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!