I think it’d be very unlikely you’d be able to get a tax refund on gas used for a recreational watercraft.
Here’s one:
Here is a press release issued by Pelosi before Democrats took over control of the house and senate:
“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”
Another one was a soundbite I saw of Hillary claiming that once the Senate had a democratic majority they would lower oil prices… She didn’t deliver. I can’t find the soundbite, but I recently saw it on a cable news channel so it clearly exists…
Yep - I have unlimited water but metered power so I guess it’s a wash. Do you have a dockominium where you are? They put one in here several years back and we bought into it…turn out it was just an OK deal…
…if you have to ask, you can’t afford it"
True, but apples to apples I pay the same for my 40’ slip as a sail boater for his 40’ slip.
I hate you. “Grumble, grumble, lucky, grumble, unfair, grumble, grumble.”
At my marina the sail boaters tend to take 'er out a little more than the power boaters. They seem to maintain their boats a lot more often as well
I’ve never sailed but it looks like a lot of work. Then again, there’s an inherent cache in owning a sailboat that powerboats simply don’t provide, plus I imagine it takes more skill to sail than to powerboat, where you only have to deal with the wheel and throttle. In fact, I’d say the only real challenge in operating a power boat is during docking maneuvers.
I’ve never heard running out of gas being a problem for sail boaters, although I guess it’s possible at dead calm.
No we don’t, but I think I would absolutely love it if we did. What don’t you like about it?
I love boating…as long as the boat isn’t mine. Tried that many many moons ago. Had an 20’ Glastron GT with something like a 250 HP outboard on it. Sure it was a blast – once I got it in the water. Weren’t any marinas near me at the time, just a few (very) slimy ramps. And I freakin’ hated trailing that thing around – wasn’t just once that I almost ended-up in the water…first generation 4-Runner included!
Took me about a year to come to the “second happiest day of my life” as a boat-owner.
Why not? Many gas taxes are “road taxes,” designed to pay for the roads that the gas is burned on. Travel more miles, pay more taxes, build more roads.
I thought farmers didn’t pay road tax for tractor and farm equipment fuel because that equipment doesn’t use roads. By the same token, my watercraft or my lawn mower don’t use roads, either. Why should I pay for roads when I use my boat?
Sail boaters typically use motors to get in and out of harbors, slips and to navigate in tight quarters such as canals or thru/under bridges, not just to save them the effort of raising/lowering sails.
Yep, my marina has a posted rule that sail boaters must motor out and back within marina limits. I thought it an odd regulation, but perhaps there’ve been accidents…I suspect it’s for safety reasons, similar to the “no wake” rule for power boats.
These are beamy sailboats, with an inboard engine(usually a one-cylinder diesel). the are popular in Scandinavia, but bever really caught on here-will they become popular?
I could see it. Kind of the best (and possibly worst) of both worlds. I imagine they’d be bloody expensive to buy and maintain here in the US.
It’s for the Marina’s insurance company. There are accidents weekly at places that don’t post the motor in/out rule. Guys come in on their little JY-26’s and fly into the slip and ram up hull on the main dock…crack it in the process…and otherwise fowl up the docks. Hit other peoples boats etc…etc…They assume that if you are under motor you know how to control your vessel - this of course doesn’t always happen 
I’ve seen many a motor and sailboater drunk as a skunk pulling in nailing other peoples boats, or taking out pilings…I’ve seen a lot of that stuff.
The dockominium where our boat is at slip was nice when it opened because they had low introductory rates that all sky-rocketed after 24 months. Luckily I kept my low rate but the town now passed an ordinance that this dockominium was the last one being built because the marina could house quadruple the boats by stacking them but the town could only tax them on the actual marina land and waterfront…but couldn’t tax them if they were stacked like this.
Motorsailers *are *beamy but they are gorgeous! There are a few near where I live and they are really nice. Big, oaky and really heavy they are built amazingly strong.
Whoah, pretty neat. How do they get them up and down?
Have you ever seen the parking garages in NYC? They stack them up with a huge lift, it pivots and moves around any spot in that stack…
See here.
Well, thank goodness folks aren’t waiting for us recreational boaters to transport their hard goods. And anyway, we’re entirely too busy adding teak to our swim platforms and attractive underwater lighting strips to be used the two times a year we’re actually on the water at night. Priorities, man. Priorities.
Hold on there - Underwater light strips??? Please - don’t keep me waiting tell me more 
Are they expensive? cool
Is the equipment that lifts the boats kind of like a fork lift, that grabs the boats the same way the rails on the shelves and a trailer do?
Dude, they go on a boat. Of course they’re expensive!
They’re actually not too expensive. It depends on which ones you get, how much lighting you want and where you want them. Many of the lighting strips and rope lights are waterproof and low-voltage. You can do something as simple as this guy’s setup. I call these Barnegat lights. They’re about $150 each plus labor for the install, but easily a do-it-yourself job. There are many, many types, options, colors, powder- and non powder-coated, etc…
Oh man that brings me back. When I was a kid my dad had our 22 foot Catalina in the upper part of Mystic Harbor near the Seaport. After a few summers of waiting for the Rt. 1 drawbridge he moved it to Haddam on the Connecticut River so that we could actually sail the thing…