The Cost of Boating

I hope to keep you informed of what it takes to keep Sonflower going.

We can't go without diesel and we generally make sure we are full at the start of the Summer Cruise and fill up again at the end. This year the 192 miles, 190 locks and 10 moveable bridges required us to fill with 208 litres of diesel. That's about 1/2 a litre per lockmile and four lockmiles to the pound. I bought this fuel at our local boatyard, Sovereign Wharf, because their prices are always keen and I want to keep them open. Shopping around for boat services can save a few pennies but if the locals don't use the local facilities we may well lose them.

We also used a bottle of gas at 17.95 GBP a bottle.

We "pump out" about every ten days at a cost of between 12 and 18 pounds a time.

We cruised for about 30 days so averaged about 13 lockmiles a day.