$3K or less...

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.

When a $175,000.00 boat is considered cheap-seats...

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...

 

DIY and VolksCruising...

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!"

a couple of thoughts on plywood...

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.