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ITALY’S ADRIATIC COAST

By on August 2, 2019 in Envoy
Otranto area
At this point in our story Envoy’s still in Italy, berthed in a not-so-good marina, but in a very picturesque location – Otranto. For several days there are over 20 knot winds outside the port causing two metre seas that create a surge in the port. All the moored boats move around and strain at their mooring lines, in fact we joke that it’s a lot rougher here than in many anchorages. Nevertheless locals say Otranto is tenable in most conditions, even at anchor.
Otranto is in an area known as Apulia, steeped in history with many interesting places to see.
We arrange a taxi to take us to the historic town of Maglie and the fare is a very steep 40 Euros for about a 20 minute ride. Our visit coincides with siesta time so there’s virtually nobody around in the streets and piazzas and nothing open. For the return journey Chris negotiates a cheaper fare of 30 Euros. The driver’s a nice young guy and tells us he has a girlfriend, but that there’s a big problem with the summer high season coming. I ask him if the problem is him having to work extra long hours. “No,” he replies. “It’s due to the temptation of so many pretty girls around.”
We learn it’s much cheaper to hire a car than use a taxi and arrange a rental for 40 Euros per day to visit Lecce – one of the main attractions in Apulia and known as the “Florence of the South” with its Baroque style buildings. There’s also an impressive Roman ampitheatre in amazingly original condition discovered during excavations for a new building in the early 20th century. However the temperature’s in the mid 30s – much too hot to wander around for too long so we spend much of our time in a shady cafe soaking in the atmosphere.
We have our final day and night out with our close friend Chris in Otranto and bid him farewell.
Chris has been our companion aboard Envoy longer than any other guest and contributed not only to the fun but used his energy, enthusiasm and skills to assist with many maintenance and upgrade jobs – thank you McGyver!
The wind drops and we’re able to leave Otranto. It’s not that the sea was particularly rough, but more our lack of local knowledge of nearby safe anchorages. The Cruising Guide says they are very few, but we find our first one just three miles south of Otranto, not even mentioned in the Cruising Guide and nicely sheltered from the predominating northerly wind. We stay here two nights with about 20 smallish boats anchored during the day but only we overnight. On the first night a police boat comes to check on us about 0200hrs and leaves us in peace after a brief chat. Fishing boats also work very close to us but leave us alone the second night.

Porto Miggiano
We cruise about five miles further south to a fantastic anchorage called Porto Miggiano. I note the log that so far we’ve cruised 184 miles since leaving Lefkada in early June and not a drop of spray has come on deck so far!
Again there are many dayboats but only us during a glassy calm night.
Ashore there are hundreds of bathers adorning the small beach and larger rocky foreshore, seemingly oblivious to the heat and the sun’s ultra violet rays. People don’t go to the beach for peace and quiet here and loud music booms across the water from early afternoon.
Nothing seems to happen early around the Med, so the nicest times in these anchorages are the tranquil mornings and evenings and these times generall coincide with when the wind is lightest too.
Envoy in Porto Miggiano


Bathers in Porto Miggiano

I want to get some information about our next anchorage called Porto Castro so jump into the RHIB and go over to see some locals in a 40ft sailing cat “Second Life”. As I approach they look at me like “who the hell are you and what do you want.” (later they tell me they were very surprised to see me).
I introduce myself and they tell me Porto Castro is great, that they are going to anchor there tonight and why don’t we join them on board for dinner – a big surprise and of course I accept.
When we try to lift Envoy’s anchor we find it’s stuck. In well over a thousand times anchoring Envoy I think this is only the second time. In the water with my mask and snorkel I see the anchor’s fluke is wedged under a large flat bed of rock and the depth is about 12 metres – much too deep for me to go down and free it. So the best alternative is to let out more chain, use our bow thruster and engine to turn Envoy 180 degrees and try to pull the anchor out from the opposite direction. Actually this wasn’t so easy in a crowded anchorage with lots of small boats moving around. First I cleat a strong snubbing line on the anchor chain to avoid putting too much strain on the windlass. We reverse up steadily and first time – no luck. The second time we hear an almighty crunch and Envoy pulls sharply back from the strain. At first I think we’ve broken the anchor chain, but we have success and the anchor has pulled free.
Porto Castro
We cruise down to Porto Castro which turns out to be a great night time anchorage and really nice ashore too, but in the daytime it’s subject to residual swell and lots of boat wakes. We have a really fun night with our new Italian friends, party people Sonia, Marco, Riccardo, Matina and another with name forgotten. They have a guitar aboard and I contribute singing The House of The Rising Sun.
Interesting cove at Porto Castro

