Need 4 to go. Pompano Dive Center 4 wrecks on 1/10/2020

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Can someone, anyone explain how a business that consists of a captain who owns a small sixpack boat, will lose money by taking a diver who will pay around $100 for a two tank dive, on an excursion perhaps 2 miles outside of the inlet where the boat is docked?

Or is it a matter of, the captain/owner can't be bothered for such a trivial sum even though his gas and operating costs for that short trip are more than covered.

I’ll try.

Never owned a boat. Don’t know what they cost, nor what the fuel costs. I know both are substantial. But I can ignore them and still know going out for $100 is a bad idea.

Assume 15 minutes to load. 15 minutes to get to the site. 60 minutes for first dive: gearing up, diving, getting back on. 45 minute surface interval. 60 minutes for second dive. 15 minutes back. 15 minutes to unload. 15 minutes to clean the boat. 4.5 hours, and my times are short.

Taxes (remember those?) will take 1/3 of the money. We’re at $66. Divide that by 4.5 hours and that’s less than $15 an hour.

And I didn’t include fuel, snacks, boat maintenance, overhead or anything else.

I’m amazed when they go out with four...
 
I’ll try.

Never owned a boat. Don’t know what they cost, nor what the fuel costs. I know both are substantial. But I can ignore them and still know going out for $100 is a bad idea.

Assume 15 minutes to load. 15 minutes to get to the site. 60 minutes for first dive: gearing up, diving, getting back on. 45 minute surface interval. 60 minutes for second dive. 15 minutes back. 15 minutes to unload. 15 minutes to clean the boat. 4.5 hours, and my times are short.

Taxes (remember those?) will take 1/3 of the money. We’re at $66. Divide that by 4.5 hours and that’s less than $15 an hour.

And I didn’t include fuel, snacks, boat maintenance, overhead or anything else.

I’m amazed when they go out with four...

How about insurance and dock space? If you're depending on this occupation for income, it doesn't even pay to start the boat up for a hundred bucks. I have my own boat and I get asked the question all the time, What does it cost to take out the boat. My answer... Minimum $100 to leave the dock.
 
How about insurance and dock space? If you're depending on this occupation for income, it doesn't even pay to start the boat up for a hundred bucks. I have my own boat and I get asked the question all the time, What does it cost to take out the boat. My answer... Minimum $100 to leave the dock.
As a finance guy, I'll throw this out there: if the captain and his boat is otherwise unoccupied, any amount in excess of variable costs (gas, any crew wages) is a net benefit. Docking fees, insurance and the like are expenses that don't change whether you go out or not. So anything in excess of those variable costs helps pay for them.

Now if the captain has an alternative use for his time that he values more than the $100, that's a whole other story :)
 
Taxes (remember those?) will take 1/3 of the money. We’re at $66. Divide that by 4.5 hours and that’s less than $15 an hour.

And I didn’t include fuel, snacks, boat maintenance, overhead or anything else.

I’m amazed when they go out with four...

As @gcarter said, the fixed expenses are paid regardless. All that matters is the additional costs of taking the boat a few miles out- which includes a relatively small amount of gas, oil and wear and tear on the boat. Oh, yeah and "snacks". Those little bags of chips can really add up!

As far as taxes taking 1/3, as @Manatee Diver pointed out, business taxes don't work that way.

A business is taxed on the net profit, not gross proceeds and as we all know, cash isn't typically included in income reported to the state and federal governments and lots of divers pay for their trips in cash (including me).

When you consider the low profit margins many or most dive ops work under, I doubt they'd pay a fraction of that $100 in taxes, if any.

As @gcarter said, it only matters if the owner/captain can make more money doing something else during that same time period.

Anyway, the forecast continues to worsen for next week, looks like only Sunday may be salvageable at this point.
 
As @gcarter said, it only matters if the owner/captain values his time more doing something else during that same time period.
 
As @gcarter said, it only matters if the owner/captain values his time more doing something else during that same time period.

Wow.

I gave a 90 second breakdown on why you can’t run a diveboat on $100. I hand-waved taxes for a whopping $34. Yes, I know how business taxes work: I’ve run an S Corp, an LLC and a Schedule C.

You all focus on *that* and ignore the fact that I put operating expenses at $0! Might *those* have exceeded $34 whole dollars?

You’re proud of the fact that he’s probably running a business so close to break-even that he probably won’t pay much in taxes?!! And you feel that you should be able to make that worse?

As for you people harping on ‘not having something more valuable to do and therefore it’s a net positive’, are you kidding? Never mind that my incredibly simple analysis is already at the level where kids at McDonalds get that much for asking if you want fries with that. Literally anything that improved some aspect of the business (like increasing his profile on FB or SB for four hours!) would return more than running that trip.

Let alone the battle-pay he should get for spending four hours of his life dealing with entitled people who expect a professional to give up their time for virtually nothing because they feel entitled to dive whenever they want rather than whenever it makes sense for both parties.
 
I absolutely agree with you. Just because the marginal gross revenue for taking a single diver out for five hours is greater that $0 doesn't mean that the captain is making a good decision by doing so. There must be some personal threshold that could be different for different people. Maybe for Norrm, it means that he would be willing to do it if he were in that position for $20 after all expenses. After all, it's more than $0. But he forgot to put in the value of non-working time. Even if it brings in no income, there is some inherent value to it for each person, either business or even leisure related. We are people, not machines.
 
Yes, I know how business taxes work

You might know how business taxes work but what you posted was incorrect, as per subsequent posts that clarified the issue. A third of the dollars coming in do NOT go to taxes as you suggested.

You all focus on *that*

I focused on all the incorrect points, most of them written by you.

.You’re proud of the fact that he’s probably running a business so close to break-even that he probably won’t pay much in taxes?!! And you feel that you should be able to make that worse?

I'm not proud of anything. I just want to dive. Wanting to dive and suggesting an owner/captain take me out when there really isn't anything to lose doesn't make anything worse unless he or she could be more productive doing something else during that time.

. Literally anything that improved some aspect of the business (like increasing his profile on FB or SB for four hours!) would return more than running that trip.

I wasn't aware that owner/captains spent their downtime doing things to increase their business. I figured they sit around drinking beer and playing cards or whatever. This could be a good thread topic "how do boat captains and dive Op owners spend their downtime when not running scheduled trips due to weather/not enough divers/mechanical failures". There's a LOT of downtime due to cancellations in the scuba diving business. How many FB or SB posts can an owner/captain write?

.Let alone the battle-pay he should get for spending four hours of his life dealing with entitled people who expect a professional to give up their time for virtually nothing because they feel entitled to dive whenever they want rather than whenever it makes sense for both parties.

I can't dive "whenever I want". I've taken time, effort and days off, and spent lots of money to travel over 2000 miles, it's not like I made a decision to dive on a whim. Some Dive Ops do go out with a 1 or 2 diver minimum, it's good business practice.
 
https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

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