Owning a boat is a dream come true. Well, that is what people want you to believe. In reality, owning a boat can be an experience only enjoyed by those that invest in luxury, and those that invest in luxury often pay ‘luxury’ price tags for everything. They get the best boat their money can buy, get the best maintenance services their wallet can handle, and have enough money to spend on the day-to-day running of their new pride and joy.
It might be a very different story for you – you might have to get a boat that is still your pride and joy, but other people might refer to it using different words entirely. You’ll also have to do everything yourself, so you’ll need to know more than just which direction to point it in. This means you’ll need to know about accidents and the ins and outs of what to do and what not to do, actually consider the cost of owning a boat, not just buying it, and also looking into your carbon footprint and seeing how your leisure affects the environment.
Accidents can and do happen
They say that worse things happen at sea, so you need to be prepared for accidents that could happen aboard your vessel. This is going to be a hard pill to swallow, but it is something that you are going to need to accept. You will need to be prepared to ‘lawyer up’ and get yourself ‘clued-up’ around boating accidents and incidents. This will be finding out things you might not know, like when is a boat operator required to assist anyone injured in an accident. In short, you need to know all of the ins and outs of running a vessel and how to be a responsible owner.
Remember to take into account maintenance fees
You are going to need to consider the expense of the maintenance fees you will be paying. Boats are a constant expense, even when they are on tow in your driveway. Even when it hits the sea, you can’t expect it to be in perfect condition for all that long, so you’ll need to make sure that you are prepared for all of the excess costs of running a boat because, in truth, that is the really expensive bit about owning a ‘luxury’ vehicle like that -even if it doesn’t feel like a luxury some of the time.
Don’t forget to think about your impact on the environment
You also need to think seriously about your impact on the environment. Remember that you are increasing your carbon footprint by a significant amount by owning a boat. You need to make sure that you have a reasonable limit as to how much fuel you can use in one go, not only to save you money and conserve fuel but to also make an effort to still be able to enjoy the pleasures of having a boat without needing to cut out the boat in its entirety. If you have a boat that doesn’t run on fossil fuels alone, you might be able to get away with using it a little bit more.
