Just a quick note to thank those readers who seem to get the whole VolksCruiser dynamic and here's hoping that 2022 will be a better one.
The current plan is to have a lot more on the rehabbing of classic plastic, affordable boat building, and the de-gentrification of cruising and sailing.
All the best for the new year.
More soon come...
Fact is that most of the questions people ask me regarding the whole VolksCruising gig can be answered by just reading Annie Hill's book.
Are not books wonderful?
Back when I was living in France one of the designs that I seriously considered was the ETAP 23 for use as a minimal envelope blue water cruiser.
For starters, it's a nice little sailboat. All of the ETAP sailboats had a very nice look partly because of their excellent use of graphics and just the fact that they were all just pretty nice designs.Throw in the fact that they were pretty good in the performance department it's easy to see why they quickly became somewhat hip.
The other reason they were attractive was the fact the ETAPs were unsinkable. Of course, ETAP was not the first builder of boats to come out with sailboats that would not sink but they were the first to my knowledge that was integral to the design. All of the others seemed to be more of an afterthought of the "Let's see how many foam bricks we can cram into the boat?" sort of thing.
That said, the downside of the ETAP unsinkable designs was that it seriously impacted the stowage in a big way. To the point that I really wanted the ETAP 20 there was just no way I could stow enough cruising gear, provisions, and needful tools to sail back to the US OF A with. Hence my fixating on the ETAP 23.
As it happens, Bateaux Magazine on their website has an excellent two part article (part 1 and part two) on fixing up an ETAP 23 or any other small sailboat design for a transatlantic voyage that is well worth your time. Even if you don't read French and have to resort to the hassle of google translate.
Charles Doane (the Wave Train dude) has an excellent post of the VolksCruiser variety that you should really check out.
Need I say more?
Budget is a funny thing. Then again, when you think about it money being an artificial construct is also somewhat strange.
My issue has a lot to do with the words we use when discussing budgets and money. Words like affordable. We all understand what the word means, but we also know it has a unique value to different people.
When someone tells me the price of a lithium battery is affordable, I have to wonder what that actually means and can I afford it. I recently wrote about a boat that sells for $175K and I’m pretty sure some of my readers might consider it both a bargain and affordable. I also wrote about some boats that cost less than $3K. I’m pretty sure some of my readers would still consider that to be a serious strain on their budget or unaffordable.
Something of a conundrum that.
Obviously, we’re not all on the same page where spendable income is part of the equation. Which is made even worse by the sheer magnitude of disparity in income and wealth.
So, what’s affordable for a VolksCruiser?
When I started this blog, I had two groups in mind. The first was those working minimum wage jobs. While the second was that hazy middle ground of skilled folks making more than minimum wage, but not quite in the professional zone. Throw in the people who don’t quite fall into easy categories like ski instructors, musicians, freelancers, and artists and you have a hazy idea of what sort of incomes are involved.
The current poverty cutoff point in the US of A for a couple is $17,420 a year, or just about $1452 a month. Keep that number in mind…
Another number that crops up regularly when discussing cruising budgets is the $500 a month cruising budget, which has been a thing since I was in college. I’ll point out that in those days, a Snickers cost a nickel. Think about that for a moment or two.
Now, here’s the funny thing; a lot of cruising budgets I’ve read by cruisers who are on more expensive boats than lowly VolksCruisers still use the $1000 and $1500 as their target budgets. Too often, the thing that keeps them from achieving those budget goals is the added costs generated by a larger, more expensive boat with complicated systems. They still seem to get by on near-poverty level expenses, showing how affordable living and cruising on a boat can be.
Even more telling is that even with inflation and all that, some folks are still getting by on close to the $500 a month zone. Certainly not for everyone, but I’d love to learn just how they manage it.
Which is all a roundabout way to trying to define what sort of financial budget makes sense for a couple cruising on a sustainable finite budget. As well as what sort of boat needed to make it happen.
We’ll look at a couple of examples next…
Damn.
Just possibly the father of the VolksCruiser concept and a revolutionary who completely changed the face of sailing is no longer with us.
I'm currently reading about a transatlantic voyage in the 60's on a Gunter rigged Westerly 22.
The Pat Patterson designed Heavenly Twins is just possibly the best bang for the buck of any catamaran ever built.
With a street price these days of less than $20K there's a lot to be said for an under 30-foot catamaran that sleeps six.
At least a couple of this design have successfully circumnavigated and many others have done transatlantic and transpacific voyages which attests to their seaworthiness.
The interior accommodation is both sensible as well as surprisingly commodious for a boat so small which is no easy accomplishment. I've seen a lot of larger designs that don't have as good livability and ergonomics as the Heavenly Twins.
All in all, there were six versions of the design each with modifications that actually improved the design rather than cosmetic changes or one step forward two steps back sort of engineering.
I've always thought of the Heavenly Twins as being a lot like the VW bug and the Citroen 2CV in that they have a lot of character and appeal to people who are more function oriented.
Like a lot of "cruising" catamarans, the Heavenly Twins are not so fleet of foot and tend to have performance more akin to a monohull.
That said, it is still a multihull and great care needs to be observed. It does not have the load carrying ability of a monohull so while it's a boat with comparable speed to an equivalent monohull, it will become a slug when overloaded.
Over the last few years I've seen Heavenly Twins selling for as low as $8K and as high as $25K with the bulk selling for somewhere in the $12k to $17K range.
That is still more expensive than an equivalent monohull but considering how overpriced catamarans are in general they are still quite a good deal. More info can be found on the Heavenly Twins and Cruising Catamaran Association.
It just came to my attention that West Marine currently has the Sportyak on sale. You know, this boat...
It's a great design as it's light, pretty much indestructible, unsinkable, and cheap. It rows well and can carry two people with gear or groceries which is really all most people actually need in a dinghy. Lastly it's light enough to carry up a beach or get it up on the boat from the water by one person and it has a very small footprint so most folks will find it easy to store on deck..
That said, you can build a better dinghy for less but for those folks not inclined to wood butchery of the dinghy building sort this is just about the best bang you'll find in a ready made dinghy that floats right side up.
Just sayin'
I saw a Freedom 25 for sale in Hawaii recently...
The smaller Freedoms by their very nature are really great boats that have edged in to the affordable zone so you might want to check out the Hoyt thirty-foot and under designs.
Boats in the VolksCruiser budget zone are going to have problems or issues you’ll have to deal with. Just accept it as part of the territory, which is not always problematic. A sailboat with the right issues could very well be to your advantage.
