More than likely some facts you don't want to hear...

It seems obvious to me how costs get out of control when you start thinking bigger boat but, from reading many emails from readers of Boat Bits, a lot of folks think there is some sort of magic workaround that allows them to get around it. I think it has something to do with magic beans or some such...

Bigger just costs more and it's a fact, just like death and taxes, that is inescapable. So, what's a poor boy going to do?

In my own case, I'd really like to have a fifty-foot schooner...

George Buehler's Melquiades is pretty close to what I have in mind. It's a pretty simple and easily built design so why don't I build one?

The simple fact is that just about the best I can do to put a boat on the water as a home builder comes out at around $10 a pound and if we look at the displacement of Melquiades, which is 61,500 pounds, that makes for a $615,000 price tag... Can you spell O-U-C-H?

Being ever the optimist on things non-political, I have a feeling that just maybe, I could actually build a Mel for maybe $7 a pound (hey, I'm real cheap and great at scrounging) but that still leaves me with a bill around $430,500...

So let's take a look at what happens when we get into the under 40-foot zone and, since we started with a Buehler boat, will stick with his 37-foot Jenny design. Jenny displaces 25,480 pounds so that brings my costs to somewhere between $178K to $250K which is a lot better but still way too high...

Obviously boats with a serious chunk of displacement are going to be problematic for the person on a VolksCruiser budget...

More on this soonish!

A quick checklist...

How to tell if a boat is a VolkCruiser...

1. It's affordable by someone on a blue-collar budget.
2. It's 40-feet or less.
3. It has VERY simple systems.
4. It has a minimal carbon footprint.
5. It's owner repairable.

More on this tomorrow.

About the Adventure 40...

The whole VolksCruiser concept is, you might say, the polar opposite to what's going on over at Attainable Adventure Cruising with their ongoing design riff of the Adventure 40...

The Adventure 40 is an interesting concept but it is most certainly not the sort of thing we're talking about with the VolkCruiser and, I expect, that if you're someone who is attracted to the Adventure 40 idea you're not going to be happy with the whole VolksCruiser thang and vice versa.

Not that I'm knocking the Adventure 40, just that it is simply a very different thought process and mostly incompatible with the whole VolksCruiser mindset and budget parameters.

Just saying...

For one, the VolksCruiser is not a boat design but more a state of mind. There is no one true path and your VolksCruiser can be a design you build, an old classic plastic derelict you rehab, or simply a boat you buy.

If there is any mantra attached to this enterprise it is of the "less is more" sort and that the operative word is sustainable...

I'll repeat that... S-U-S-T-A-I-N-A-B-L-E.

Next time we'll talk a little about what sustainable actually means...

I Might be splitting hairs...

Speaking of VolksCruisers in general, a reader recently pointed out a book and asked me for my opinion and it raised a bit of a question...

What the hell exactly does affordable actually mean?

"Twenty Affordable Sailboats to Take You Anywhere" by Gregg Nestor is not a bad book... Fact is, we seem to like a lot of the same boats...

That said, the last time I checked the Island Packet 31's seemed to go for between $35-65K, Pacific Seacraft 31's are around $65-160K, and the Cape Dory 33 from $30k up to around $60k or so.

Which brings us back to the point of what exactly is affordable to you? Personally, I find sliding scale words like affordable, inexpensive, and reasonable pretty useless unless it also includes a key like the words "plastic surgeon" as in the sentence...

"John, a plastic surgeon, found the Swan 80 both comfortable and affordable".

Now, one wonders what sort of a boat would pop up if you were to start a sentence with...

"Fred, an assistant manager at a Denny's..."

Well, I'm pretty sure we're not going to be talking Swan or Hallberg Rassy!

Which is not to say that "Twenty Affordable Sailboats to Take You Anywhere" is not a good book, it is. I just found the title rather unfortunate.

For a book that Fred, our assistant manager fighting the good fight at Denny's might find more useful, I'll point you to the really excellent "Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere" by John Vigor of a similar ilk.

Just good but not great...

Since we're speaking of sharpies I really have to mention Phil Bolgers Breakdown Schooner...

It's always been one of my favorite love/hate designs and, as such, deserves a bit of discussion.

Of course, it has a lot working for it... Shoal draft, reasonable accommodation, a low sorta/kinda tabernacled rig that stows within the length of the hull, easy to build, cheap, centerboard, water ballast, and it comes apart into three pieces...

Then again, it has a lot not quite right... It's a bit light, there is a huge amount of (in my opinion) misused/wasted space, the rig is over complicated for most folks tastes, centerboard, it has water ballast, and it comes apart into three pieces...

See my problem?

Now admittedly, the water ballast and three piece issues are only an issue if you build the design as drawn. The water ballast is easily replaced if you have a mind to with scrap steel/cement/lead/whatever. The same goes for the three piece issue as you simply build the boat in one piece instead of three. As for the less than robust scantlings, that is easily fixed by simply doing what most amateur boatbuilders do all the time anyway, which is to build beefier than designed.

The centerboard in this design has a whole set of issues/problems that drove me right over the edge into leeboard territory. Which, as it happens, is just fine because I really like leeboards!