Next day we find a safe place to leave our small RHIB in the crowded small boat marina and have a good explore ashore as well as visiting the castle, towering above the anchorage.
Stunning architecture near Porto Castro


ENVOY IN ALBANIA

By on July 13, 2019 in Envoy
After we complete the work on Envoy in Corfu’s Gouvia marina our agents, A1 Yachting, clear us out of Greece and we head to Sarande in Albania just a short hop across the Corfu Channel. Our friend Chris is still with us. 
On the way a six metre powerboat overtakes us at high speed about five metres off our beam – unthinking, dangerous behavior from locals in high speed power boats can be a problem throughout the Med.
At Sarande the shelter isn’t very good as it’s fully exposed to the South while the prevailing NW winds send a swell around into the bay. We’re directed to moor quayside, but the quay was in fact just a finger about 10 metres long leaving Envoy’s stern exposed and close to a large car ferry. So we decide not to stay there but to anchor out in the bay close to a NZ yacht with a solo yachtsman aboard. With our flopper stoppers deployed the effect of the swell is considerably reduced and we’re quite comfortable.

Sarande anchorage viewed from castle

Envoy alongside a very short quay – we had to move


Both nights in Albania we eat out finding the food delicious and inexpensive with good friendly service.
View of fishing boats from our harbour side restaurant table


This is our third visit to Albania so we’ve seen many of the local sights but decide to hire a car and driver for a tour up the coast. Our driver is a nice guy called Mundi,  half Albanian and half Greek.
First we drive up to the hilltop castle for a spectacular view down on Sarande. Mundi explains that Albania was Communist until 1992 and then had a short but violent civil war in 1998 with about 2,000 people killed. It seems to be stable and reasonably safe these days and we never feel ill at ease
The sparsely populated coastline is rugged and spectacular. We stop for lunch at an unusual cafe with fresh water springs flowing through it and the water is so cold it has a cooling effect on the cafe.
Diane sitting in cafe with fresh water springs

Our other main stop is at one of Ali Pasha’s castles in Panorma Bay, an important historical stop over point for vessels traversing this coast. The castle’s still in pretty good condition and it’s easy to imagine what it was like a few hundred years back. Ali Pasha employed French engineers to design and build the castle and being a pretty ruthless guy he had them all executed upon the castle’s completion to keep its secrets. I nearly joined them in fact – as I went to step inside one of the nearby buildings a large snake slithered across the doorway just in front of me so I gave up the idea of going inside.
Inside Ali Pasha’s castle, once decorated with carpets and tapestries


We leave Albania for Italy, stopping for one night to anchor off the village of Ammou on the south side of an island called Nissos Othoni. This is a first for us and Ammou would rate as one of the nicest anchorages we’ve been into. Ashore there’s some nice tavernas and some torpedoes displayed in a memorial to Greek sailors lost in a submarine called Protefs rammed by an Italian gunboat in 1940. This is a stunning bay and we’ll certainly spend more time there on the way back to Corfu. Of course most anchorages are subject to weather and our waitress told us that in southerly gales huge waves wash right up the beach and over the road.
Torpedo and launcher from submarine Protefs



View of Ammou


Leaving Ammou soon after first light we cruise to Otranto on Italy’s NE Adriatic coastline. This is new territory for us and it’s a nine hour cruise in light winds and a sloppy northerly one metre swell – a good test for the Naiad stabilisers and they perform well. As we get within about 20 miles of Otranto a southerly current sets and we lose about a knot – not significant on a fast boat, but in our case about 15% of our speed. We had planned to anchor in Otranto harbour, but several yachts anchored there are pitching wildly so we decide to moor stern-to the quay alongside some other boats. We’re directed to a rather narrow space with a 12m yacht on our starboard side and a 6m power boat to port. As we reverse in to our position the 6m power boat moves in the wind, blocking our entry. A marinara jumps into the boat to move it away, but at the same time we have a problem securing the lazy line quickly and Envoy starts to drift to leeward away from her position. We quickly throw a line from Envoy’s beam to somebody aboard the yacht to starboard and order is restored. The marinaras here – Andrea and Fabricio are really nice helpful guys, but the shelter is quite poor with a lot of movement. There are no toilets or showers, power is only available from 1600 to 0900hrs and the cost is a rather high 100 Euros per night! At least the atmosphere and views are great.
This quayside area seemed only suitable for smallish boats but next day a huge Envoy look-alike vessel berths here proving that theory wrong. Otium is about 80ft long weighing about 100 tonnes. Her owner tells me they almost lost Otium several years ago during a sudden 60 knot gale in the Gulf of Taranto when they were unable to turn Otium due to windage on her beam and six metre seas.
Envoy moored in Otranto beside big brother