Building a junk rig (spar, sail, and running rigging) is not that difficult or expensive. The cost is less than a new mast. So it makes sense to go with the junk rig rather than replace the original rig. The boat comes with a full set of C27 sails that should be easy to sell and cover some of the cost of the junk rig.
Adding the junk rig to the mix will make the C27 a better cruising boat and open up some space below by not having to store unused sails. A junk rig will also increase the value more than the cost of the new rig.
Which, I think most of you’ll agree, is a win/win situation.
More on problems that may actually be advantages in disguise soonish...
Yesterday I did a Craigslist search on some of my favorite VolksCruiser candidates one of which is the Bill Tripp designed Columbia 26 MK2.
As it happens I found six of these boats for sale and all of them were selling for $3000 or less. The average price was just a kiss shy of $2000. Looking at my search today I saw another Columbia 26MK I had missed for an asking price of $3900 which appears to be a bit more of a turn key boat.
Obviously, a boat with an asking price of $1500 or $1700 (the two least expensive) is going to require some work but as there is not all that much to fix the expense would not be great or the work overly problematic. In my experience most of the work is more about cleaning and simple projects than anything difficult or expensive.
One thing to look out for is that the 26 MK 2 came in a normal and shoal draft version and I've always been partial to shoal draft where VolksCruisers are concerned as it opens up potential for less expensive moorings as well as out of the way anchorages..
Also, it's best to keep in mind that there is almost always a difference between what the seller is asking for and what the seller will actually accept.
Some more information on the Columbia 26MK2 can be found here.
The current issue of Blue Water Sailing (not a magazine I read on a regular basis) has an article on "New Cruising Boats" and it seems that the cheapest boat listed is about $175,000.00 or so. Which, I'll admit, does seem in the cheap-seats when compared to the boats on the list over a million bucks.
Apparently, blue water cruising is an expensive pastime but still you'd think they'd be able to include a boat or two which someone who actually works for a living might actually be able to afford.
That being the case, for those considering going cruising in a bit more affordable VolksCruiserish boat how does one survive in a pastime that continues to gentrify at such an alarming manner?
Face it, the maritime press is now only interested in running articles that appeal to wealthy readers and high end companies because high end companies have big advertising budgets. Just about all of the marine magazines who were once full of articles about fixing up old boats, DIY projects, and cruising stories by folks on limited budgets are now doing puff pieces on million dollar cats and monohulls.
It's kinda depressing...
Which has me thinking that I really should do a series of twenty blue water capable production boats that have stood the test of time and can be bought by someone who's working for $15 bucks an hour.
Ya think?
More soon come...
A couple of decades or so back while living in in St Thomas there was a really nice couple who'd bought a famous (it had featured in a movie with Bing Crosby) albeit semi-derelict Alden schooner sight unseen.
At the time I was working at a local marine consignment store and the couple came in often looking to buy needful items for their boat and pumping us for advice.
You know what they say about free advice.
The couple while knowing zilch about boats and on a shoestring budget still managed to do a lot of work on the boat and seemed to be on a roll when they made the mistake about bringing in a local rigger to help them with their rig.
A couple of weeks after they showed up with a shopping list provided by the rigger that, to me at least, was some kind of interesting. The first thing that caught my attention was that there were a lot of things that just did not belong on an old wooden schooner. So I asked which boat the shopping list was for.
They answered that the rigger had laid out a whole new rig as he had access to one of the old America's Cup boats and could reuse some of their old rod rigging...
Now, St Thomas is a pretty small place and the rigger in question was somewhat infamous for doing bad jobs. He seldom actually did any real rigging work leaving that to his crew who were more or less clueless and paid sub-minimum wages. The clients, of course, paid $75 bucks an hour for each of those sub-minimum wage minions. So hardly surprising that a lot of projects turned into clusterfucks.
I pointed this out to the couple and recommended that they hit the local book store and buy The Riggers Apprentice by Brion Toss and that the book would answer all of their questions in getting their rig fixed right. Soon after they were DIYing the rig with a bit of help from Brion on the phone when needful.
Not too long after the boat was doing the daysail charter ting and earning money.
I mention this story because the marine trades in general are not your friend. Some are simply inept while others are, at best, just black hearted villains who will steal you blind. Whichever sort you're dealing with be assured that the only thing most care about is what's in your wallet.
Worse yet is the fact that far too often marine tradesmen work in concert with each other. For instance that nice helpful surveyor tells you your rig is shot and sends you to a rigger to sort out your problems. Sadly, far too often that surveyor didn't really find anything wrong and is going to receive a kickback or part of the damage that the rigger will inflict on your budget.
I'll point out that in this sort of scenario the too often used adage "You get what you pay for!" is true but in a very negative way.
So, the whole VolksCruiser vibe is really just about accessible knowledge and accumulating the needed skill-set to keep your boat running. Well that and avoiding dastardly assholes.
Larry and Lin Pardey pretty much coined the perfect VolksCruiser mantra when they said something along the lines of...
"If you can't fix it, it doesn't belong on your boat!"
I know everyone says that when using plywood aboard a boat that one should always use the best marine plywood you can get.
So here's where that advice does not quite add up.
Some time back I built a hard dodger with marine ply, saturated it with epoxy and glassed then painted it. I was content that it was both bombproof and would last forever.
A couple of years later I built a Bolger long Tortoise dinghy and used cheap exterior ply because it was a very temporary boat and just a quick build to use until I built a different boat. I did use epoxy but because Raka had introduced a new UV resistant epoxy I did not bother to paint it using it as a test bed to see just how long the dinghy would last in the tropical sun.
Years have gone by...
A while back I noticed some issues with the dodger. A few soft spots developed in places they really should not have. I cut away the soft wood and replaced it with new marine ply using epoxy to glue it up coated with more epoxy and glassed it. Problem solved I thought to myself.
Meanwhile the temporary dinghy still got used every day the glass and epoxy on the boat was becoming a sad sight to behold but the boat still worked but there were bare spots exposing end grain and I pretty much accepted that the boat would be toast in a few months or so.
A couple of years later...
The dodger seems to have developed some sort of fatal infestation. The soft spots are back with a vengeance and the spread is now so widespread that it makes sense to just build another one to replace it. Actually not a bad thing at all is I've always thought the proportions were not quite right and I've been wanting to do another one for ages. Still, I had expected better from the marine ply in question.
