Be wary of affiliate links...

This morning I noticed a certain blog/website had a post on outfitting your boat for fishing with various affiliate links to illustrate the products being talked about. Like this lure...

The price on the provided Amazon link is a whopping $44.99 which happens to be the most expensive Cedar plug I've ever come across. My go to place to buy lures of this sort is from Tailchaser who sell great lures at very fair prices. Their reasonable facsimiles of the above cedar plug looks like this...

Even better, rigged and ready to go they only cost $8.75 and I'm pretty sure you can do the math without much trouble. If you want an even better price they currently have a couple of rigged cedar plugs on sale for $3.95 which I'm pretty sure beats that $44.99 plug all to hell.

The thing is, while I have done some affiliate sales links and still do a few (Russel Brown's great books, for instance), I feel that doing affiliate sales imparts a certain responsibility to connect one's readers with good fairly-priced products. The lure in question is in no way fairly priced with that sort of insane price tag.

For the record, I do not have any sort of deal with Tailchaser and I only promote them from time to time because they have excellent lures, great service, and their prices are as good as I've been able to find anywhere.

That said, a lot of fishing gear is way overpriced which is one of the reasons I've been putting together a basic fishing kit for cruisers that includes a handline, snubber, bird, flasher, and three of the most successful, sailing speed cruising lures for around $75.00. Which is a roundabout way of saying I've done my homework on what cruising fishing gear should cost just like anyone on a budget should do for any bit of boat gear that's needful.

On planned and premature obsolescence ...

Practical Sailor just put up an excellent article on windlasses that you really should read which touches on the subject of planned/premature obsolescence which happens to be a big part of why I'm promoting the whole VolksCruiser thing. 

It's not just a cost thing.

Sure the driving force for most folks is about affordability but for a lot of us, it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of modern gear and boats are not built to last. Having worked in a used gear and consignment shop, one quickly learns that a lot of the newer gear has a much shorter lifespan than than older gear.

A good example are the fifty-year old Barient winches aboard "So It Goes" which have worked hard over the years are still working just fine while a pair of new Harken winches I bought about ten years ago which have never been mounted or used are showing signs of corrosion even though they've been stored in a dry locker all this time. But what do you expect when you mix dissimilar metals together in a  guaranteed to corrode fashion?

Another problem with a lot of newer gear is it's simply impossible to fix and that the companies making stuff are, at best, reluctant to sell you parts. Even worse in my opinion is how a lot of companies no longer support gear that they made as short as a couple of years ago. Sure, I get the fact that fifty-year old Barient winches are no longer supported and one has to sort out work-a-rounds but I was recently told getting an extra plug for a five year old chart plotter is impossible because they are no longer supporting electronics they no longer sell.

Sadly, it would seem that making good products, as opposed to making good enough products with designed in obsolescence is not great for profits.

That being the case, an older affordable boat with built to last systems starts making a lot of sense and, with the added bonus of being the more green solution, it's something of a no-brainer.

about toilets or something similar...

 The other day I noticed that the going rate for a popular faux composting toilet was a kiss over a thousand dollars and my initial reaction was...

"Are we really that stupid?"

Apparently so it would seem if people are willing to spend $1000 for what amounts to a bucket, a jug, and a toilet seat packaged together. As the saying goes; "There's one born every minute.

The scary part, for me at least, is that the so-called composting toilet is about $400 more than what I consider the gold standard of MSDs the LAVAC. I'll go on record if I had to have a marine toilet aboard a boat of mine the only toilet I'd ever consider is the LAVAC. Need I say more?

That said, in my estimation, the only marine head that actually makes sense is the misnamed composting toilet. Misnamed because they really don't actually compost waste but simply hold the contents in a sort of stasis until it can be taken away or dumped overboard where legal.

Which is not to say that they don't work very well as we can attest to having pooped regularly into one for over a decade without ever having any negative issues at all. The fact that our toilet is the DIY variety and only cost about $100 says a lot about how DIY is often the best way to go and often better then the manufactured variety.

My dad once gave me some great advice a very long time ago regarding interpersonal relationships which also applies to basic toilet design...

"You never want to stir that shit up"

A pithy quote that cries out to be emblazoned on a quality t-shirt if there ever was one.

Since we're speaking of toilets on boats, I'd be remiss, not to mention that the current Latitude 38 has a marine toilet survival guide of sorts that is well worth reading.

 

Maybe just use a little less...

For going on decades, I've been an advocate for electric propulsion. While I'm enthused that electric propulsion is no longer a freak show, I do have some reservations about an all-electric boat.

I grew up at a time where if you were on a boat, electricity was hard to come by and something of a luxury. I still tend to think of electrics on boats being somewhat 'iffy'.

