Why an old plastic boat makes sense...

The other day while I was comparing various "classic plastic" designs I had a bit of a eureka moment...

Most of these boats are built like frelling tanks!

In the various boats I was looking at, almost none of the interior structure was actually... well, the best word to describe it, would be, structural. Or, in other words, 97% of the interior is just furniture. Think about that for a moment.

Having worked on quite a few classic plastic boats over the years, I was actually aware of this situation on a practical level but had never really thought about it past the point of "Sure you can pull out and replace that bulkhead without worrying about the boat taking on the shape of a banana in the process".

Of course, these days folks build boats differently because it's cheaper to make boats in a monocoque structure with all of the interior parts sharing the load. Which I'm not knocking in theory and I strongly believe that a monocoque structure is the only way to go when constructing a boat but, with that being said, you can take it too far... Something you'll understand in a hurry when you go to replace a galley in a modern boat afloat and once you've removed a cabinet find the hull oil-canning inward once the support of said cabinet is no longer in place.

Now, our CAL 34 is a good example of a boat where the interior structure in the boat is doing pretty much zip in support of the hull and deck and, providing the mast/rig is not up, you can pretty much rip out the interior to your hearts content while afloat and the hull will remain the shape Bill Lapworth intended throughout the process.

But, back to that eureka moment...

When you replace the interior it makes all kinds of sense to rebuild as a monocoque structure because it won't cost anymore to speak of (a 6" roll of biaxial tape and a gallon-and-a-half of epoxy would be the added outlay), it will make an already strong structure a whole frelling lot stronger and, dare I say it, a whole helluva lot stronger than pretty much anything you'll find on the new market today.

Of course, while you're doing the monocoque presto-chango there's nothing that says you can't fine tune the interior to better suit your personal needs while you're at it.

Or, in other words...

Old boats truly rock...

Some needful reading...

Over at Comet Camper there's a must read on the subject of your 5/10/15 year plan you should check out.

Really...

a whole lot of bang for the buck...

I may have mentioned before how much I like Phil Bolger's Jessie Cooper design. If you are looking for a VolksCruising design that gives you maximum bang for minimum bucks that is buildable in a short time frame, you'd have a difficult time finding better...

That said, it's not exactly an easy boat for most people to understand being just that bit further out of the box design-wise, so there is a WTF or two for anyone checking it out.

For instance, both the mainmast and mizzen are off center, there's only one dagger board (off center as well), and the boat only draws a foot. To say those attributes drive some people batshit crazy is something of an understatement.

The fact is, we built our Jessie Cooper for a special short term purpose. We had no thoughts of keeping it long term so we built it as a temporary boat. I'll be the first to admit that I was as surprised as anyone when it turned out to sail incredibly well and, as a result, made me rethink everything I took as gospel where boat design is concerned.

Those off-center masts were non-problematic; never causing us to sail in circles as some opinionated dockwalkers said they would and, more to the point, they were actually advantageous in making a small boat's interior much bigger than it had any right to be. The lug rig (also something that made some people froth at the mouth) was powerful and although the sail on the mast on the bad tack distorted the sail shape, the difference in drive between the good/bad tack was not enough to actually measure a positive or negative difference in drive or tack angle to windward.

Pretty much the same could be said for the off-center daggerboard... While I'm sure there was a tiny difference to windward and, just possibly a kiss more leeward drift on one tack, I  never actually found it problematic enough to be able to measure said difference. I've come to believe that a dozen or so square inches of lateral resistance is well within the mind's subconscious ability to self-correct as you trim sails and steer your course to the point that it really is a no-brainer.

As far as the one foot draft goes, once you've experienced the varied joys of real shoal draft cruising you'll never want to go back to anything else.

Some more on what I'd change if I were to build a Jessie Cooper with the addition of some hindsight soonish...

All you have to do is look...

A couple of weeks ago someone wrote and told me he'd looked for a possible VolksCruiserish boat and there was just nothing around...

Fact is, everyday I scan Sailboatlistings.com, my local Craigslist, and keep my ear open to the coconut telegraph. It's not hard  and only takes a few minutes but there are always a boat are two going for cheap that only need an investment of a little money and a significant amount of sweat equity that would be up to the task of taking you wherever you cared to go.

How about a Dufour 27?

There's one on SailboatListings.com with an asking price of $999.

That's just a kiss over seventeen cents a pound!!!

A little insanity...

Looking at some boat ads this morning I found this bit of craziness...

$28,000 its a steal at this price; spent 62,000 on it

Refering to a 35 year old Hunter 37 for sale.

The thing is, I see people pouring copious amounts of money into boats in ways that don't make any kind of sense at all. Why on earth would you spend $62K on a boat that, at best, is only worth between $15-$20K?

Which, sorta/kinda, brings up the Endeavour project...

You could easily pour $60K into the boat... A new rig and sails could easily cost a third of that, so would a new engine by the time the dust settled and, as long as we're throwing money around like the proverbial drunken sailor, I'm sure someone will point out that an AwlGrip job would not go amiss...

What little that remains from the $60K might be enough to buy your nextgen anchor of choice but maybe not.

The thing is you'd still have a boat worth maybe $25K at most...

Do the math.

So, why rehab a semi-derlict boneyard Endeavour 32 anyway?

Well, on one hand it's to prove it can be done on a sane budget. On the other, it does happen to be a great teaching aid in the How-To of it, and lastly, I simply like working on boats so I find the process enjoyable.

That said, I'm still not sure it is a doable project and I'm still doing the math...