On the other hand, the dinghy is still with us. All of the interior glass and epoxy coating has gone leaving bare plywood and exposed end grain. The dinghy was also sunk in hurricane Maria, abused on various dinghy docks, dragged up on sharp rocks, and just generally abused but is still in surprisingly good shape in spite of me purposely doing everything I could to get it to fail.
Over the expanse of time I've done a lot of ad hoc testing of ply and lumber offcuts to see just what would or would not rot and how they'd hold up to various tropical insects. Almost always the best results of such tests have leaned towards the opposite of what passes for common knowledge as to what works best on boats in the tropics.
So, now that "H" season is almost passed it's time to get with the program and build a new hard dodger as well as a new dinghy for "So It Goes". Doing either project in marine pretty much doubles the price of the dinghy or dodger so I'm inclined to just go with pressure treated exterior ply for both. Once finished, glassed, and painted no one is going to know what sort of ply it is and considering the experience I've had it will last as long or longer than what passes for so-called marine ply these days.
In my RSS inbox today there was another “is the cruising life for you” themed podcast. Which apparently answers all your needful questions like “What’s it all going to cost?”.
The thing is, I don’t feel the need to check out the podcast in question because it will just be a regurgitation of the same old same.
On the “what’s it going to cost” front, I recently concluded that the oft-given answer of “whatever you have” is the worst answer ever. We should center the question not on what it costs, but more on what you are willing to spend.
The universal thinking on cruising and boat costs treats the average cruiser or boatbuilder as being clueless, stupid, and unable to live on any kind of budget of their own making. While a lot of boat folk and cruisers I’ve come across match that description, it is not the majority.
Now folks of scant means (spelled lower income) have a significant advantage, as they know it’s a hard world, people have to make do, and living on a budget is a fact of life.The choice between buying a $1,200 CAL 34 that needs a bit of work or a $69,000 Pacific Seacraft that also needs some work, our scant resource guy/gal understands what they can afford and fits their budget.
A lot of the email I get asks me about what I think of certain sailboats and whether they should get one type of boat or another. Whenever I get this sort of question, the first thing I ask is what their disposable income is and what sort of boat/cruising budget they envision for themselves. Sadly, some find the basic idea of being on a budget something of an insult, as only poor people have to live on budgets.
The simple fact is that everyone’s on a budget, whether they know it or not.
Off-hand, I find the idea of living within a budget both needful and empowering. I know what I can afford, and it keeps me away from adverse monetary surprises.
Take that $1200 CAL 34 for instance, It needs a little work, but if I were going to buy it, I’d make sure I have enough set aside for the boat, a full-on refit, and all the other expenses involved in turning it into a cruising boat.
I’ve lost track of the number of well-off folks who have bought a boat and then complained about the surprises they come across in the rehab that added thousands of dollars and weeks/months/years to their project. Turning it into just another hole in the water you throw money into.
Since the less well-off have the advantage of both knowing what their budget is and how to get by. They know surprises are part of the game and have budgeted or sorted out workarounds. They get on with the job at hand.
Of course, for budgets to work, you have to be honest with yourself and realize the difference between what you can afford and what you can’t. A lot of folks I know have a genuine issue on this front. As a result, they find themselves far too often with a project or lifestyle beyond their means.
Armed with a bit of homework and choosing a project within your budget and skills makes all the difference. A budget done right empowers you and makes achieving your goals a lot easier. Knowing what you can and cannot afford in the long term is a great asset rather than something that cramps your style or inhibits your freedom. It is the key factor that defines the difference between success and failure where cruising and boat projects are concerned.
“One of the very best boats ever designed. I based a good part of my design work around the Haida 26. I love that boat.”... Robert Perry
Robery Perry sure knows what he's talking about.
For a variety of reasons I monitor sailboats for sale in a few places and a 26-foot Haida in Washington State popped up on my radar today.
The thing is, back when I was living on a CAL 20, I lusted for a flush deck Haida 26 that was for sale in the marina which had seduced me with the siren song of go-anywhere possibilities. In other words it was a pretty awesome boat.
The boat was everything my Cal 20 was but bigger and tough in a way that made the idea of sailing off to Hawaii and Japan a much more sensible proposition. However, as a starving film student it was just outside my budget.
Still, It's one of those boats I've always wanted and wonder how things would have turned out if I'd been able to scrape the needful purchase money together.
So, seeing a Haida for sale on Craig's List for only $750 really caught my attention and had me (for a few moments at least) considering buying a plane ticket to Seattle. Hey, it would be nice to have a Pied à l'Eau in the San Juans...
Sure it's a fixer upper and that's not a bad thing. Back in the days I was living on a Cal 20 in Sausalito I spent hours and hours working out how I'd fix up the Haida I was so enamoured with. The fact is that the Haida 26 is a very simple boat and at 26-feet there is actually very little to replace or fix so the cost of fixing it up would be fairly minor if you were doing the work yourself.
Even having to buy an outboard for it I can't see it taking more than $1500 to put things right.
I recently saw a nice Haida going for $8900 so the fixer-upper VolksCruiser route makes a whole lot of sense if you're able to do it right.
Sadly, it's the wrong coast and time for me and a project for someone else in Washington State who I hope knows what a wonderful boat it is.
I just realized that we've been using our DIY composting toilet without any issues or problems since 2009. which, if you do the math, adds up to twelve years. As it only cost around $100 that's a pretty good return on investment.
I mention this because the whole idea of VolksCruier is not about doing stuff on the cheap but more about coming up with better ways to do things while avoiding spending stupid money in the process.
Composting (and yeah, I know that composting toilets on boats don't really compost) toilets are a good example since they work better than MSDs, don't require holes in the boat, have near-zero maintenance, and can be built for next to nothing. Plus, I guess I should add that they don't smell as much as most MSDs.
For comparison, the only MSD I'd actually install on a boat I live on is the LAVAC which, in my opinion, is the best of the bunch. Of course, the LAVAC is a bit pricey at between $659-$780 plus the various needful bits not included (hose, holding tank, etc) add up to an installation that will run over a $1000 or so and then there will be the ongoing cost of maintenance that in my experience works out to about $125 or so per year (seat seals and pump rebuild kits).