Sure, we can now throw money at a bunch of solar, install a shitload of lithium batteries, and have an electrical system that will support a medium-sized village but, the question remains do we really want to?

Take a look at this solar array...

Having had electric propulsion on a similar sized boat (34-feet) I grok that the array is just about big enough for someone's idea of what normal power consumption should be for a modern convenience based lifestyle. The problem arises by the simple fact that a 34-foot boat is just not designed to carry a thousand watt array. Sure, it's possible but I shudder to think about sitting out a hurricane or big squall with that kind of windage over my head.

Then there's the vicious consumption spiral of adding an air fryer or whatever is the current must-have-amp-hungry-appliance on the must have list which requires even more solar. Which, as we all know, is the gateway drug to a bigger boat.

Throw in my general distrust of anything electrical on a cruising boat and you can see why I seldom think the answer to any issue on a boat is more power of the electrical sort.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying I'm currently considering adding Starlink to the boat but jumping through all sorts of hoops to justify it in our energy budget. Since I really don't have room for another 200-watts of solar it would seem the most obvious solution is to use less amps elsewhere and tighten the belt energy wise.

I expect I'll be moaning more about the process in the not too distant future.

an affordable composting toilet installation...

Just another reason you need to be subscribed to Atom Voyager. 

Two exercises in simplicity that won't cost you $5K...

I've always liked this windvane self-steering gear...

Back in the day it worked very well for a lot of cruisers.  Sure it can be improved by making t more complicated but for a well balanced boat and a sailor who knows what they're doing it does the job just fine. Pretty much anything you need to know to build it can be sussed out from the photo and a couple of hours of thought.

While a kiss more complicated there's a lot to be said for the Moitessier inspired Trismus self-steering vane.

Great  if you have a transom hung rudder or adding an auxiliary rudder to the mix. Anyone interested can find some very simple plans that tell you everything you need to know here.

Either vane gear will get you across an ocean and at a DIY cost of a couple of hundred bucks it's well within even the most frugal budget.

$0.29 a day...

What with the push for induction stoves for boats, the current news that gas stoves may be less than healthy, and the fact that I'd love to lessen the amount of fossil fuels aboard. So, hardly surprising I've found myself thinking about the various alternatives to propane lately.

The main issue with going electric is that , for someone who cooks a lot, the energy budget for induction is pretty hefty requiring a bigger battery bank and more solar panels than I have room for aboard "So It Goes". Sure I could add a genset but then I'd still be burning fossil fuels. By my calculations I'd really need to move up to a bigger boat if going with more solar. Something of a conundrum is it not?

Propane biggest selling point is that it's cheap. Our current cost per day for propane is $0.29 a day and we cook a lot. That's a whole lot less than alcohol, kerosene, or any sort of electric system that's available when all things are considered.

Granted propane gets a bad reputation regarding hassle factor and availability but sense we get between 75 to 90 days from a 20 pound tank (and we have two) so we can go close to six months with out having to refill. Off hand I can say that we've never been more that three months away from a place where we can top off our propane bottles.

I'm still open-minded but I'll have to see some serious improvements in electric before I jettison the propane in favor of some other source of cooking.

Some low-budget DIY wonderfullness...

A boat-worthy project worth checking out.

In case you can't find an affordable Origo stove...

You know this stove...

 

Since Origo has quit marketing the Origo marine stoves the prices for old stock and used stoves have become extremely pricey. Which, considering how simple the stoves actually are, is something of a conundrum.

Here's a pretty nifty DIY alternative that's affordable...

Of course, the stove in question is not gimballed but sorting out a gimbal is fairly simple and easily dealt with.

Some quick thoughts on water and the 27-foot boat...

The issue with most 27-foot sailboats is they don’t have a lot of dedicated water stowage. The Catalina 27 has a 20 gallon water tank. Considering that the average family in the USA uses 300 gallons of water a day, we find ourselves in a problematic territory.

The “average family” only uses 70% of that 300 gallons for indoor use, which still leaves us with 210 gallons of water. Since we’re only talking about a couple, rather than the average family (3.13 people), that’s a kiss over 67 gallons a day per person.

There are ways to get by with less water. Use water sparingly, using seawater when possible, and being careful, one can get by with a couple of gallons per person a day. That gives us ten days of cruising until you need to replenish your water supply.

Suddenly that 20 gallon water tank is looking kind of meager.

Add a couple of small (2 1/2 gallon) Jerry cans plus bottled water as a fudge factor, and you’re doing great for coastal cruising.

What if you need to cross an ocean?

A small watermaker, though pricey on a VolksCruiser budget, is a possibility. Watermakers require power, which is problematic as well. Since a watermaker can fail, you still need to sort out a means of carrying enough water for your intended voyage.