That said, the rather huge area amidships just bothers me as it is... well, the word problematic does come to mind.

I've always thought that this design really should have been Bolger's pivotal cruising sharpie but that he got distracted with the novelty of the whole breakdown thing and, as a result, it escaped being a great design settling for good but very interesting.

In the grand scheme of things though, it really would be a great design to sit down and rethink for a round the world cruise...

For those wanting to hear what Phil has to say about the Breakdown Schooner it has it's own chapter in "Boats With an Open Mind".

That sharpie look...

When most people think of sharpies they think of something like this...

Ted Brewer's Mystic Sharpie

Kind of neat, is it not? At 32' it's about what most people think a sharpie should be. Salty as all get out and for me the little Pinkyish detail from at the stern just kicks some serious butt...

The problem comes in when you look at the interior...

 ... Not that there is anything wrong with it but it is simply too small for the sort of cruising and living aboard that the whole VolksCruiser thing is about.

Of course, if you were to scale it up to something like 45 feet you'd wind up with something not unlike Reuel Parker's 45' sharpie...

Reuel Parker's 45' SJI

A nice boat, is it not?

Of course, the interior accommodation is still sparse for what people expect of a 45-foot boat these days but, as long as you're committed to keeping a sharpie looking like what people think a sharpie is supposed to look like, that's the price you pay.

Not a bad price as most folks cruising are couples and don't need charter yacht style accommodation that sleeps ten with ensuite heads for all. The moment you get serious about the whole need/want thing, all of sudden this sort of accommodation starts making all kinds of sense.

Now, what happens if you say to yourself a sharpie does not exactly have to look like what everybody thinks a sharpie should look like?

More about that later...

Some more sharpie stuff...

All boats have limitations and are going to be a compromise to some extent, it's just part of the gig... Why should sharpies be an exception?

Sharpies have two big advantages: they're inexpensive/fast to build and they are very shoal draft. I'm not sure about you but I find those pretty frelling big advantages. In point of fact, those are such big advantages that I'm pretty willing to live with or work around any limitations or foibles that come with the whole sharpie thing...

Why not? Everyone else does! For instance, while deep draft does not make a boat more seaworthy (one of the great sailboat misconceptions) it does, if done right, make you go to windward a whole lot better. So, why don't all boats draw nine feet? The obvious answer is that drawing nine feet is problematic in a lot of places and most designer/builders/buyers of boats are happy to compromise a little windward ability to be able to cruise in places like the Bahamas. See, compromise makes sense...

Well, most of the time. The thing is with sharpies a little compromise is OK but it all falls apart if you try to make a sharpie something it is not. Add beam and the boat does not perform like it should, add complexity and it quits being simple so becomes slow to build and expensive... The list goes on but in most cases where sharpies are concerned, change stuff and you'll find yourself in a one step forward two steps back Mobius loop that spirals out of control.

The way to make the whole sharpie thing work for you (rather than against) is that you roll with the flow of sharpie strengths rather than deal with supposed negatives. A good example is, since it is extremely difficult to get a reasonable accommodation within a 30-foot sharpie envelope you capitalize on the fact that sharpies are cheap to build so you can build it bigger and still save money in the process.

George Buehler, a very smart builder/designer of boats and author of the seminal "Buehler's Backyard Boatbuilding", who for the record is not a fan of sharpies at all, does make a strong case for building big inexpensive boats instead of little expensive ones and, in my rather opinionated opinion, he is right on the money (well, except for the part where he's all wrong on the shoal draft ting).

The truth is, that by building what passes for a 30-foot interior into a 40+-foot hull you find yourself with a much more livable and practical cruising boat...

We'll show you how that works manana.

Then again there's the sharpie...

"Once the departure is made from the true sharpie hull configuration and concept, one is beginning to gild the lily.  Costs soar and the result is   seldom an improvement."

- Tom Colvin

In my mind, the only possible exception for a boat that just might pull off the VolkCruiser concept/budget that you can build yourself is the sharpie and then only if you keep true to concept and simplicity to the Nth degree.

We're talking serious Zen simplicity...

Tom Colvin is a smart guy and his short notes on sharpies are really a must read for anyone considering building one. Or, for that matter, anyone building a boat of any kind...

The advantages of sharpies are varied and many... Short build time, low cost, and a turn of performance that will shock many. Throw in the fact that shoal draft in the sharpie world is something that multihulls can only dream of and you have the makings of a pretty interesting cruising boat.

Having cruised in our Bolger-designed Loose Moose and Loose Moose 2 which only drew 12 & 14 inches respectively, I have to say that drawing 4 1/2 feet in our current boat sometimes seems problematic.

Next we'll be looking at some sharpie design stuff...

What I want for next Christmas...

Dudley Dix has some excellent thoughts regarding the whole why it's smart to build your own boat... I'd call it a must read.

That said, I still think the most logical choice for a VolkCruiser budget is to rehab something cheap/free in reasonable shape but I'd much prefer to build from the keel up if funds allow.

The big problem, of course, is that materials pricing continues to go up and even being open to alternative boat building materials (formply comes to mind) unless some designer comes up with some new (as opposed to old dressed up to be new) ideas I just don't see it.

I can hope though...