So, if I had installed a Lavac in "So It Goes" back in 2009 I'd expect to have spent at least $2500 to install and maintain it. Which, when compared to the total outlay for our composting head and the cost of peat moss/sawdust (maybe $100 over twelve years?) it would seem that we've saved $2300 or so by choosing the composting head with the added perq of never having to rebuild a fouled Henderson MK5 pump and replace gross nasty sewage hoses.
Which is a roundabout way of saying we chose the composting head because we thought it did a better job with the least potential problems or issues. The fact that it has saved us a couple of thousand dollars was really just a bonus.
On, "So It Goes" we have a 400-amp hour battery bank made up of lead acid golf cart batteries with 350-watts of solar panels being the prime charging input. I should also note that I have two 50-watt panels that I have not included as they currently need repair (so much for lifetime warranties) that I have not got around to fixing yet and the jury is still out on whether or not I can actually fix them.
I mention this because, like most cruising boats, "So It Goes" could use a kiss more power generation and storage. Now, the current group-think mindset where power is concerned is to simply throw out the existing system and replace it with new state-of-the-art components. Which would entail..
Now, I'll be the first person to admit that new batteries and solar panels have some real advantages. for starters, as solar tech continues to improve the size to power ratio, it would enable me to have more charging watts with a smaller footprint which is a big advantage in deploying panels on a 50-year old 34-foot boat. New batteries with a bit more capacity would be no bad thing and, while I'm impressed with the claims of Lithium performance, I can't quite get past the fact that I have to replace every six-months the lithium battery that powers the computer I'm currently typing this on.
The fact is that replacing the current system would, at best, be a small improvement to the overall system that actually works pretty well. As it stands and as lithium, as a system, is still in flux with several alternative systems waiting in the wings I think waiting a bit since prices seem to be coming down on both solar and batteries are concerned makes some sense.
So, how do we improve the system in the meantime?
More on that soonish...
Way back when, Jimmy Carter pointed out that it might make sense to turn your thermostat down a few degrees and wear a sweater as a means to save on fossil fuels.
Which, as it happens, was a very simple and elegant answer to a difficult problem of the then current oil shortage.
Just use less.
Of course, Americans as a group wanted nothing to do with such a solution and the political output of the whole "Wear a sweater" was, at best, negative and just the sort of political grist that found Ronald Reagan as the next President of the US of A.
Which has exactly what to do with cruising and VolksCruisers?
Well, for me at least, Jimmy Carter's advice to use less, struck a chord with me and has been one of my favorite mantras where most things are concerned. Which, admittedly, does not fly well in the face of the current consumerist mindset of most folks on boats where the answer to most questions is to go bigger and spend large.
For example, the other day I was reading about a boat's new electrical system which was powerful enough to run a a village. When I costed out the huge solar array, 16K genset and gargantuan bank of lithium batteries, I came up with a sum that I could cruise lavishly on for the next few decades. Now, while I admittedly found the cost to be appalling, my main reaction to the electrical system was that it was over-complicated and had so many potential failure points that could seriously ruin their day/week/year that it was just a power failure waiting to happen.
Apparently, the reason behind the huge electrical upgrade was they'd kept bolting on more and more appliances/systems to the mix. Since they felt the need to expand and since they were adding power they might as well add on some more electron guzzling systems while they were at it which resulted in a death spiral as far as common sense was concerned.
Just maybe, at some point they could have just said to themselves...
"It's a boat so maybe we should simplify things a little and not set it up like a house on the grid. Yeah, maybe we could use a bit less."
Right now, adding a heater to "So It Goes" is currently on my "I really should do this" project list and it's easy to be seduced to the dark side of just throw money at it consumerism. While I'll admit that a central heating system is appealing but, then again, it's expensive as well as requiring an uptick in electrical consumption.Which would require another solar panel (or two) and a bigger battery bank and since we only have a 34-foot boat becomes somewhat problematic in the grand theme of things.
On the other hand, a small used solid fuel heater is fairly cheap as are a couple of sweaters and a I've already got some good sleeping bags for those extra chilly nights. So it would seem that I'll be taking President Carter's advice as it makes the most sense.
Over the last five years or so I've regularly watched a YouTube channel of a guy who's bought a boat and embarked in a restoration.
On one hand it's been very entertaining as the guy in question makes good shows and does a better than most exposition of how to do stuff. While on the other hand it was interesting as he tended to make a lot of mistakes and was pretty forthright in letting you know about them.
What has been less enjoyable is the ongoing mission creep his restoration has gone through and as his popularity and income have increased the way it's become something of a consumerish cornucopia of installing the best and most expensive stuff he can find.
Which, I'll admit, is just fine where he's concerned and of course he has the right to spend as much money as he can afford doing his boat the way he wants to. But, for me, the problem is that they don't call youtubers "influencers" for nothing and it sends a message that the answer to most all issues where boats are concerned is more stuff more money.
But, That's not how we roll here.
Since I've mentioned that I'm about to start building another self-steering gear I've received no shortage of emails telling me that folks are looking forward to some in-depth coverage of how I'm doing it. Then again, there's been quite a few folks telling me I'm an idiot because you need to spend over $5K to get a decent self-steering gear and that you get what you pay for and I expect you all know how much the "You get what you pay for" thing really gets up my nose.
I now have almost all of the materials needed for the Self-steering build and it looks like the total out-of-pocket expenses will not exceed $350-dollars. The good news is, at worst, it will be as good as an Auto-helm self-steering gear ($5250) and, more than likely, will work considerably better.
So, more on the self-steering ASAP...
This is about the time of year I perk up and pay attention to the various and sundry pre-boatshow press releases as there are usually some interesting bits of information on where boat design is going.
Take this new boat from Dufour...
It's the smallest boat in the Dufour line which in itself is interesting but the inflatable transom thingy certainly caught my attention.
Whatever it is it is most certainly a bit out of the box and most certainly bears looking into.
By the way, I'm well aware that a new Dufour, no matter how small, is not going to be a potential VolksCruiser until it's at least ten years older and on the used market. So, why the hell am I interested now?
Mostly mostly it's all about new ideas. Boat shows are full of interesting features and (dare I say it?) cunning plans. Some wind up being pretty useless or dumb but a few are real improvements and a minute number become real game changers.
Offhand, I don't think the inflatable transom thingy is a game changer but it is an out-of-the-box idea that could easily be reverse engineered, DIY'd, and retrofitted to a VolksCruiserish boat.
Which for me makes boat shows and the press releases leading up to them a wonderful source of ready to be purloined ideas that just might make a big difference in the performance or livability of your old classic plastic design.