I speak from experience. Being caught in a no wind situation for a couple of weeks will play havoc with your water supply as you drift towards the Caribbean.

If I were fitting out a 27-foot sailboat for an Atlantic or Pacific crossing, I’d add another twenty gallons of installed tankage. Then carry as much extra water in bottles as prudent. Providing I could deploy enough solar panels to run a small 12-volt watermaker, I’d consider a used one like the Power Survivor. I could then run it on solar for an hour to make a gallon of water a day.

As a side note, I keep thinking about the design of a small, AC-powered, DIY watermaker that could produce five gallons of water per hour. Powered using a 1000/800 watt generator that would be small enough to stow on a 27-foot sailboat would fall right into the Goldilocks zone.

a question of propulsion...

Sailboat propulsion by means other than sail can be a problematic affair. Fact is, whenever I read through sailboat ads in the VolksCruiser price range there seems to be no shortage of boats for sale that don't have a working engine.

Which is hardly surprising considering most folks I know tend to have expensive ongoing problems with their engines of one form or another. With the cost of fixing an engine these days it makes more sense to sell the boat at a lower price than try and fix or replace the engine.

Just for the record I really don't enjoy working with internal combustion engines especially in the cramped spaces they're shoehorned into.

Electric propulsion is an attractive option but you do have to jump through some hoops in the whole power storage and generation matrix that makes my head hurt.

The cheapest and in my opinion best VolksCruiser solution is a small outboard engine. The 6HP longshaft on "So It Goes" has enough oomph to get us in or out of a marina or anchorage and get us to where we want to go if there's zero wind as long as we're not in a hurry. Better yet, outboards are fairly easy to work on when needed and they're a lot more affordable than the other options.

Over at Atom Voyages James Baldwin has the go-to solution for getting past most of the issues and stigma involved when installing an outboard on a VolksCruiserish sized sailboat.

Cruising budgets...

Now, a lot of folks will tell you it costs whatever you have, while others will say that it depends. The fact is that both answers really piss me off and it really bothers me to have to admit that they are correct in a kind of way.

A lot of folks spend all they have to cruise. Even worse, many people spend more than they have and wind up seriously in debt. We’ll come back to these folks later, but no one taught these folks how to budget or live within their means.

As for the “it all depends” folks, they’re right as well to a certain degree, but it reads a lot more like a defense of monetary ineptitude rather than actual unforeseen costs and issues screwing with their budget.

For instance, I hear a lot of excuses about budgets and cruising. Most of which revolve around things breaking, needful purchases, and maintenance issues. Sure, I get it. Everyone sails off to the sunset, not knowing that things might break, you might have to buy something, and that from time to time you’ll have to do a bit of maintenance.

Really?

Let’s look at the ‘things break’ mantra. Most things that break or quit working on boats don’t actually break or quit all by themselves, but are mistreated to the point of failure. Get the right gear and treat it like it deserves and you’ll find that things won’t break. Not all that long ago, my mast fell down and went boom. The mast, mainsail, jib, and furler are somewhere on the bottom of the Caribbean in between St Thomas and St Martin. The reason for the fall down and go boom episode was that I really should have reefed and that I should’ve replaced the chainplate that failed. My fault entirely. As a result, I had to build a new mast, build a new rig, and buy new sails. Not a mistake I’ll ever make again.

On the buying stuff subject, didn’t your Mom tell you that stuff costs money? Seriously, how is this a surprise? Didn’t you budget for buying needful stuff and the cost of rice in Antigua is an issue?

Then there’s the whole we had to haul out and put some bottom paint on the boat, change a few zincs, and fix that ding from the time you hit a buoy coming into a dark anchorage in the middle of the night escapade. Hardly sounds like a budget killer, but apparently a lot of folks do.

OK yeah, I’ll admit that the cost of things is depressing these days, but it’s not like you don’t have a brain with the ability to adapt and prepare a budget that will see you through.

When we lost our mast, I costed a new mast, and the quotes were just silly. Luckily, building a wood composite spar was within my skill-set, rigging was dead simple, and we have a sewing machine and access to affordable sail makers. The bottom line was that by doing all the work and fabrication, the rig was a fraction of buying a new mast or having the labor done.

Since I see a trip to Europe and back in the not-too-distant future, I’ve been monitoring the various costs involved. I know what groceries or fuel cost in Europe. I’m aware of various Schengen issues and costs associated with them. By the way, did you know Albania requires our boat to use a clearance broker to clear in and it costs 55 euros?

Simply doing your homework goes a long way to making a useful budget that will both save you money and keep your cruising surprise free.

More on budgets and numbers in the next post...

A very nice boat...

Atom Voyages does their thing on a Cape Dory 27.

Bozo's back in town...

