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...