Need I say more?
The idea of self-steering is, for all practical purposes, a pretty simple concept and most all self-steering systems reflect that. Or at least the good ones do.
The problem with the idea of home building a self-steering gear, for most people at least, is that they tend to have a certain amount of mechanical parts which tend to be just a little bit fiddly to construct and sourcing various fiddly parts is more than just a little problematic.
Some time ago, I designed a self-steering gear that, with the exception of the auxiliary rudder and trim tab, consisted of off-the-shelf items made by a single company which made sourcing the "fiddly" bits simple, cheap, and required zero machining or welding. The downside of the design was that as soon as I started to sell plans for the self-steering the company that made the fiddly bits was absorbed by another company who's first decision was to discontinue sales of the parts in my design. Bummer.
Since then, I've pretty much advised folks interested in building their own self-steering gear to do what I do and just build a clone of the Auto-Helm gear as it is dead simple, has a minimum of "fiddly" bits, fairly cheap to build and works very well on just about any boat.
A little over a year ago one of my favorite sources of dinghy plans, B&B, mentioned that they were currently working on a DIY self-steering gear and, looking at the available information at the time, I said to myself that it's pretty much a clone of the Auto-Helm but noticed one big difference...
The B&B rudder was not mounted to the transom but to a "rudder post" that allowed the rudder to kick up in the event of hitting something. Better yet, the rudder post also lets you raise the rudder out of the water if you needed to motor in reverse (an issue for auxiliary rudder systems) or just stow the self-steering gear upside down above the transom when not needed. A small but truly brilliant improvement.
Now, I'll admit, my first thought was to simply build my normal Auto-Helm clone and just purloin the rudder post idea but, since the plans were only $50 bucks and in my view the rudder post idea was easily worth more than that, I decided to just buy the plans.
Now that I've actually received the plans I'm glad I did because they are excellent as well as incredibly detailed and pretty much tyro proof. Obviously B&B has sold tons of dinghy plans and in the process they've learned how to design plans that are easy to build. The plans are actually more than enough to build the gear but they also include a "Builders Guide" which goes that little bit further to answer any possible questions one might have in the how or why things go together.
At the moment they have three sizes of Windvane self-steering gears, the Rover, Nomad, and Wayfarer which are size appropriate to fit most any boat you might have. In our case we're going with the Wayfarer...
So, that's the self-steering I'm about to start building and hope to get into it in the next week or so, "H" season willing. There are three potential storms heading our way as I write this.
A quick update on the self-steering project. I now have all the various bits on island with the excepting of the needful wood which is just a dinghy row away.
So, hopefully, in the next few days I'll be getting the wood for the project along with a few sheets of plywood for a new dinghy build and be able to sort out the actual cost.
More about the actual self-steering design tomorrow...
So, yeah, about that new self-steering gear...
Right now I'm in the process of getting all the bits together to assemble a kit to build the it and the various pieces not readily available on a tropical island paradise are, mostly, currently winging their way to my PO box.
Putting together a "kit" before starting just about any boat project in my opinion is a must because when I do a project I like to do it full on and as non-stop as possible. Having all the needful bits in hand means you don't have to waste time running momentum killing errands.
Another advantage of putting together a kit for your project is that it forces you to get familiar with how it all goes together before you actually get to doing the actual work. Building projects in your head is a great way to see where problems may crop up and sort out workarounds and improvements to the mix. For instance, one part of the design bothered me because I don't enjoy tapping stainless steel rod and while going over the plans again and again while looking at suppliers catalogs I had a serendipitous moment where I came across an easy replacement method to get way from tapping rod which also makes the windvane simpler, offers easier adjustment, and saves some money in the process.
Lastly, done right, putting a kit together tends to save a significant amount of money while allowing a better quality of components. Just buying the various fasteners for the project off island saves me close to a couple hundred dollars compared to the silly pricing of stainless screws and bolts.right now I'm looking at a budget of around $350 for the complete self-steering gear but, when the gear is complete I'll be publishing all the various costs so we'll see how my current estimate holds up once the actual gear is complete.
Next up on the subject is why a chose this particular self-steering gear to build...
There's a cooking channel that I really enjoy by Joshua Weissman and one his features are recipes where he does some established dish adding "But Better" or "But Cheaper" to the mix. It's entertaining and I've yet to come across an episode of his that did not have me wanting to get in the kitchen and get to doing.
For example...
Which has exactly "what the hell to do with VolkCruisers and frugal cruising?" you might ask.
What most people don't get is the whole idea here at VolksCruiser is to make the cruising experience more accessible to those with less disposable income or savings to do it with. I too often get emails to the site saying it's easy to sail and cruise cheap and all you have to do is to simply lower your standards and get into dirtbag camping mode which, to be honest, I find all sorts of insulting.
The fact is there's really very few reasons not to be comfortable cruising these days or, for that matter, thriving on a sustainable budget as opposed to being tarred with the dirtbag moniker as not quite hip or affluent enough to play with the "cool" kids.
Which brings us back to the whole "But Cheaper" and "But Better" additions that Joshua Weissman brought to my attention and morphed into a better way to think about VolksCruisers and frugal cruising...
It's all about doing it better and cheaper!
With an emphasis on doing it better.
Maybe a whole lot better.
So, with a nod to Mr Weissman, I'll be adding a series of articles to the mix of a "But Better" or "But Cheaper" nature and we'll show you examples of how not to just survive but thrive as we get into some serious creative frugality territory.
Since I'm just about to build a new self-steering gear I'll get started with how to put together a better windvane steering system but cheaper.
More soon come...
I read recently how Keith Leitzke has returned from another cruise to nowhere in particular and it got me thinking about a few things...
The first being how that Bill Lapworth's CAL 20 is still a great minimal cruising design in spite of the fact that it was never really designed to be one.
While I'm sure the Cal 20 would not be everyone's choice for a long sea voyage apparently Keith Leitzke thought it was just the thing for a four month or longer blue water voyage.
The fact that the Cal 20 has more than proven its blue water bona-fides with numerous trans-pacific voyages to its credit just goes to show that seaworthiness is not dependent on cost or size.
Of course, doing extreme blue water voyages in small boats means that one has to get creative to the Nth degree where space and loading is concerned. Seriously, just how do you store four months or more of provisions, water, and other needful gear?
Just thinking about how to store 120 gallons of water on a Cal 20, for starters, kinda makes my brain hurt! Throw in the provisions of even the most stoic menu for four+ months and you're talking about some genius creative use of space...