Some time ago I wrote a post over on BB regarding internal ballast and as I have a lot of questions/remarks on the subject in my email  today which induced a strong case of Déjà vu so I thought I'd re-post it here..

******

Looking at my mailbag this morning I notice that not everyone agrees that a sharpie makes sense as a cruising boat.

Now, I actually get that as sharpies (or scows/whatever) are just that little bit different and folks don't generally like things that either makes them think about how things work or interfere with their slavish devotion to conformity and nothing I can say will change those folks minds so I'm not even going to try... Life, as they say, is simply too short.

On the other hand, several readers have written and asked a couple of questions...

The answer to the most popular question is... Nope, you do not need a keel for ballast purposes. A keel is mainly about providing a lateral plane to allow the boat to sail to windward but other forms of lateral planes work just as well (centerboards and lee boards come to mind) and, while it is true that using the keel as a handy place to put ballast is no bad thing, it is not the only way to skin a cat... Don't believe me?

Back when I was a kid I had a Bozo punching clown and the physics involved in punching the clown taught me everything I need to know about internal ballast and the fact that it works just fine.

Hit him once and he pops back up. Hit him a bunch of times and guess what... he still keeping popping up. Wrestle him to the floor and hold him down till he cries "uncle" (hey, I was an imaginative kid) and as soon as you let him go up he comes...

Throw him in the pool and invert him so his head is pointing to the bottom and let go... Guess what happens!

Like I said, internal ballast works just fine!

For those folks who like their facts without the clown element, Wooden Boat Magazine had a great issue about sharpies a bunch of years back and you can buy issue 114 as a digital download for $3.50 (just a warning but our Bolger Loose Moose 2 design was a featured sidebar).

good, better, best...

I spend a lot of tie trying to come up with cunning plans where one can build a boat that works for less money which, I'll admit if something of a frustrating addiction. Made worse as budget building stalwarts like plywood, lumber, and industrial epoxies keep going up in price. 

This last week I've been thinking of ballast as a friend is designing an interesting scow trailer sailor with ballasted dagger board/keels which I expect to be fairly expensive to have cast. Of course it's always possible to cast your own but lead is a very scary medium to work with and I personally don't want to kill off my few remaining brain cells. Throw in the fact that lead keeps getting more and more expensive and I find myself looking at various alternatives.

Water can be a good ballast and, for all practical purposes it's free. The downside is that water ballast takes up a lot of internal space when compared to lead. A cubic foot of lead weighs in at 708.06 pounds while a cubic foot of water weighs only 62.43 pounds.

Big difference.

Let's say we want to build a sharpie that requires a ton of internal ballast what does that look like in various ballast scenarios...

• Water = 32 cubic feet
  
• Sand = 19.61 cubic feet
• Water filled sand = 15.7 cubic feet
• Concrete = 14 cubic feet
• Steel = 4.06 cubic feet
• Lead = 2.82 cubic feet
• Gold = 1.66 cubic feet 

Most of us building small boats find the needed space for water, sand and water filled sand take up too much room but they are for all practical purposes free and many boats have been successfully built and cruised using them as ballast.

Concrete is a bit more realistic and I've seen a lot of concrete ballasted wood boats that worked just fine. Concrete is cheap and easy to work with so not a bad option for home builders.

Steel also makes a lot of sense and there always seems to be a source of one inch used plate available for not very much that you can cut down to more manageable ballast bits. 

Lead is the top choice for most folks but it is expensive in ingot or shot and a lot more dangerous to work with than prudent.

I included gold for those folks who write me all the time telling me I'd be a fool to go sailing on a boat that does not use the very best components available in its build and that you get what you pay for. I did however omit Uranium which would make awesome ballast except for the fact that the idea of glow in the dark testicles does not really appeal.

So, the question of what sort of ballast is pretty much up to you. For me the most attractive ballast compromise would be a mix of concrete with scrap lead or steel added to the mix. if I build the internally ballasted sharpie design I'm working on or a cast concrete/graphene/lead shot keel if I build the Skrowl 900.

More on building an affordable hull to put the ballast in soonish....

 

and in the best rig for a VolkCruiser department...

Yann Quenet showing off a balanced lug roller reefing set up.

Boats with problems...

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.

There’s a Catalina 27 with a broken mast that would make an excellent candidate for a junk rig conversion I’ve had my eye on. The current asking price is $2K. Finding a used mast and rigging will raise the cost more than you’ll want to spend. I’ll also point out that without a working rig you can make a lower offer that the seller should agree to.

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...

An exercise in common sense and frugality...

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.

Avoiding the bigger/more expensive death spiral...

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..

• Throwing out batteries that have at least two years of remaining life.
• Buying new batteries/charger of the Lithium sort.
• Buying new solar panels.

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...

On that "Just use less" mantra...

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.