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.