Well that or getting into TARDIS territory.
The important thing to keep in mind is that, obviously, it's been done so it's possible and knowing something is possible means all you have to do is figure it out because impossible is no longer an option.
Just sayin'
A YouTube channel I have a love/hate relationship with has a Bluetooth enabled toilet and I just can't quite get my head around why one might actually need such a thing.
As it happens, I do have some Bluetooth headphones which I purchased because I wanted to be able to listen to music while working on boat projects but never use them because the signal drops out all the time and that really gets up my nose where listening to music is concerned.
But still, one wonders what sort of advantage a Bluetooth toilet has and WTF they actually cost.
That said, however misguided having to be connected to one's toilet via Bluetooth might be, it is preferable to some of the sailing channels which are starting to look a lot like infomercials instead of videos about cruising as one I recently viewed mentions the name of a certain purveyor of sewing machines, fabrics, and assorted notions so many times that the only words that comes to mind is "Set it and forget it!".
But wait, there's more!
Well actually there isn't but the whole Ronco style of over-commercialization and pandering is so far removed from the whole VolksCruiserish "Just find a good boat, fix it up, and sail off into the sunset on a sustainable budget" vibe most of the cruisers I admire adopt just depresses me.
The other day a reader dropped me a line where the subject of DIY came up and he pointed out that, unlike me, he could afford to hire folks to do work for him and if you had to DIY you might want to consider something other than yachting as a lifestyle decision...
Not the first time I've heard that opinion and, I expect, most folks of the VolkCruiserish ilk will hear it as well.
What the reader in question doesn't quite get is that the advantages of doing work on your boat and its systems yourself has a great number of advantages which improve the sailing and cruising experience and the fact that it also allows you to save money in the process is just an added perk which is no bad thing.
Sadly, too many of the marine trades are not just over-priced but also woefully short on the needed skills that they charge you for. I've seen too many projects and repairs done by various contractors that not only did not fix the needful repairs but wound up creating more damage and problems that would be left for someone else to fix.
An advantages of doing your own work is that you actually know how things are put together on your boat and that gives you the skill set to fix it when or if it needs to be sorted out. Sure there's a learning curve but it's a fairly easy one as almost all boat related work is just minimum wage level stuff mixed with common sense.
No rocket science involved.
Being able to handle maintenance and repairs is both empowering and adds greatly to the overall safety of the boat and its crew. Which, from where I sit, are the two most important reasons to get your DIY groove on.
Lastly, doing work that fixes things is mostly enjoyable and satisfying. Of course, not everyone enjoys all boat work and I'll be the first to admit I really do not like working on internal combustion engines as it's a UGH job as far as I'm concerned, Still, in spite of the UGH nature of working on engines, I find it especially satisfying when I'm able to fix one.
I'll also add that saving money is a game I really enjoy and the perks of doing my own work adds up to a considerable chunk of change in the process which makes DIY that much more enjoyable. Then again, some folks don't mind paying $4.99 for a twenty-five cent machine screw and take pride in throwing around how much they paid for stuff as a badge of honor. Not sure where you stand on such things but the whole Boat Buck mentality seems somewhat questionable at best.
Oh yeah, on the whole yacht thing... I don't own a yacht, don't want to own a yacht, and cringe whenever I hear a boat described as a yacht or a person sailing it a yachtsman. So I'm not exactly the sort of person who would ever consider yachting as a lifestyle.
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| A Freedom cat ketch adapted to junk rig |
I wrote this back in 2008 on Boat Bits but it seems to have held up for the most part...
There are a lot of fans of the junk rig who, being fans and all are true believers when it comes to their preference of rigs. The junk rig is superior to all other rigs or in common parlance the junk rig is "the shit".
But, as it happens, in the particular situation where someone is considering a rig for frugal cruising on a small (let's say thirty-feet or under) sailboat the junk does have a lot to recommend it.
For folks of the VolksCruiser persuasion sailing small boats the main points are that it's inexpensive, can be built/maintained easily, and you don't lose precious interior volume for a full set of sails.
So yeah, it is an excellent rig for a VolksCruiser.
The question is whether or not it is excellent enough to replace a preexisting rig is something of a conundrum but, more about that in the next post.
I've gotten to the point that when someone writes me and says to check out a new YouTube channel I pretty much prepare for the worst. So, when a friend dropped me a line a while back and said I should really check out "Sailing Blowin' in the Wind" I wasn't exactly filled with enthusiasm. Face it, most of what passes for Sailing & Cruising content more than proves that Sturgeon's Law was actually overly optimistic.
Armed with the fact that I could always just turn off the computer if things became too dire, I followed the link and watched the first episode fully expecting it to be just another "Look at us we're wonderful" selfie-fest.
Nope, it was different. It was actually interesting and far from being the same old same. Better yet, I actually enjoyed it. OK, I'll admit to being a hard audience where film and video is concerned especially where sailing, boat building, and cruising content are concerned, but the main thing is that Sailing Blowin' in the Wind actually caught my interest and eighteen episode later I'm still watching. Need I say more?
I won't go into what actually transpires on the Sailing Blowin' in the Wind channel because you'll do better watching it it from the start. So I'll just say that Anna Key and Tom Break live on a 28-foot sailboat without an engine with their two boys, Roo and Zibby, and their two girls, Mia and Xani.
Obviously not the same old same cruising story.
Now let's get to the interview...
Why not get to the important stuff first and deal with the elephant in the room. So, just how many ukuleles or musical instruments do you have aboard Blowin' in the Wind?
We've been caught red-handed—we’re already going to start sounding like very bad minimalists! Until this summer we had four soprano ukuleles, one each for the three older kids and one for Anna. Since then, we've been gifted a concert ukulele and a "guitalele," which is a six-stringed instrument rather like a very small guitar. We also bought some bongo drums, and Anna has hopes of acquiring a small steel-tongue drum and a baritone ukulele down the road, maybe after some of the kids are grown and take some of their instruments with them. (; It's getting a little out of control here, but the music has become a bigger part of our life than we expected, especially since it has become such a vital part of our video-making.
Six people on a 28-foot boat?
It's a lot of people in a small space, but in our defense there were berths for six adults when we moved aboard. When we got started looking for boats, we listened to what people around us were saying and kept our eyes out for something in that 35-40' range, but we quickly realized that those larger boats rarely had more beds: there was just more space (a bigger galley or nav station) and a bigger price tag. We ultimately decided that the extra amenities weren't worth the extra cost (costs that would keep adding dollars per foot every time we pulled onto a dock, got the bottom cleaned, etc.)
