• Obi@sopuli.xyz
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    1 day ago

    I have the same feeling when I’m around neighbourhoods with nice houses, real estate is crazy around here so I know the prices and so even anything remotely “nice” or “big” or “not touching the neighbours but they’re kinda right there” is in the millions immediately. Can’t help wondering who all these people are.

    The answer of course is generational wealth, same with the boats.

  • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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    2 days ago

    The elites don’t want you to know this but the boats at the marina are free you can take them home I have 458 boats.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    A former boss told a story once that was super relatable.

    It was about change and how it’s not always necessary… He went on about how one business changed their payment policies so that everything was done by some kind of payment card, they wouldn’t accept cash/cheque with their new system.

    He was basically bitching about having to pay by card for something he usually pays for by cheque.

    The super relatable service that “pulled this on him”? It was a dry dock for his boat.

    Yep. Super relatable bossman. I can barely pay my bills on what I’m paid, and you’re being super relatable talking about how you store your boat in the winter. 🖕

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      Last year, my CEO said if we finish the project on time, he’ll buy a new truck and bring it around the office for everyone to check it out.

      This would be his 20th truck he bought.

  • metaldwarf@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I’m kinda one of them. Well my dad is. He’s typical of the boat owners I’ve met over the years. Boomer, business owner, white. He bought the first boat with a buddy in their late 20s, cuz that’s when he had enough disposable income after they could afford a house, a rental property, two kids, two cars, a dog and a golf course membership. They had a falling out and my dad bought out his buddy. Three or four boats later I look after the boat, and do all the maintenance. My dad’s in his 70s, he can’t take the boat out on his own anymore. We go fishing 5 or 6 times a year. Moorage is $6000 a year, fuel is $2000, insurance $3000, maintenance at least $2000. Maintenance would be 10x that if I didn’t do most of the work myself.

    • Droechai@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      How much difference would it be if you compare it by renting a boat for those 5 or 6 times a year?

      • metaldwarf@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        We could do some absolutely amazing charters for the money we spend on the boat. It’s something we have been talking about recently. The engines on the boat are 25 years old, if/when they die my dad wants to replace them to the tune of $40,000-$50,000. I’m trying to talk him into selling it and we plan a couple really nice fishing trips per year. I think one of the reasons he spends so much on it is that it’s one of the only things we have in common. We only really spend time together on the boat.

  • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Just had a look at used sailing boats in Norway and there are a fair number for under $10 000. Basically cheaper than a used car or camper. I’d have one if I had somewhere to keep it.

    • sorghum@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      That’s the real kicker. a place to moor your boat is often more expensive and even then maintenance costs will be a lot.

    • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Cheap to buy maybe, but expensive to moor and maintain. A friend who bought a small second-hand yacht said his new hobby was tearing up £20 notes in a cold shower.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        They say the two happiest days in a boat owners life are the day they buy their boat and the day they sell their boat.

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      IIRC the rule of thumb for boat costs, is that annual upkeep costs for a boat are roughly the purchase price of the boat.

      • Demonmariner@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        That’s wildly inaccurate, even as a rule of thumb. Upkeep (excluding storage, which varies widely by location) shouldn’t be over 10% of the purchase price, unless the boat was really cheap or the boatyard doing the maintenance is crooked.

        Talking US rates here, I have no experience overseas.

        • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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          2 days ago

          Fair I have zero experience owning a boat. However, if I bought a boat for $10K and my annual upkeep was only $1K I’d certainly be thrilled.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Holy shit used cars must be expensive in Norway. I live in Estonia and my first used car was 550 euros 10 years ago. Nowadays the same model (early 90s Audi) could probably be had for 900-1100.

      The thing to consider is that while my crappy old Audi received less than 200 euros in maintenance and repairs in the first year, yachts are said to cost you roughly 10% of the initial purchase price per year in maintenance and mooring costs and I doubt those under 10k yachts were 10k new.

      • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        You can get a car that runs for around €3000 in Bergen or Oslo, but used cars get progressively more expensive the further north you go. But getting work done on a car is the expensive thing. I payed around €5000 for my car 3 years ago and last year I spent €3000 getting it passed the control. The problem is that Norway has a harsh coastal climate (salt spray, constantly going above and below freezing etc), and shit roads outside of Oslo. I’ve broken 2 springs, cracked my oil sump, and punctured a tyre just because of shitty roads. And because Norway is outside the EU we pay toll on everything we order from outside Norway, which is most things (including car parts) because Norway doesn’t actually produce anything).

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          I mean most of that is the same here in Estonia. Have to work on your own cars if you’re buying used. We salt the roads and getting work done is expensive. Though I did not know you guys had tolls for EU goods, I thought being in the EEA took care of that.

            • boonhet@lemm.ee
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              14 hours ago

              Interesting, toll.no calculator says there’s no toll on car parts, period. Wikipedia says there’s no toll (customs fees) on EU goods other than food and beverages (which EU subsidises so they would be too cheap for Norwegian market otherwise)

              Do you perhaps mean the 25% VAT? Most countries have that and it’s not specific to imports. If I go to a grocery store and buy milk, that includes 22% VAT in the price. It’s just that when you order from abroad, you may have to declare values and pay VAT and if the store you ordered from did a fuckup and paid VAT to their own country instead of declaring that they sold to Norway, you might get double taxed.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      I remember a craiglist post (from like 2000s) that was for a small boat. It was like $600 a month on a payment plan, or $30000 total.

      I was in college looking for a place to rent, just a bed. And I really thought about living on a small boat.

      • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s possible to get a small boat (couple of berths, simple galley and a shitter) for around $5000 total in Norway. But as with all things this gets progressively more expensive the further north you go. But overall boats are not that expensive here because there are a lot of them. (Supply and demand)

  • kilonova@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    My family had a boat quite a few years back. Not a massive one, probably cost ten grand or something. People don’t need to be absolutely loaded to own a boat.

  • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    When I was a kid, my aunt owned a small one. She’d bring it to my house where my dad and my uncle did repairs.

    We were by no means a rich family. It was a two bedroom house with my parents and 3 kids.

    I imagine the most expensive part of these are probably dock fees?

  • RangerJosey@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Believe it or not. There’s as many reasons to own a boat as there are to own a house. And many more uses for a boat.

    Weird thing. A boat is much more affordable than a house nowadays. Hell I’d live on a boat. That shit would be awesome.

    • captain_oni@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      Owning a boat

      Pros:

      • You’ll be able to survive the rising sea levels caused by global warming.

      Cons:

      • You won’t survive the super hurricanes caused by global warming.
    • pedz@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Depends where I guess. And this also depends on your type of work.

      I know that people live year round on narrow boats in the UK, for example. But where I live, unless it’s a very very big boat, living on it year round would be very difficult if not impossible. Most marinas will close in fall/autumn and have a service to lift boats out of the water (and wrap them). If a (small) boat stays in the water for winter, it risks being iced in for months, and having its hull damaged by the pressure created by the ice. There are thawing and de-icing systems for boats and house boats but at this point, one may also want to live somewhere else during winter. Or move to warmer climates, if the job allows it.

      Anyways, marinas are still full here in summer, even if people have to lift their boats out of the water in fall and wrap them up in plastic for several months.

  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 days ago

    There are a lot of people in the world. Like a loooooot. Even if the % of non normies is only like 0.01% of the population that would easily explain those boats.

    • dwindling7373@feddit.it
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      3 days ago

      This is the real answer and the reason online bubbles are so sad.

      There’s so many different way to live your life and we are atrofied around a couple of equally bad options.

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      If there was a plague that had a 100% human infection rate and killed 87% of the people infected it would still only set back world populations to around the start of the 1900s

      • xkbx@startrek.website
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        3 days ago

        True. The start of the 1900s was no time for messin’ around and making babies. We had to go work in the mines

  • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    A city of 250,000 people could have 250 boats (that’s enough for a marina or two) and it would be 0.01% of the population (the one percent of the one percent). That seems to not really be that crazy.

    And if you consider that a small percentage of the boat population may have 2 or even 3 boats, than it gets even less weird.

    I also think that if you live near water, people are generally at least a little more likely to get a boat instead of a nice car or bigger house or other luxury item.

    Edit: I was off by an order of magnitude so it would be 0.1% not 0.01, however, I think the broader point is still valid.

      • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Yea that’s my mistake, but even scaled up an order of magnitude I think it still works. That’s still 1 in 10 one percenters.

    • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      You’re also forgetting all the people who live on a boat instead of buying or renting property. I live in a coastal state, and some marinas work like trailer parks, where you pay the moorage fee and they supply water/sewer/electric to your boat.

    • Comment105@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Boats aren’t even that expensive everywhere. In America they’re priced as luxury objects for the richest of the rich from what I’ve heard. Sailing as a way of traveling is actually a kinda cheap and rough activity, like camper vans. Not very “rich” stuff at all. My grandparents had a 30 footer and it wasn’t exactly luxurious, definitely camper van vibes. They’d sailed it all over around Europe though.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    They’re not that expensive, at least not up-front. A guy I know bought a sailboat for a few thousand dollars, but the catch was that it was almost 50 years old and needed a lot of repairs. He saved money by doing the repairs himself, but the $400 per month slip fee was still too much for him eventually and he sold the boat.

    • theluckyone@discuss.online
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      2 days ago

      I picked up a fifty year old English built sailboat (Westerly Centaur) for all of $500. My local yacht club (more a working man’s boat club than the posh social group that the name suggests). Prior owner fell up on hard times in the middle of a refit and stopped paying storage fees. I picked her up from the club after they placed a lien on it. Since the club is full of powerboat owners, none of them were interested in buying a sailboat.

      I’m working to finish the refit, doing the majority of the work myself. Helps that the club fees about to about $1100 a year. $400 a month would be excessive if I weren’t living on the boat full time… And refitting a boat while living on her sounds like a miserable experience.

    • hapablap@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 days ago

      You got the right idea I think. The boats are all smooshed together in a Marina so it’s natural for people to overestimate the number of boats relative to the number of people. There are way way way more people then there are boats. Honestly that’s the appeal of boats, the ability to go somewhere there aren’t a lot of people because most people don’t own boats.

      • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        For similar reasons, I would like to build a house in the form of a 300’ tall wizard tower in a random suburban neighborhood. But those bastards down at the planning division won’t approve my plans!

        • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          There’s a tower house out where I used to work. Built in the 70s I think by a Microsoft exec.

          Only about 100’ tall though I believe.

          It apparently is an airbnb now: the “Union Skyhouse”.

        • Kitathalla@lemy.lol
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          2 days ago

          Dude, you want to get together? I’ve been planning my wizard tower for years. All I want is a parapet around the top with a telescope out there. The best part is that finding an area with low/no light pollution means there won’t be dang pesky jerks that want to keep a certain look to the neighborhood.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          2 days ago

          Socialism is when the planning department won’t approve your 300’ wizard tower on a quarter acre lot. Save us, von Mises!

    • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      My friend bought a single mast boat for £50 off a guy at his local. The dude had bought another bigger boat and just wanted away with the smaller one.

    • orhansaral@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      As a marine engineer who worked and both new build and refit side of the business, I’d say whatever price you pay for the boat itself, be prepared to pay same amount in 5 years for maintenance and marina fees etc.