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A Life On Water
By Dr. Jay Sayers

It has been said that the two happiest days of owning a boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Boats have been a part of my life since my teenage years, and I know this saying to be true. While they can be a tremendous amount of fun, boats can be the source of many headaches. Yet for all the trouble of maintenance, storage and repairs, there is a joy, a peace and the emotion of a body of water that I seek every time I hop aboard my boat.

My Earliest Boats
I grew up on Long Island, and much of our everyday life was spent in and out of the water. When I was about 8 years old, my uncle—who was like a second father to me—owned a boat. He would take me out on the bays and inlets around the island. If I was lucky, he’d take me out into the Atlantic. My march into adolescence was marked not by learning to shave, but by owning my first boat. I was 13 and my boat was a homemade, wooden 14-footer with an outboard engine that didn’t work so well. At one time, all it could do was run in reverse. With a new motor, she was sea-worthy, and I ran that boat throughout Great South Bay and up to the beaches on Fire Island. I even went as far as sneaking a friend out in an inlet almost to the ocean to go fishing. My father would have been in fits if he knew. Whenever I see my buddy, we often kid each other about that day.

Come winter it was time to strip and varnish its exterior in preparation for the next summer. I put a lot of love and sweat equity into that boat. I kept it until I started at Palmer College of Chiropractic, when I was 17. I didn’t have time for a boat in college, so during my last two years at Palmer I tried to become a golfer. I gave it a fair shot, but it just wasn’t for me. My life moved on, and I started my career and I got married. I bought my second boat when I was 25, and I introduced my wife to boating. I bought a 21-foot Glaspar boat and an old trailer.

When I least expected it, I was faced with the decision to sell my Glaspar. My father had taken up travel trailing and bought a Winnebago. When my mother unexpectedly fell ill, he gave the Winnebago to me, and I sold my boat. In retrospect that travel trailer was a boat, just one with four wheels. It certainly had as many problems as any other boat I’ve owned. We took it to all four corners of the United States—to Maine, Washington, to the Florida Keys and to Yellowstone National Park.

Finding Free Bird
Not long after my second child was born I got the itch for a real boat again. And, this time I wanted something big. I settled on a 26-footer named Free Bird. A widower from my hometown was selling it for cheap. My first mistake was buying it without realizing what was wrong with it. Once I put her in the water it became clear: the steering was out and only one of its two engines worked. Thankfully I like a project, and I was able to get Free Bird running. This boat was part of our family for two years. We made plans with other families to take small cruises down to Rhode Island and Connecticut.

On one memorable cruise, our family was set to meet up with a few other boats to cruise to Newport, R.I. As we left the marina, a misplaced marker led me right over a pile of rocks. My wife and children tightened their life jackets as I maneuvered to a neighboring marina with a lift, 17 miles away. At a two miles per hour pace the journey was nine hours. Once on a lift, we could see that I had bent all the shafts. At the end of the summer season we sold the Free Bird.

The Gin-J
Not long after Free Bird, I caught the bug for deep sea fishing. I bought a custom made 36-foot boat with twin diesel engines and outfitted it for deep sea fishing. I named it the Gin-J—Gin, after my wife Virginia, and J stood for my first initial. For 18 years we made many voyages hunting for my favorite catch—tuna. Sure it’s less sporty than marlin or swordfish, but it puts up the toughest fight. I fished in all of the major tournaments in New York and down in Cape May in New Jersey. When I wasn’t in practice, my life revolved around my family and the Gin-J. I even went as far as to charter a boat off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia as a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.

Gin-J’s final voyage was a year-long cruise from New York to the Bahamas. I had retired from my practice, and this was my chance to take a long trip down the East Coast just as I’ve always wanted. I earned my captain’s license and set out. I made overnight stops in Virginia, Charleston, S.C., Hilton Head, S.C., and along the Florida coast.

Full Tide
After the Gin J I was without a boat for six years. I found my way back to the water by running a passenger ferry. All I had to call my own was a little Sunfish sailboat in our garage for our grandkids. My love of boating has been passed down throughout our family. My wife quickly adopted it and each of our children know how to sail. My oldest granddaughter is 11 years old, and we spent her birthday on the lake surrounded by ocean and sound. I believe she’ll be a seafarer too.

Just a couple of months ago, I had another happy boat day—I bought a 22-foot Twin V Catamaran named Cozy Cat. It’s a bad omen to change a boat’s name, so I’m only going to add to it. Soon it will be J’s Cozy Cat, and I expect many fun experiences. But, I suspect that my next happy boat day will be when I sell it.

Does it pay to own a boat?

Many financial investors say that yearly boat maintenance can add up to 10-20 percent of the initial purchase price. In addition, the older a boat gets, the more it costs to maintain. While expenses vary according to boat size and location, we’ve got some information that could put you in the right frame of mind as a potential boat owner.

Financing. Taking out a loan for a boat is a lot like the traditional fixed rate mortgage on a home. For example a loan with a rate of 7 percent may require a 10 percent down payment.
Operating costs. The amount of fuel you will use depends on how often you use your boat. Many power boats over 50 feet long have fuel tanks that can hold more than 500 gallons, which would take $1,500 to fill up. Smaller boats typically use about 50 gallons per season.
Maintenance. Routine oil changes for your boat would cost about the same as it would to service your car. Winterizing could cost between $500 and $2,500.
Storage. Slip fees vary from place to place, but in Chesapeake Bay, for instance, a marina slip costs between $50 to $100 dollars per foot per year. If you were to pay $75 per foot for a 50-foot slip, your yearly fee would total $3,750.
Insurance. You may be able to reduce insurance costs by taking a boater’s education course or adding a rider to your homeowner’s policy, but the rate can still be expensive depending on the type of boat you own and the type of coverage you want.