As we circled back around to what we really cared about—nimbleness and ability to be single-handed, affordability, and sturdiness—it became very clear that we would do much better with a smaller boat than a bigger one. And even if it meant being close together, we could actually be together instead of leaning on a full-time job for years to pay off the boat. When we stepped onto Blowin' in the Wind, we thought she was a 30, not a 28—the designer made great use of every foot, and we fell in love with her right away.
I get that. Having built and cruised various boats which don't pass the "group think" of what a cruising boat is supposed to be, the whole "You're going to cruise in that?" gets old real fast. Obviously you're not just doing a different boat, you're also doing things differently to make Blowin' in the Wind more livable and cruise-worthy. How is that going?
Some things are going great and some things are a struggle. The interior space that we opened up when we took out the engine is fantastic. It's created a great flow of space and the kids have lots of places that they can hide and play and make messes and create elaborate battles or creations with the few toys we have on board. And since we closed up all of the thru-hulls, Anna has been able to sleep through the night without ever waking up with dreams that the boat is sinking. We don't really miss fancy things like the water heater, electric water pumps, or the other gadgets that we've gotten rid of because those are just things that we don't have to be stressed anymore about not knowing how to fix.
Most of the changes we've made have caused very little extra hassle. It's taken some time to get used to the rhythm of managing the composting head and of taking the sink buckets out to dump them instead of using the standard pump-out system and draining water through the thru-hulls, but we don't mind that work and have adapted to it really well. And the daily maintenance work replaces the big repairs in which you're knee deep in leaky head hoses, which it's easy to overlook when things are working. In general, every time we take out a system and replace it with a simpler version, life gets a little bit harder but a little bit better. Those little additions of time do add up, and when we press toward some of our more extreme goals, like producing no trash, things can get overwhelming. But for the most part things are going remarkably well. We're becoming increasingly comfortable in our increasingly unique boat.
How's the yuloh working out?
The yuloh, and lack of engine generally, has been one of the biggest challenges. On our shakedown journey everything was going swimmingly until we got caught in a surprising current, lost sail power, and couldn't get the yuloh out fast enough to get around a tight corner. That shook us somewhat, and has led us to re-think some things. My home-made yuloh is very heavy, so we're going to try a smaller sculling oar that's easier to deploy but that can still push us, and we're going to trade out the wheel for a tiller so that there's less congestion in the aft area of the cockpit, and we'll see where we are at that point. Lots of people are telling us that we should attach an outboard or at least have one for the dinghy to tow us through tight spots. We're considering that option going forward, though I really would prefer to keep things as simple as possible so that I don't have something (that I can't fix) break at just the moment I'm counting on it.
Nothing improves one's sailing skills more than simply not having an engine. Do you have a drifter?
That's right. And I would add that nothing improves your awareness of your environment, either. When you're relying on an engine, it's really easy to be blissfully unaware of what the tides and currents are doing, and what the weather might do should you get delayed, and while it ends up being no problem for most people most of the time, I'm glad for the need to be aware. It's making me a better sailor already—though I'm starting from being a total novice, so that's not saying much. No, we don't have a drifter, but our boat does very well under our 150% genoa, even in very light winds.
That said, in the meantime, you might want to consider kedging as another needful tool in your engineless quiver.
Kedging was ultimately how we got off the dock we got caught on during our shakedown, and it's a really critical tool for us. We keep a light "lunch anchor" on hand in the cockpit as a brake and I've got a second heavy anchor there as well so that they're ready to hand if we need them.
You've mentioned the Pardeys but do you have any other influences in your quest for a simpler nautical lifestyle? Annie Hill, Jerome Fitzgerald for instance?
We hadn’t heard of Annie Hill or Jerome Fitzgerald, but thanks for the tip! As for other influences, we're big idea people, and so a lot of what we bring to sailing comes from thinkers of the past, folks like Diogenes, Simone Weil, St. Francis of Assisi. One really critical nautical influence is a family that calls themselves the Coconuts, who have been sailing an engineless sailboat with four kids for years now. Drake Paragon made a lovely 5-part documentary about them, and they've been a great encouragement to us largely because they've show that sailing with a family and without an engine is possible. We figure that if they can make it across the Atlantic, we should be able to make it to the Caribbean.
Another practical influence for us is Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of The Good Life, who bought a farm and committed themselves to working only half days half of the year supporting themselves so that they would have time to read, think and write. We really respect the way that they were able to make that a priority and stick to it. A big reason we sought out this life, and that we try to keep it simple, is to carve out time in our days for artistic work and for contemplation (both for us and for our kids). I don't think that we can underestimate the damage that lack of that kind of time is doing to our society, generally, and so it's a priority for us and something we want to protect for our whole family.
How would you define your current cruising plans?
Equivocally. Tom's just back from a trip to the Bahamas where he got some open water experience and some sailing time in around the islands, and we're all really excited to get moving in some direction, but we're not exactly sure what direction that's going to be at the moment. Hurricane season is creeping up on us, and while we have some desire to make tracks for the Luperon in the Dominican Republic before the worst of hurricane season hits, that's seeming like a long journey on a short timeframe right now. So we'll either make the leap, hide out in Florida somewhere, or head north until next season.
Beyond the short term we really want to sail the Caribbean. We want to spend good chunks of time in both Spanish and French speaking countries to get language intensives for the whole family. It's kind of amazing just how much of world history winds its way through those islands—how many cultures have met, clashed, and melded in wildly different ways from island to island, so we're excited to explore the islands and learn from them about different ways to live. Anna especially has desires to visit Chile and the boys want to surf in Hawaii, and I would love to hike the Camino de Santiago in Europe. Those points on the map seem really far away right now, but who knows what the future will bring.
Do you have a target budget?
Our target is the federal poverty level for our family, which in 2020 was $35,610, or just about $3000 a month. That's pretty attainable for us while underway, in general. It's actually pretty important to us to be able to live at the poverty line. We want to use as few resources as possible, and not spending money is the easiest way to do that. Beyond that, though, the poverty line ought to be an attainable goal for everyone, and I think we would feel bad living a lifestyle that isn't, at least in principle, open to everyone.
