frant said..
Thought that I would avoid hijacking any existing threads. And thought that I might take a risk of as being thought of as being a bit harsh to dreamers.
Question is? So you want to buy a boat.
Your decision will ultimately end up answering 3 questions.
1/ How much cold hard cash can you front up with????
2/ How much cold hard cash can you continue to fork out along the way?????
3/ How much cold hard cash can you afford to drop at the end of the day??????
Within those 3 constraints there is a boat for everybody, the biggest difficulty is marrying 1, 2 and 3 with your dreams.
You are on the money frant (pardon the pun), it does all come down to cash.
Cash is not "cold and hard", it is warm and soft and the colour of it goes with just about anything you are wearing.

1/ How much cold hard cash can you front up with????
I follow the 10% rule which is "Never let your boat/boats represent more than 10% of your nett worth." So a $30,000 yacht against a $350,000 house fits.
2/ How much cold hard cash can you continue to fork out along the way?????
That is a budgetary thing which has to be managed. Most people spend way too much money on boat storage and way too little on the boat itself. If one applied the 10% rule again, $5,000 out of a $50,000 a year income would probably be a bit light on but I think do able. That figure is a sixth of the value of a $30,000 yacht though. So after 6 years where would one's thinking be????
3/ How much cold hard cash can you afford to drop at the end of the day??????
Afford is the key word in this question. I believe if you have followed the 10% rule at the start, you can
afford to drop the lot. I have done this with my last boat and in 7 years never even got it in the water. It was a total disaster in every way but because I had followed the 10% rule I was able to
afford that and go again and buy another yacht.
Another way of looking at it is if you bought a $30,000 yacht, spent $5,000 a year on it over 6 years, did you get $10,000 a years worth of enjoyment out of it??
Compared to buying a car for $30,000 and owning it for 6 years, I think the yacht is a better deal.