions
I have been fortunate to get help from my mom, Scott’s mom’s friends and family along the way! Next on my list is a hatch cover, and replace the eisinglass in our cockpit enclosure.
Note:
Not quite comfortable to do the eisinglass replacement myself, we did contract this out for our three front dodger panels. This cost us $1,600. Needless to say, as we are sailing on a budget, I will look at what they did on the front three panels and do the rest of the enclosure panels myself.
5. Do Your Own Running Rigging Inspections and Replacements
Cost Savings: Approximately $800
Running rigging are the lines that are used for raising, lowering and trimming sails on a sailboat. Overtime, they become worn from use and/or damaged from the sun.
It is important to inspect them on a regular basis, including those that run up to the top of the mast.
This year, it was time for us to replace our most-used running rigging. We replaced the following lines:
- Jib sheet lines
- Main sail inhaul line
- Main sail outhaul line
- Spinnaker Halyard (We don’t actually have a spinnaker, but we use this line frequently for lifting the dinghy in and out of the water, and hoisting Scott up and down the mast).
6. Sanitation Hose Replacement
Cost Savings: Approximately $2,000. Or, according to Scott, $20,000 which is what he said he would pay to have someone else do this job as he was in the middle of this crappy job!
So, this is a job that NO ONE wants to do! It was smelly, it was messy, and it was very challenging getting the new hoses reattached to fittings located in challenging locations. For example, we have no more than a 2-inch clearance above the discharge hose fitting on the forward holding tank that is located underneath the forward bed; very challenging with a 1-inch diameter hose turning 90 degrees to the fitting!
In addition to replacing the hoses for the forward head, we pulled out all of the sanitation hoses for the aft head, removed the toilet and replaced it a composting head. I’m sure this work would add to the cost if we hired someone to do this for us.
7. General Boat Repairs, etc.
Cost Savings: Approximately $2,500
Many of us have heard the saying “BOAT stands for Break Out Another Thousand.”
Things are always breaking on a boat, so you better learn how to do repairs on your own, or it can get really expensive really quick and dwindle down the cruising kitty fast.
We have learned a lot about boat repairs and maintenance over time. We have learned from the generosity of people helping us out along the way, as well as the wonderful world of YouTube.
The most recent repairs we have learned how to do ourselves include:
- Removing and resealing windows and hatches that were leaking
- Fixing our dinghy davit after a boat ran into us and bent it! Yep, that happened this summer…
- Fiberglass repairs on our top deck from normal wear and tear (or violent overnight passages in the Gulf of Mexico)
- Basic electrical work like splicing lines or switching out lights so we could add fans into our aft cabin and salon. We also replaced the electrical plug on our washdown pump in the anchor locker
- Installing Starlink and permanently routing the cable, including drilling a hole through the boat
- Pet grooming: I used to spend $60 for a dog bath and grooming for Mangaux when we were still working. I knew this wasn’t an expense that would be feasible to keep, so I learned how to groom Mangaux and trim his nails after his baths. Having a dog on a boat can be a bit of a challenge, but he has learned to love his home spa days. Ok, not really, but I tell myself that! This is especially helpful when bringing him to the Bahamas, and not knowing if or where there would be a place for pet grooming.
Estimated Cost Savings
Wow! When I add up each item of things we’ve done ourselves since we left, we saved approximately $10,500. I honestly didn’t realize we saved that much.
Now, it is worth noting that these are just estimates and costs vary depending on who does the work, where you are located etc. Some of these I received actual quotes on, while others are estimates of what I think we would be charged.
How Do You Save Money While Sailing On A Budget?
There are definitely more ways to save money while sailing. However, I looked at the recent maintenance, repairs, and projects we have completed since sailing away in January.
Next year, we plan to haul our sailboat out and redo the bottom paint. We know there will be costs associated with the haul out, so we plan to paint the bottom ourselves. We also plan to do any other work that may need to be done while she is hauled out, to the maximum extent possible.
Do you have other ways you save money while sailing? If so, I’d love to hear from you and hear more ideas about sailing on a budget.
Live your dream,
