The thing is good deals do exist...

I saw an interesting boat for sale over at eBay...

A Washington State based Coronado 35 for $6500 and, judging from the photos, a boat in pretty good condition considering it's around 42 years old.

Of course, like all boats for sale new or old it will have some sort of problem that needs dealing with but hey, it's a boat and there is always something...

Bill Tripp designed it and I can't think of an instance where Mr Tripp drew a bad boat or met an owner who was an unhappy camper.

I'd say this is certainly a boat worth taking a look at and I've always thought that the Coronado 35 made a lot of sense.

On the other hand, I feel it is also prudent to say that anyone looking for a boat to buy should look long and hard at a boat so be sure to take off those rose-colored glasses for the duration of the process...

The thing is, good deals do exist... it's just that they don't last very long.

A boat you should be aware of...

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Westerly Centaur...

For one, it has that sort of clunky everyman thing going for it which is kind of refreshing. It's not sleek, has zero pretensions, and looks just like you'd expect a budget sailboat for the masses to look.

Which is some kind of beautiful in it's own particular way.

Designed for sailing in and around the UK where drying harbors and big tides are common it has bilge keels and they make all kinds of sense. Frankly, I still don't understand why more designers don't do bilge keels as their advantages in most situations outweigh their disadvantages in most of the places folks want to cruise. So, hardly surprising that it is the most popular production sailboat from the UK.

I know Centaurs have crossed the Atlantic and Pacific so they do have some serious street cred which might, along with their bombproof scantlings and high demand, account for their rather steep resale prices. It is not uncommon to find a 1969 Centaur going for $16-18K or so...

As a VolksCruiser it makes all kinds of sense and in a lot of ways really is one of the prototypical examples of what a production boat for most of us should be.

On money keeping you safe or keeping the riff raff out...

Over at Estrellita 5.10B (always a good read) they have a great post concerning fear and it got me thinking...

As it happens, I was also trying to digest just why a thread about the possibility of a $15,000 bluewater cruiser over at Cruisers Forum irritated me so much.

I've gone on record that I don't think the moniker "Blue Water" should ever be used in conjunction with the words design, sailboat, or gear. I feel boats should be seaworthy whether you sail a couple of miles or a couple of thousand and the idea that it's alright to go somewhere in an unsafe or unseaworthy boat as long as it's "coastal" is somewhat flawed logic.

Also, it goes without saying that sticking the words "Blue Water" and a large price tag on a boat's description does not make it a safe or seaworthy boat...

Looking at the Cruisers Forum thread again with the word fear freshly imprinted on my mind all of a sudden it all makes some kind of perverted sense.

Fear is an interesting emotion and one that will, more than likely, destroy what was once a great experiment in democracy and, if fear can bring a great empire to its knees, just imagine what it can do to people who simply want to go sailing...

Of course, there are many seaworthy boats and a lot of them can be bought for $15,000 or less. For an example take a look at the CAL34 but there are any number of boats in the 26 through 38-foot range with small price tags that will take you safely anywhere you care to go.

The idiocy of the boat buck...

Talk about stuff that gets up my nose...

Boat bucks!

Not so much the fact that we, from time to time, have to spend money on our boats but the fact that we have been trained to think it is natural and proper to pay excessive money for goods and services and be proud of it. Sort of like announcing to the world...

"Hey, I'm stupid and it makes me happy"

Of course, folks in the marine trades just love to hear clients/customers/marks use or think in terms of a phrase like "boat bucks" because it says loud and clear...

"Hey, I'm a cash cow!"

So, hardly surprising that some marine tradesmen and traders might take advantage.

Maybe it's just me, but where I come from a buck is a buck, as in 100 cents, and I suspect most folks of the VolksCruiser ilk tend to agree with me.

That said, some folks would be lost without the ability to bemoan how many "boat bucks" they're spending in a transparent ruse to tell people how much money they have in the ongoing pissing/dick measuring game so popular with a certain kind of boater who actually likes to use the term "yacht" when referring to his/her boat.

As it happens, I just bought a new (to me) mainsail and it only cost me about $400 which included shipping down to the Caribbean from New England. For those who are interested it is in excellent shape with pretty close to new cloth and will easily give a bunch of years of cruising service. For those who keep track of such things, I do have to cut down the sail a kiss to make it fit my needs but we're only talking about a few hours of labor... No boat bucks involved.

I mention this because there is almost ALWAYS an alternative to spending boat bucks or silly money for those of us in the land of frugal sailing and cruising and it's not even a lot of work or hassle...

All you have to do is use your brain before you reach for your wallet.

Reality check...

Want to know something that may surprise you?

I wish I had a smaller boat.

Oh sure, to be honest I do, from time to time, want a bigger boat but mostly I want something smaller.

The advantages of a bigger boat (being able to carry more stuff and have a bit more speed) quickly passes whenever I consider the added work and costs a bigger boat (or the one I am currently on) generate.

Fact is, most folks I know with bigger boats never actually use the added space in any needful or meaningful way that justifies the added expense and work.

If you follow the the semi-common practice of purging all the gear you have not used in a year, it's not like you can get rid of that extra berth or cabin that never gets used because you don't have any friends that want to (or have time to) come visit. Though, every time you haul out or tie up in a marina you're paying for all that extra space you're not using.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."   - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

An excellent resource...

Anyone considering doing the whole VolksCruiser gig really needs to bookmark Atom Voyages and read it on a regular basis.

Really.