The target is of course a target, and we've had varying degrees of success hitting it. Some of the things that have gotten in the way are boat-related things: boat work is expensive and can crash a budget pretty quickly. Tom worked a full-time job for a couple of years that increased our income and allowed us to do work on the boat that would have been a stretch on the poverty-line budget.
Since then, Tom left the full-time job and we continue to work the budget from both ends: trying to reduce our spending to get it under the poverty line, and to increase our income to get it over the poverty line. We're getting closer, but we're not yet "in the black," and therefore continue to switch between travel and focus on our artistic work and periods when we do work to re-fill the "cruising kitty."
Any ideas or cunning plans you're currently working on?
Well, we’re artists, so we’re full of ideas. We both really love an aphorism by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “What good is a book that doesn’t lead you beyond all books?” So we’re trying to make a YouTube channel that leads us beyond all YouTube channels, that might even lead us…outside. It’s our most cunning plan yet. We are, however, still in need of a cunning plan to get out of the next inlet…
Another excellent video by Blowin' in the Wind...
As it happens we'll be having an interview here on VolksCruiser Monday with the Blowin' in the Wind folk so you might want to drop in on Monday and check it out.
There is a great article in Voiles et Voiliers on Shane Acton and Shrimpy. Really worth the read even if you have to use Google translate to do it.
Need I say more?
Checking Craigslist this morning I saw there was a Pearson Triton being sold off at a marina in the San Francisco Bay area for $750. You might say it caught my attention.
James Baldwin circumnavigated his Triton twice and now is an awesome resource on how to make small boats better and a great resource on all things Triton with an excellent website and a wonderful YouTube channel.
The going price for a good to excellent Triton seems to be between $10K to $28K so a fixer upper for $750 that's floating right side up and appears to be in OK condition is certainly a good candidate to check out.
What I particularly find attractive about the idea of refitting and cruising a Triton is that all of the brain work has already been done for you. Between Spurr's book, James Baldwin's books , articles and videos you pretty much have the answer to any issue you'd encounter in the project.
For example take a look at one of the Triton refits on Baldwin's Atom Voyager channel;
I'll be honest and say that if the Craigslist ad was down here I'd be there with money in hand as fast as I could get there as it would be a great boat to fix up and resell for a profit...
As it happens I just read it again this morning and it still holds up well and the advice contained within is still spot on.
Better yet, it's a great book to use as proof of concept when someone is telling you a cheap fixer-upper is nothing but a money pit and your dreams will all in tears.
Just tell them to go read "Sailboat Cowboys Flipping Sail Post-Sandy: The Art of Buying, Repairing and Selling Storm-Damaged Sailboats" and let you get back to working on your DIY refit.
So you've done your research, sorted out that an Ericson 26 would be an appropriate small cruising boat you could live with, and within your budget. Hell, you even built a dinghy to prove to yourself you were not a tyro, had the mindset and needful skills to fix up the Ericson, and you're ready to go look at the sucker cash-in-hand but your buddy and everyone on that forum tells you you need to get a surveyor.
Here's the thing...
One, you don't need a surveyor and two, the boat's already sold.
Don Casey has a decent book on the subject that you might want to check out as it makes a good outline of the things you need to look at.
When I look at a boat I'm mostly concerned with the hull, deck, and rig. Everything else I'd rip out and rebuild the interior and systems from scratch as it's faster and cheaper than trying to work around or make sense with what previous owners have done to the boat. The other advantage of starting fresh is that you set up things in a way that makes sense.
When you do your self-survey make sure to take lots of pictures/videos and take note or narrate the survey so if you need to talk to someone about the boats issues they have as much information as possible to base their advice on. Some time ago a reader sent me a ton of photos on a Bolger design he was considering and it was easy for me to offer advice and the sad conclusion that it would be a big mistake to consider the project.
But why bother as the boat is already sold. Right?
The thing is, good deals on boats don't ever last long. Show me a boat that has been sitting with a For Sale sign for a year and I'll know it's selling for way too much. On the other hand, boats that are priced to move, move quickly.
Which is why, when looking for your VolksCruiser, you really need to be ready...
OK, I get it. "Everyone" says that if you buy a fixer-upper sailboat with the goal of turning it into a cruising boat it will all end in tears. Some will tell you that you'll wind up with nothing but an expensive disaster that you'll have to pay someone to dispose of it in some landfill.
I could go on but I expect you've already heard it all before and it's boring...
What I will do is point out that the disaster or failure scenarios of this sort have a lot to do with people who have made stupid mistakes in choosing their projects, have little in the way of an intelligent plan for the needful work involved in the enterprise, and a poor skill set where boat building and repair are concerned. Which is another way of saying that if the boat refit project failed it's because the person doing it screwed up big time.
Every once in awhile I'll point out what I think is a possible project boat like the Ericson 26 so we'll use that as our crash test dummy. Which brings us to the question of whether or not an Ericson 26 is a good choice as a cruising boat for you?
So, you'll need to put away the rose colored glasses to do some research and a bit of math. Seriously if you don't properly research the project and work out the costs you're in clusterfuck territory. For starters you really need to research the market for the Ericson 26.
With me so far? Most boat projects fail simply because someone did not ask and get real answers to those four simple questions. Let's say you've answered the previous questions, got your answers and think it's time to move to the next level which requires a few more questions.
Some of you may have noticed that none of these questions involve the actual fixer upper in question. My advice is to always do your homework before not after viewing a possible project as the more you know about the boat the better your advantage you'll have when you actually look at it.
In fact I'd recommend, before you go boat project shopping, that you build a dinghy as a proof of concept that your abilities are up to the task. My advice for most folks is to build the Bolger Nymph from Dynamite Payson's "Build the New Instant Boats" As it's a great dinghy, does not take a lot of outlay in materials, and pretty much shows you if you have the needful skills and mindset or not to take on a much bigger project like the Ericson. No pressure but if it takes you more than 24-hours of labor to build a Nymph rowing version you might want to forget the idea of anything larger than a dinghy refit projects.
We'll get into how we handle looking at a fixer-upper in the next bit...
So, here's a couple of interesting project boats someone might be interested in...
For starters there's a Crealock designed Ericson 26 selling for $400 bucks up in the no man's land between Port Townsend and Anacortes. The Crealock design is, in my opinion, a better boat than the Pacific Seacraft Dana. The beauty of a fixer-upper 26-foot boat is that even if the boat is in dire straights a full refit is not going to cost much more than $3K with a reasonable amount of sweat equity.