Most of the boats in Otranto are small motor boats


Otranto’s formidable castle




During our stay we enjoy one of our favorite meals spaghetti al vongole (clams) with local rose vino




ENVOY AROUND CORFU

By on July 2, 2019 in Envoy
Leaving Parga on Greece’s mainland coast we cruise further up to Mourtos – one of Di’s favorite shopping areas and also one of mine as they have an excellent hardware store and more importantly a great bakery with delicious chocolate cakes.

Parga harbour viewed from castle


At many of these small boat harbors it’s quite difficult to find a place to leave your tender as nowhere provides a designated area and you have to find a spot among the local small fishing boats. There is no real concern about theft, just finding a vacant spot.
The first night at Mourtos there’s a lot of lightning in the distance and this is always a bit disconcerting because if a thunderstorm arrives it can often bring nasty squalls and wind shifts. Our only few bad nights aboard Envoy have been during thunderstorms, but fortunately this one stays well away.
Another night we return to Envoy from ashore to find a yacht anchored much too close to us – at times only four metres away. We put out fenders but don’t actually touch during the night.
We cruise over to Petriti on the island of Corfu stopping on the way to anchor off the Levkimmi Canal and take the dinghy up about a mile to the sleepy village of Levkimmi for lunch. We’d done this before with Frank and Marie but not with Chris.
Chris and Laurie moor the RHIB at Levkimmi canal


Our Naiad hydraulic stabilisers aren’t operational at this point, but it’s been so calm that so far we’ve only deployed our other paravane system – the “Birds” once. During this time we tried deploying just one “Bird”, something we’ve never done before. Using one certainly reduces roll but induces a lean to the side it’s deployed so we didn’t like it – if we wanted to cruise along on a lean we’d have bought a sailing yacht!
We spend a couple of nights anchored off Petriti and have a great evening ashore at a restaurant overlooking Envoy’s anchorage to celebrate our 48th wedding anniversary.
By now we’ve run all of Envoy’s equipment except for the watermaker (which we plan to use a bit later when Envoy’s new owners join us for a couple of weeks) and everything is working well except for the Naiads and the B&G Network wind.
Our new air horn installed late last year wasn’t working properly and we found that its air supply tubes had kinked and blocked the air supply. It was an easy matter to replace the tubes with new slightly shorter ones to prevent it kinking again and then it worked fine.
Leaving Petriti we cruise north stopping to anchor off Gouvia town, then Kalami, Ormos Ay Stefanos and Avalaki.
View from the Durell’s White House in Kalami

During this time Chris and I spend some time trying to find the cause of a very small fresh water leak inside the main head’s storage cabinet. It turned out to be a leaking anti-syphon valve for the toilet. I didn’t even know this valve was there and it was a bit tricky to remove – but we did so and it’s now cleaned up and working properly again ready to be re-installed.
Chris working on our leaking anti-syphon valve and close-up of the valve


There’s a few super yachts around including this Australian-owned one with a helo on its foredeck

Chris and Laurie with busker in traditional costume

We spend four nights in Corfu’s Gouvia marina to sort out a couple of technical issues left over from last year. While there we catch up with Bruce and Gavin from catamaran Midi and have a great night out at a Corfu restaurant, which is a bit different as you just write down what you want to eat and mostly they have it available.
Last year we left our BandG Network Wind instrument with a technician – Dimitris – to fix. Several months ago we’d sent him an eye watering 600 Euros for parts and he says it fixed and ready to install.
So up the mast he goes and fits the sensor. “Is it working?” he shouts down. “No” I reply – dammit!
So next day he arranges for two technicians from the B&G local agents to take a look. These guys seemed to have a methodical approach and were able to fix it within an hour, so all was well. I could have bought a new unit for less than 600 Euros, but the one we have is part of a network and also has a useful built-in battery voltage monitor which new ones don’t have.
On Friday 21 June two technicians arrive from Athens to investigate why our Naiad hydraulic stabilisers are making loud banging noises when in use. Dimitris is an electrician and Konstantinos a mechanic – both very nice, competent and hard-working guys.
Laurie with Dimitris and Konstantinos

