How Much Sould You Be Charged To Work On Your Boat? $1.49 An Hour!
The Dixie Boat Hospital!
You want to read more don’t you? Well, thanks to fellow Woody Boater Jim Dunn for sending us in these two receipts for having work done on a Dodge boat and a Correct craft. He pointed out that on the bottom of the second one there is a notation of 88 ¾ hrs. for $132. That comes out to $1.49 per hour.
Now we here at WoodyBoater went to our trusty inflation calculator, so in todays numbers, it comes out to… Drum roll please. $13.65 cents per hour. So lets say that you spend 1000 hours restoring your boat, thats $13,650 bucks. OK! It’s official, I want a time machine. I will be back once I am done restoring the boat! Thanks Jim!
Sounds good after spending 6 hrs yesterday performing pretty much routine maintenance on the old plastic ski rig. After pulling cover and floor board for access to rudder, shaft, steering; was able to grease. Some idiot had over tightened oil filter, so it got ripped coming out so I get to clean bilge today. Problem is that can barely move and cannot remember when I last serviced rudder and steering…All said, for any amount per hr, still trust myself with all of my issues.
If your inflation calculator is correct, what does that tell us about today’s labor costs? No where near 13.65…Just sayin…
Oh, I am the idiot!
We are all idiots. That can go without saying!
So much emphasis in education on hands off jobs and very little on producing the next generation of skilled tradesmen. Get used to paying the high price. We had revenge of the nerds and now it’s time for revenge of the tradesman. Or attempt to do it yourself. Good Luck.
The original name of our 1937 cruiser was the Dorothy W. of Northport (a very small community on the Bay of Quinte). I found out from an elderly gentleman who serviced the boat when it was new that the W. stood for the family name, Wills. Check the name on the first invoice. Not the same Wills but cool to me none the less.
How cool is that! Dang!
I actually did a SWAG calculation of hour spent restoring my Rocket over 7 years. I then took the Hagerty value estimate and subtracted what I spent on material and divided that by the hours. I would end up with a payback of ten cents per hour for my labor.
None of that really matters when I go woody boating of course – it becomes pure enjoyment !
They have a symposium next weekend at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton NY .. how to replace the bottom using 5200 …I couldn’t get in because it was full , but what a great idea … teach the skills so that people can try it themselves … this is my 1941 cc special waiting for me to try
The good news is that there are symposiums all over the place. Its a great program that the ACBS does.
From the Header Ad—
$805 in 1940 is $13,883 today. Ouch.
We bought our 1958 Lyman 15 footer for 2k. Boat, motor, and trailer. Found the need to do a complete restoration due to a minor issue with the keel. My friend offered his heated barn and asked if we’d cover his costs at 2.00/he.
At that price we got out from under the restoration with his “labor” and expenses for under 1500.00. I’d budgeted 1200.00. But due to my being diagnosed with a major illness and surgery having me down for six weeks…he and others joined forces to keep the project on task and schedule.
Two bucks and hour don’t sound like much…but it was 500.00 of his tab. That’s a bunch of hours.
In reality he found the boat for us…bought it…and did much of the grunt work I hate in a restoration. Not to mention the 10hrs the gang spent on the trailer rebuild (while I sat in post-op pain “directing” things)
Even with this I could still sell the boat for profit. But I’m with Matt…and others…how do you quantify the gift of fun? Big return on my 2.00/hr.