Blue Peter Sailing Dinghy - Repair Costs

As I went through this process, I kept all the receipts, and I've made an estimation of any consumable used up. This has allowed me to calculate a reasonably accurate series of costs for this job.

The costs can be broken down as:

  • £221 Tools (will be useable on any future jobs, DIY etc)
  • £31   Delivery charges (4 deliveries from 2 shops)
  • £267 Consumables purchased
  • -£131 Consumables remaining (e.g. partially filled bottles of wax etc)

In addition, because I'm not perfect at estimating, and sometimes I was caught out by a job not requiring the type of nut I expected for example, I also had some waste - things I bought, but are now sitting in the shed unused for now.

  • £42

All of the above means that the total cost of materials for the job was £136. In actual fact, I could really do with a little more clear brush-able gelcoat (likely less than 100ml) to fill a few remaining holes I'd drilled but run out of gelcoat to re-fill, and a bit of skimming on a patch of the seat where it's really dirty looking. Actually, I might get another 1kg, fix scratching on a laser hull (exterior) where someone seems to have used it in an attempt to polish some rocks, then recoat the seats with a slightly thicker coat so I can make the grip more pronounced and even looking.

It's worth bearing in mind though, that I think I spent about 64 full days on this job in total. Sanding everything down, routing out all the cracks and then fisheyes (many hundreds if not thousands), etc, before re-filling with gelcoat, sanding, more gelcoat, sanding, more gelcoat, etc, then sanding, fairing with gelcoat in places, compounding, compounding, polishing. If I were to price my time, it would make the repairs ridiculously expensive, even given a nominal price of £20 a day labour costs would be £1280. Presumably, a professional would expect to finish such a job much quicker, maybe in as little as 20 days, but charge substantially more for it. At £200pd, 20 days would cost £4000! With this in mind, is fully comprehensive insurance on this kind of dinghy ever likely to result in repairs?

As you can see from the above figures (which have come from an itemised spreadsheet), the cost of the actual materials for the repairs is not a lot, but pales into insignificance when compared to the cost in labour to effect those repairs. The caveat is that I've never done it before, so, perhaps I could have done it quicker if I did it again.... but, then I might be tempted to value my time higher for the second job given it would no longer be a novel experience.

In summary, don't be put off doing such work if you'll enjoy the process, but, don't do it to save money. If you are cash rich and time poor, unless you love the particular boat, you might be best off selling it (or giving it away), then purchasing one that is in good enough condition it doesn't need the work. In this instance, the boat is old, it's relatively rare to find, and photos I've seen of them online leads me to believe that finding one in better condition would have been unlikely.