After checking the system over we start it in the marina and the loud knocking noises soon start.
A couple of years ago we had a modification done by the same company to lock the fins in the central position when de-energised. This was to avoid the need to manually lock the fins in their central position when anchored in rolly conditions so they don’t bang from side to side. Dimitris has a theory that the valves fitted to achieve this central locking were the wrong ones and they are causing over-heating the hydraulic fluid leading to the knocking noises. So they remove the centring valve on the port side and the knocking noises disappear. In fact they seem to disappear on both sides. We do an hour long sea trial and they work perfectly. They also re-route the Naiad’s oil cooler hoses as they were very close to the Lugger’s lagged exhaust. This wasn’t a danger but was affecting the cooling. Next day they remove the centring valve on the starboard side and we do a sea trial about 90 minutes long with the system working well. Since then we have cruised for several hours, including one nine hour cruise with quite a swell running and all is working well. The plan going forward is for these guys to obtain the correct valves from USA and fit them when we come back to Greece from Italy in September. So that was excellent news too as it’s a great deal easier switching on the hydraulic stabilisers than deploying the “Birds”. I still can’t fully understand why the system worked fine for several months after the centring valves were installed. Dimitris tried to explain to me it was something to do with the valve’s internal springs but full meaning was lost in language and my lack of technical understanding.
Next Post – our visit to Albania.

ENVOY CRUISING IN THE IONIAN SEA

By on June 14, 2019 in Envoy
Before leaving the marina we enjoy one day away from Envoy, hiring a car to tour around this great island of Lefkada with its small sandy coves, picturesque villages and inland mountains soaring to about 3,000 feet. Traffic is negligible and I don’t think there’s any traffic lights at all on the island.

Greece seems to be a very honest country with little crime evident beyond copious amounts of graffiti in the cities. Shopkeepers often leave items outside overnight and people leave their keys in cars and scooters. So it was a surprise when a 46ft Bavaria yacht was stolen from Lefkada’s quayside during our stay and hasn’t been seen since. Locals speculate that it will have been sailed across to Italy.
While in Lefkada we also meet our Kiwi friend Bruce from sailing cat Midi. This year his wife Leslie decided to stay home, so Bruce is cruising with two friends Gavin and David. Anybody thinking about sailing in the Med couldn’t do better than to buy the superbly equipped and lovingly maintained Midi.

Envoy was re-launched on Tuesday 4 June and everything was fine when we did a short sea trial before going to our berth. It’s certainly much nicer staying aboard in tn the water than on the hard.
Overall our cruise preparations went well. The only surprise issue was the sea water leak to the bilge and even that wasn’t a total surprise given past history. Without that we’d have been cruising within 12 days of our arrival, but this turned out to be 16.
Chris and I spent a bit of time adjusting the Lugger’s prop shaft stuffing box. When Sailand checked the sealings last year they tightened the bolts on the stuffing box too much so that the forward section of the stuffing box wouldn’t loosen up as the adjusting bolts were slackened. We used a puller and some levers to get it moving again and now have a nice regular drip – we find that one drip about every 10-20 seconds is about right.
The RHIB maintenance turned into a bit of a saga. After the Yamaha was serviced I took it for a test run and noticed the tachometer (tacho) was no longer working. Spiros came back and did some work on it, telling me he’d put in a new tacho that still didn’t work “so it must be the regulator” (that provides an electronic signal to the tacho). A few days later a new regulator arrives and is installed but still the tacho doesn’t work. Spiros tries to convince me “you don’t need a tacho anyway … just go and enjoy your cruise”. But I tell Spiros I want it fixed. A few minutes after that discussion he calls me to say its all fixed. He explains that when he initially checked the fault by putting in a different tacho, it was an old used one he had laying around his workshop and that one must have been faulty too. When he put in a new tacho it worked fine.
So all was finally ready – jobs done, stores loaded, documentation completed and we set off from Lefkada Marina on the Weds as planned (plan 2!)
Just before we leave our Italian friend Fabricius comes to say farewell. Fabricius had been aboard his yacht next to us on the hard stand. He gives us some valuable advice about places to see in the Italian region we’re heading to – Puglia at the northern end of the “Boot”. In fact he surprises us by saying this si one of the most visited areas of Italy. In particular he recommends Lecce – known as the Florence of the south with its Baroque architecture.
We cruise just a couple of hours north to anchor off Preveza. Di has some favorite shops here and there’s also a couple of guitar shops I want to check out, ending up buying a cheap Soundsation (Fender strat style)so I don’t get too much out of practice while we’re away.

