How a $50K Trawler Can Cost Retirees More Than a $200K One

A cheap trawler's sticker is the only number that stops, and the rest were already due. We line up owners' own bills from TrawlerForum against what insurers and lenders put in writing, to price a forty-foot $50,000 trawler beside a $200,000 one for retirees. Slip and survey by the foot, a Lehman rebuild, fuel tanks, paint and shop labor come first. Then insurance and depreciation, where the cheap boat gets its fair hearing, and what a lender and an insurer ask of any boat past twenty years old.