I've lost track of the number of clever and (dare I say it?) cunning ideas and projects I've found there that made all kinds of sense. Which, as you may have discovered, is something of a rarity these days.

As it happens, James Baldwin also has a pretty excellent book which most of you really should get your hands on....

Nuff said.

More needful stuff...

Did you know that Dung beetles can navigate using the stars? You might want to remember that when someone tells you celestial navigation is an esoteric art too difficult to learn.

So, with that little factoid bouncing around your brain pan, maybe we should look at needful navigation stuff for the VolksCruising set...

Obviously, being on a VolksCruiser budget, the cost of such things is going to be an important factor right along with utility. On a side note, you should easily be able to outfit your boat from scratch for less than $1000 and a lot less if you're canny and take advantage of the perfectly good stuff that came with your boat.

So, first things first, you really need a watch. It has to keep accurate time but does not have to cost a silly amount of money. I happen to use a sub-$20 Casio and it does everything needful.

You'll also need a way to figure out how fast your boat is going. I have to say I'm just not a big fan of paddlewheel log units. I've never had a boat where they did not give me trouble when I really needed them to not give problems which might account why I still feel that trailing logs of one sort or another make a lot more sense than people give them credit for. That said, it is expected you'll have an electronic speed/log and the one that came on your boat, if it works, is as good as you need but take my advice and get something like the Knotstick as a backup (it's what I use).

You also need a depth sounder of some sort and it's not just a tool to keep you from going aground or checking the depth in an anchorage. A lot of folks don't realize just how handy a navigation tool a depth sounder can be for doing stuff like running depth contours and suchlike. Personally, if my old depth sounder were to die (it's a Raymarine so there's a pretty good chance it will sooner rather than later), I'd replace it with a fishfinder (like this one) because they tend to be cheap and add a level of information that is useful.

Of course, since we actually do live in the future and contrary to the popular misconception that I'm a card-carrying Luddite, I'll go out on a limb and say that a handheld GPS is no bad thing to have since you can buy them for a hundred dollars or so. You might even want to buy one for a back up while you're at it...

As long as we're talking advanced electronics for the frugal set, I might as well broach the subject of chart plotters (and I expect dear Ned Ludd is now spinning like a top wherever he rests) because these days with the costs of paper charts so high it makes a lot of sense to invest in an affordable (let's define that as under $500) chart plotter that will run affordable charts or, better yet, some sort of cheap pad or tablet with an navigation application that has really cheap chart coverage.

Lastly, you still do really need a cheap sextant because, as every good dung beetle knows, shit can happen...

A neat cat and a thought...

Kurt Hughes, a multihull designer I admire, had an interesting post on his blog about a couple building one of his 30-foot cruising cats...

It's a pretty cool cat in the minimalist vein and I like it. Fact is, I can't imagine a better 30-foot cat for cruising in.

That said, sadly, it's not really a contender for a VolksCruiser because like almost all multihulls it's kinda expensive.

The cost of the rig and sails alone would pay for a sharpie with better accommodation, more payload, a better ability to actually sail in skinny water, and be a whole lot faster to build than a cat.

and somewhere progress is being made...

Like a lot of folks I've been keeping a weather eye on the progress being made on the Skrowl 4.34...

For instance, I know for a fact Dave Z has had something of a eureka moment when he came across the design and, I expect, it's going to be an influence on future Trilo boats...

As for me, I'm less interested in the construction and design of the hull and just waiting for how the continued evolution and refinement of  Yann Quenet's take on the balanced lug goes. It's pretty obvious to me that at last someone is on the right track on bringing the balanced lug into the current century. About time too...

Talking about that list of needful stuff

Not all that long ago, having a VHF radio aboard was considered something of unneeded luxury. Fact of the matter is, I recall quite vividly a certain British yachting magazine doing a frothing-at-the-mouth editorial about how the introduction of affordable VHF would rot the sinews of seamanship...

How times do change.

Today I can still buy a rather decent waterproof handheld VHF for quite a bit less than $100. The one we have has been working finest kind for more than a decade so I expect it will, more than likely, continue to work for at least another and will, quite probably, outlive me.

From where I sit this is money well spent because from time to time it is actually needful to listen in or ask someone a question... So it passes the need/want criteria.

For those of the VolksCruiser persuasion, a sub one hundred dollar handheld VHF is really all you'll ever actually need.

Better yet, a handheld does not require crafty holes or mounting solutions that require running wires into inaccessible places.

I'll call that a slam dunk.

Sorta/kinda touching on the whole what it costs to cruise can of worms...

Now here's something (yet another cruising rally) of zero interest to folks thinking about VolksCruisers and frugal cruising scenarios. That said, I mention it because for the fees involved to do an Atlantic circuit with this particular economic black hole, you could cruise quite comfortably or go a long way toward buying or building yourself a very nice boat!

Let's break it down...

• Eastbound Atlantic passage... $2,331 (and change).
• Portugal to Madeira... $1,481 
• Madeira/Cape Verde/Barbados passage... $3,274   
• Some pottering in the southern Caribbean... $1871 
• A bit more Caribbean and on to the US of A ... $2,650

Now, math not exactly being my strong point, I'm pretty sure that is nearly $12,000 spent on some highly intangible stuff and nannying. None of that money goes to real cruising expenses like food, fuel, or shipboard expenses. 

You know, I could do a serious lot of mischief with nearly $12,000. Fact of the matter is, I know I could easily do a comfortable year-long Atlantic circle free and clear for that kind of money and have more fun in the process than the rally folk.

 I'm pretty sure you could as well!