Laurie doing first BBQ of the season

Here’s an unusual large cat in the Polynesian style noticed at Preveza

Then we cruise up to Parga – one of the nicest village on the mainland coast overlooked by its 14th century Venetian castle.


DELAY TO ENVOY’S LAUNCHING

By on June 1, 2019 in Envoy
We’ll add some photos to recent posts early next week.

We’ve met a NZ couple from Blenheim – Keven and Kerry who’ve recently bought a “green” motor vessel. It has an electric motor, good for about 20 miles cruising plus a VW diesel engine with a range of about 600 miles. They eventually plan to ship it home where the electric motor will suit cruising in the Marlborough Sounds.

We’re constantly reminded that many costs are still very reasonable in Greece. Last night we went to dinner at a nice restaurant overlooking the estuary and had a Greek salad, french fries, fried eggplant, mushrooms with cheese, bread, one bottle of water, one litre of house white wine and desserts of fruit and yoghurt for a total cost of 27 Euros – about NZ$47. In many restaurants at home we’d pay nearly that just for the wine. On the other hand petrol is nearly 2 Euros per litre – about NZ$3.48.

Preparation for Envoy’s launching had been going well and after 7 days aboard were ready for launching the day before it occurred. So last Tuesday Envoy was lifted from her chocks on the hardstand and put into the water. We always spend a few minutes checking for any sea water leaks before the travel lift operator removes the slings and we soon noticed a leak into the engine room bilge.
Regular readers of this Blog may recall we’ve had similar leaks twice previously, but they’ve stopped quite quickly after launching (although we were never able to figure out exactly why). However this time more water was coming in (at a guess about a litre per minute) and it didn’t look like stopping any time soon.
We had Sailand engineer Panos aboard for the launching and he suggested we allow more water to come into the bilge, then lift the boat out and hopefully see water coming back out from the inside.
So we did exactly this and after lifting back onto the hard were able to identify a small area of the keel leaking water .
Within an hour Sailand’s GRP expert, Raza, was on the job with his assistant and they used a grinder to cut back the GRP in the area of the leak. In doing so they found some de-laminated GRP and then a plug of sealant. Raza’s theory is that a previous owner must have had some minor impact damage, used sealant to make a temporary repair and then pulled the boat out of the water and glassed over it. This must have happened more than 12 years ago. When the boat was on the hard the sealant plug dried out and shrank so that when launched water could pass through until the sealant swelled a little to stop the flow. Anyhow this is conjecture and a fully professional repair is now being completed – first grinding back to solid, good condition GRP and then building it up again using carbon fibre and Kevlar cloth impregnated with West Systems epoxy resin and using presses to apply pressure during curing. They’ve nearly completed the exterior and today modified the interior of the aft bilge, pouring in Gurit’s Ampreg 26 epoxy resin to fill in previous surface imperfections and building up the bilge’s  level by about 150mm to provide more strength and a smoother impervious surface finish.
Raza is working on Sunday to finish sanding, undercoating, painting and anti-fouling so we can launch on Monday.

All other work is now completed except that our large RHIB is awaiting a new regulator for its Yamaha outboard’s alternator – during servicing the mechanic noticed the battery is over charging. This part is due to arrive on Tuesday so we’re hopeful of starting our cruise on Wednesday.

BACK ABOARD ENVOY IN GREECE

By on May 23, 2019 in Envoy

We had a great trip up from Auckland enjoying one night stopovers in Dubai and Athens. The flight to Dubai is nearly 17 hours, but the time seemed to pass OK with nice meals, plenty of movies to watch and a few hours sleep. The economy class seats have…

RETURN TO ENVOY NOW IMMINENT

By on May 10, 2019 in Envoy

Diane booked our fares yesterday and dealing with Emirates had no issues getting our travel arranged at short notice at good pricing with departure next Friday. We’ll spend one night in Dubai and one in Athens before catching the bus for the five hour …

ENVOY’S 2109 CRUISING

By on April 24, 2019 in Envoy

We are home in Auckland, NZ while Envoy is in Greece’s Lefkada marina.We hope to know by this time next week – Thursday 2 May that all is on track for our return to the Med for several months of cruising – watch this space!

MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT

By on April 15, 2019 in Envoy
We are currently home in Auckland, NZ and expect to return to Envoy to do some cruising mid-May. Envoy’s new owners will join us during part of this time for a joint cruise.

There all types of boaties and about as many different approaches to the subject of boat care and maintenance. At one extreme plenty of derelict-looking boats can be seen on moorings, apparently never used with growth dangling below their hulls, while at the other extreme some owners can be seen on their anchored boats lovingly cleaning their pride and joy all day long.
Boating is about enjoyment – cruising to great anchorages, swimming, diving, fishing, children playing on the beach, BBQs with family and friends etc and as such it’s well to consider that care and maintenance should focus more on the technical than the cosmetic aspects – minor marks and imperfections show that adventures and fun have been had, they add character and are part of a boat’s life story. This is not to say that gelcoat and stainless steel shouldn’t be cared for and we’ve learned long ago that regularly washing accumulated salt off our topsides and stainless steel pays huge dividends. We also get our topsides gelcoat professionally polished annually.
It can be challenging to monitor all of the checks and subsequent maintenance required aboard modern vessels with the growing complexity of the equipment they carry, especially as we all tend to focus on the immediate problems needing our attention rather than those in the future. So how can we keep track of the myriad of routine maintenance issues?
Our own approach is to be pragmatic and practical but not pedantic and we try to strike a balance between preventative maintenance and “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
Maintenance normally falls into one of three categories:
# something that you notice needs doing – eg you see a frayed vee belt
# something based on hours of use – eg replacing engine oil and filter after 200 hours
# something based on elapsed time – eg replacing your oil and filter annually regardless of elapsed hours
The simplest way to manage this process is to go through the maintenance sections of your equipment manuals and make one list of what needs to be done at various time intervals, for example daily, weekly, monthly, 3-monthly, annually etc, plus another list showing the equipment to be maintained and its maintenance requirements every 100 hours, 200 hours, 500 hours etc.
When planning your maintenance consider that it’s often best to group similar maintenance items together. For example when replacing the oil and filters on the engine(s), consider doing the generator at the same time, particularly if you’re paying a mechanic to do this – if your oil is supposed to be changed at 200 hours it doesn’t really matter if it turns out to be 180 or 220 hours.
Some owners like to do as much as possible themselves while others like to mostly use contractors.
If using contractors try to be aboard your vessel while they’re working. It may lead to better results and at the least you will often learn useful information. Always check what has been done including a sea trial if anything more than minor work has been done on vital equipment.
It’s a good idea for any boat to have an Operation Manual. This can range in size from a few pages for a smaller boat to probably around a hundred pages for a larger complex one. Not only does this simplify the operation of your boat but it’s a valuable asset when it’s time to sell. This Manual should document where equipment is located – particularly for safety-critical items like isolating switches and seacocks, how systems work – for example how to change from one fuel or fresh water tank to another and maintenance procedures – how to change oil, oil filters, fuel filters etc.
Another useful document is a list of spare parts carried aboard and their location, so they can be found quickly in an emergency like a vee belt breaking on your main engine while under way. Keep this updated so that used parts are replaced as soon as possible. Parts are expensive and should always be well packaged for their protection and stored in cool, dry conditions.
Aboard Envoy we like to keep things simple and rely on a few handwritten documents. Rather than jotting things down on various pieces of paper that get lost we use a Daybook to write down information relating to the boat’s operation. For example if we’re thinking about replacing an item of equipment and want to do some research about it we note the pertinent facts in the Daybook. We also keep a separate Logbook to record details of the voyage, for example where we’ve been been, what we’ve done and people we’ve met.
Another important document for us is our To Do List and my unlikely-to-be-achieved life’s ambition is to have nothing on this list (I’ve yet to meet a boat owner who says there’s nothing that needs doing on their boat).
Finally to maximize your technical security and independence it’s essential to carry aboard a comprehensive toolkit, manuals for all installed equipment, and an extensive range of chandlery items. Then even if you can’t fix something yourself this may enable a fellow boatie to assist you.

REALITY CHECK – BUY Vs CHARTER

By on April 1, 2019 in Envoy
Envoy is in Greece’s Lefkas Marina. We expect to return there mid-May for several months’ cruising including some time with her new owners.

