Maintenance

Lifestyle II sits out of the water, on the hard, at Rock Harbor Marina in Nashville, Tennessee. The crew is enjoying the time off the water to catch up on home duties and celebrate the marriage of B.J. and Tiffany. We chose to take the boat to Rock Harbor for a couple of reasons.  The main reason is that it is only a 30 minute drive to our house and second, the folks at Rock Harbor are easy to work with.  Boats, like anything, need maintenance.  But because boats sit outside and are exposed to various types of water, they require continual care. The work required to keep a boat in top notch condition is significant.  We are 2/3 of the way towards completing the loop and to date Lifestyle II has been through over 100 locks and is  approaching 4000 miles under her keel since we started this adventure in May. We have logged almost 700 hours on the engine and transmission. We have bumped bridges, locks and run aground twice. All this has had an impact on the boat and must be taken care of.  The cost of taking care of a boat is worthy some discussion.  The bigger the boat, the bigger the cost and most are cost are multiplied by the length of the boat.  To spend the night at a dock in a marina it will cost from $.50 per foot to $2.50 per foot depending on where you stay and the time of year. On our boat that could be $20.00 per night to $100.00 per night in Chicago.  Some even add electricity to that charge.  Pump outs (pumping out the holding tank) have been anywhere from free to $35.00 paid in Canada. Hauling a boat out of the water is $10.00 per foot and a power wash is another $4.00 per foot.  The list is endless.  Unless you have a very small boat or a very fat wallet you have to shop around and plan on doing as much work as you can yourself.  That's why it is important get an agreement from the marina as to the cost and how much work you are able to do yourself.  To pull the prop off our boat, the hourly rate is $90.00 per hour. The reworking of the prop will be around $700.00.  I can't rework a prop so it is necessary to send it off.  But there are lots of things Denniese and I can do.  While the prop is in the shop, the marina has allowed us to wash and wax the boat, touch up the bottom paint and repack the stuffing box.  We also gave some much needed attention to the aft head where the caulking had to be pulled out and the teak trim had to be be sanded and primed for new varnish.  Cabinet doors were showing wear and needed minor repair before we re-varnish.  Once the boat is back in the water, we will paint the bright work, repair some canvas, change the oil in the engine and the generator and clean the dinghy.  On the TV gambling shows they always say, "What's the buy-in?"  For boats, the cost of the boat is the buy-in.  The upkeep and the maintenance are the real cost.   Just some food for thought, before you go out and buy a boat take some boat courses on MAINTENANCE.