Yacht Pipit

      

2010 Season Summary, 8th November 2010

Winter home - nice doorstep...


As many as one of our friends has asked if we have been keeping a tally of our liveaboard lifestyle costs so here, in no particular order, are some facts & figures covering the period 18th May to 6th October 2010 that some of our readers may find interesting and/or useful:

Distance travelled: 967 NM

Hours logged: 204 hours.

Average speed: 4.73 Knots.

Highest speed: 11.8 Knots.

Ratio of sailing : motor-sailing : motoring - 69 : 51 : 84 (34% : 25% : 41%) Slightly disappointing, but this is skewed slightly as we had to motor on our 3 longest passages, across Lyme Bay, crossing The Channel and Trebeurden to L'Aber Wrac'h as there was either no wind or, as our friend Torben would say, it was OTFNA, or we had to maintain speed to meet tide / race / lock / sill times.

Volvo MD 2030 Engine hours: 143.7 hours.

Diesel burnt: 237.1 litres.

Average diesel consumption: 1.65 litres/hour.

Engine oil consumption: 800 ml, i.e. 0.37% of diesel burnt, well within tolerance (< 0.75%).

Average berthing cost: €23.30 per night.

Number of nights at anchor / free buoys: 7. This is much lower than we initially intended but, given the extreme tides & currents in Brittany, we were reluctant to be away from Pipit at anchor during the turn of a tide, and remaining aboard would have limited our time exploring ashore which is, after all, one of the reasons for this adventure.

Cost per night (accounting for anchoring): €22.10.

Favourite passages - difficult to pick them, but perhaps these:

Favourite places - even harder, so we need 5 places, but maybe these:

Best showers:

Typical shower cost (most Breton marinas charge extra): €2, which sounds incidental, but x2 x7 = €28 per week, which equates to a number of bottles of wine...
Also, some of these were cold, cramped and not as clean as you might like. After a while, we realised that water and electricity were free on the pontoons, so we started using our own shower on board which has excellent pressure and heat.

Typical laundry costs: washing machine €6, dryer €2.

Typical gas cost: €23, which lasts us about 3-4 weeks. This may change over the winter, as we'll not be using the Cobb very often, but on the other hand we will be using the slow cooker more.

Average food/drink/domestic costs: difficult to be precise, as the concept of weekly shopping doesn't really exist when living aboard, but about €120 a week covers the cost of most things, and we do eat and drink very well. We still eat out from time to time, but less often than in our former lives. This is no hardship as we both enjoy cooking and we now have plenty of time to do so.

So now we are here for the winter and have our ducks in a row:

Where is the Cobb?...