We recently wrote this article published in Pacific MotorBoat magazine.

When Envoy, our Greece-based Nordhavn 46 passagemaker was for sale, one inquiry is from a Kiwi guy saying that due to work commitments he’d only able to travel to Greece to use the boat for about one month a year. He asks my opinion on this idea. As much as I want to sell Envoy and proceed with our new boating plans I don’t want to mislead anybody so tell him it would be much more practical and cost-effective to charter one of the thousands of boats available throughout the Med. My reply is based not only on cost, but also on the fact it takes at least a week to get your boat ready for cruising and about the same to lay her up again for winter. He agrees and this prompts me to write this article.
We’ve chartered boats several times here in NZ, in Britain and in Queensland’s Whitsunday Islands and never been disappointed. If you own a boat locally there’s a lot to be said for chartering overseas during our winter for a much-needed sunshine boost combined with enjoying a cruising adventure in a different location. Consider the Whitsundays, Pacific islands, the countries bordering the Mediterranean, the exotic Caribbean or Alaska’s Inside Passage. Alternatively you could explore British canals by narrow boat enjoying the many pubs along the way or meander through European canals enjoying croissants and coffee in the morning and wine in the afternoon.
However it’s quite another option and mind shift to charter locally insteadof owning your own boat, even though there’s a compelling logical and financial case to do so where people enjoy boating, but would use their boat infrequently (say less than about 20 days in a year).
There are two main issues to consider when comparing ownership with charter – the intangible and the tangible (financial) aspects.
Several intangible factors favoring ownership include pride in your vessel, the ability to potter around aboard doing odd jobs, having the exact boat and equipment you prefer, knowing how to handle your own boat and her limitations, being able to keep your gear aboard and of course unrestricted availability for use.
Conversely several intangible factors favoring charter include the ability to use different types and sizes of boat, cruising in different locations, being able to step on and off without the worry of repairs and maintenance (R&M) and being able to try out cruising before making a major financial commitment to purchase a boat.
Then we come to the tangible – the financial question. The cost of boat ownership is something many owners probably don’t like to think about and is only generally discussed in hushed tones, preferably without spouses present. As the saying goes, if you have to think about this you can’t afford it.
Let’s consider the costs attached to a typical 12 metre twin-engine planing fly-bridge launch about 15 years old costing NZ$300,000, of which there are many similar examples currently advertised.
First you have to consider annual cash costs which I’ve calculated as: marina $9,000, insurance $2,800 and R&M $12,000, totaling $23,800. In this calculation the marina and insurance costs can be accurately defined, but R&M is always a guesstimate based on factors like the vessel’s age and condition, how much work the owner does versus using contractors, how fastidious the owner is and whether the owner wants to upgrade ageing equipment etc. Some years may be less than $12,000 but in other years factors will certainly come out of left field to exceed it.
Since we are comparing ownership with charter, where diesel is an extra cost, the above figures don’t include diesel. But a good guess on costs would be about $8,400 based on using your boat for a reasonably common 200 engine hours annually, averaging 30 litres per hour and a diesel cost of $1.40 per litre.
To bare-boat charter a vessel around 12m typically costs about $1,000 to $1,500 per day depending on location, season and vessel type so let’s take an average of $1,250. This would reduce if you share the charter experience and cost with others (which many charterers do). These figures show you only need to use your boat more than 19 days per year for ownership to be the better financial option.
However we are missing vital components in this equation – the non cash costs of depreciation and opportunity cost.
The vast majority of boats depreciate and like cars the level’s higher for newer boats until they eventually reach a level where their depreciation is negligible.
A fair figure for depreciation on a boat of this age would probably be around 5 per cent annually, so in the first five years of ownership the depreciation cost would be about $68,000 or about $13,600 per year. 
Opportunity cost refers to the fact that if you didn’t spend that $300,000 on a boat it would be earning for you. In recent years that would easily be 5 per cent annually in a managed fund. So over 5 years that is about $83,000 or about $16,600 annually. Are these “real costs”? You betcha – the actual figures may vary higher or lower than this example but they are real nonetheless.
Now we have quite a different picture with your total ownership cost being about $54,000 annually and chartering being beneficial at any usage level below about 43 days per year. Of course if you borrow money and pay interest to buy your boat the figures change even more in favor of chartering.
To hell with logic though, in our case we’ll follow our hearts not our heads and stick with ownership combined with occasional chartering in exotic locations.