Rent First. Own Later. Maybe.

My relationship with boats started in a landlocked city.

I was living in Prague at the time, about as far from any coastline as you can get in the middle of Europe. No sea, no lake worth mentioning, no marina within reasonable distance. Just a city I loved, and a television program I could not stop watching.

The Boat Show. Every episode. Without fail.

There was something about it that put me in a kind of dreamlike state. All those beautiful, brand new boats lined up under the lights, each one shinier and more impractical than the last. I would watch and imagine myself on board, somewhere warm, somewhere blue, doing absolutely nothing with great style and complete confidence. The fact that I had never actually been on a boat of my own did not seem relevant at the time.

I told myself I would get a license one day. That I would find a way to get closer to that world. It stayed as one of those things people say without quite believing.

Then the family had the chance to move. We ended up in Trieste, a beautiful city right at the top of the Adriatic. The sea was suddenly not a fantasy, it was outside the window.

And for my first birthday there, my wife surprised me with a boating license course.

That was the beginning of all of this. The license, the first trips, the storm, the newsletter. And eventually, the question that anyone who spends enough time on the water ends up asking themselves.

Should I just buy a boat?

I sat with that question for a while before I felt qualified to answer it honestly. Now that I have run the numbers and talked to people who have done both, here is what I actually think.

For a beginner, renting almost always makes more sense than owning. Not forever. But for now.

Here is why.

What renting actually costs

Renting a boat varies significantly depending on the type of boat, the season, and the location. As a rough guide for recreational day rentals in Italy and Europe in 2026:

A small motorboat without a license requirement: €120-200 per day.

A mid-size motorboat requiring a license: €200-400 per day.

A sailing boat of 30-35 feet for a weekend: €500-900 depending on season and location.

These are not small numbers. But they are all-in. Fuel is usually extra, but insurance, maintenance, mooring, registration, and the boat itself are all covered. You pay, you go, you come back, you hand over the keys. Someone else worries about everything else.

What owning actually costs

This is where most beginners get a surprise. The purchase price of the boat is the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.

Here is a realistic annual cost breakdown for a modest used motorboat of around 6-7 metres on Italian and European waters:

A note on location: these figures reflect Italian and broader European market costs. If you are based in Switzerland, expect running costs to be 20-30% higher across most categories, particularly mooring, which can reach €4,500-5,500 per year on Swiss lakes.

A decent used motorboat in the 6-7 meter range starts at around €12,000-25,000 on the European market.

The honest comparison

If you rent ten to fifteen days a year at €280 per day, you spend roughly €2,800-4,200 annually. You get a different boat each time, zero maintenance responsibility, and no capital tied up.

If you own a comparable boat, you spend €4,350-11,300 per year in running costs alone, plus the purchase price spread across however many years you keep it. You get the freedom to go whenever you want, the satisfaction of having your own boat, and all the responsibility that comes with it.

The crossover point — where owning starts to make financial sense over renting — is roughly 40-60 days on the water per year, depending on the boat and the costs. Most beginners are not there in their first two or three seasons.

My honest view

Rent first. Use the time on different boats to understand what you actually want. A weekend on a sailing boat, a day on a RIB, a week on a motor cruiser. And if you really want to accelerate your learning, there is a third option worth considering: chartering with a skipper on board. More on that next week.

You will learn more about what kind of boating suits you from three or four different rentals than from buying the wrong boat and committing to it for years.

When you know what you want and you are genuinely using the water forty or more days a year, then the conversation about owning starts to make financial sense. Until then, the freedom of renting, with none of the responsibility, is a better deal than most people realize when the excitement of a first season takes over.

I am not there yet. But I am building toward it deliberately, not impulsively.

One more thing: I am working on a calculator that lets you run these numbers for your own situation — your planned days on the water, your target boat size, your location — and see exactly where your crossover point sits. It is not ready yet, but it is coming. More on that soon.

See you next week.
— Ale