A 50-year old Wharram, a wonky boom, and three women on a mission.
They had me at 50-year old Wharram.
There's more info on their website and Kickstarter page.
A 50-year old Wharram, a wonky boom, and three women on a mission.
They had me at 50-year old Wharram.
There's more info on their website and Kickstarter page.
So there's this guy who wants to buy a (new to him) boat to sail off into the sunset. As it happens, he also has a YouTube channel that has quite a few followers and more often than not his videos are both entertaining, as well as educational.
Just to be fair, I'll point out that his last boat rehab/refit was sometimes painful to watch due to his rather steep learning curve and boat building skills but in the end he got the boat launched and cruising in a reasonable amount of time and it floated right side up.
He's a guy who learns from his mistakes which is one of the most important boat building skills and surprisingly rare. Thus armed, I expect his new boat will come together successfully in a reasonable amount of time and within a sustainable budget.
Apparently, there are a lot of people who don't share my opinion that his current choice of project boat makes sense as his comments sections are rife with naysayers telling him that he can't, it will all end in tears, and if he takes on the project they'll go watch some other channel more attuned to their idea of how to choose a boat.
From my experience, naysayers have seldom, if ever, built or refit a boat. There basic mindset seems to be "If I can't do something, nobody can" so they spend their time telling people how to live their lives and take exception when you go your own way.
The sad part is that the naysayers (AKA assholes) exert a relentless pressure that can be a real obstacle to getting a project completed. Back when I was building the first Loose Moose, I was getting so much negative input about the rig that I lost confidence and found myself in a depressed death spiral that turned a two-day job into a month-long stasis where almost nothing got done.
The project in question is a Wharram cat, that for me at least, seemed like a pretty good boat to fix up. Sure it looked like a dog's breakfast that would require some money and a serious application of hard work but it looked doable. Just for the record, I've built a Wharram, know how they go together, and have finished quite a lot of boat projects, so I have some idea of what I'm talking about. If his project boat was up for sale here for twice as much as he paid, I'd have bought it in a second.
Wharram cats are designed to be both affordable and easy to build. While they may not be the flavor of the month, they are good boats. Why they seem to offend so many is a mystery to me but then you just can't fix stupid.
Anyway, check out the project because I expect it will be a fairly interesting, educational, and entertaining series. I know I'll be keeping an eye on it and rooting for a successful end because I just love to see naysayers pissed off.
An important point, the sort of project we need more of, and P-22 is no longer with us...
Tad Roberts (one of my favorite designers) currently has a catamaran review in the new Wooden Boat Magazine which you might want to check out. It certainly got my attention.
Listening to Xenio Rubinos
So it goes...
For about a year or so I've been rowing by this Maria vintage hurricane catamaran and wondering how I'd go about sorting out it's issues. Of course, that was before it sank...
Again.
Bringing such a boat back from the dead is a lot easier than most folks think but a lot harder and more expensive if you don't have a plan, needful skills, and the time/money to complete the boat in a timely manner. Success on such a project is all about money and time.
The thing is your plan tends to shape the cost of the project while your skill-set defines the time and together they all add up to whether a project is viable or not.
The guy who owns the boat told me he'd paid $15K for the boat which in my mind was way too much for a hurricane boat that had been holed in a few places, sunk, and without a rig. While repairing the beast was pretty straightforward the time and costs involved made it just too expensive to be flippable for a profit which pretty must killed any interest in the boat for me. However, the owner had plans to rebuild it as a houseboat/hangout zone so it sorta/kinda made sense.
Of course, time being a factor, the fact that damaged boats will continue to degrade until they're fixed, and boat left alone afloat is an evil cocktail that tends sneak up quickly and ruin your whole day/week/month/year before you have a chance to say WTF!
That said, I'm sure a lot of folks would look at such a project and think it's a VolksCruiser just waiting to happen with a little sweat, a few gallons of epoxy, and some paint.
I'll delve into the why it ain't VolksCruiser material in a couple of days.
Damn.
Just possibly the father of the VolksCruiser concept and a revolutionary who completely changed the face of sailing is no longer with us.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.
Multihulls are HIP and as a result multihulls demand a higher price and this includes used boats. Which, I suppose, is good news if you happen to be selling a catamaran but bad news if you want to buy one. In my opinion, multihull prices are mostly inflated and don't quite reflect their actual value.
Here's an example;
I've been following an Iroquois 30 catamaran built in 1969 that has been for sale for ages at $45K but recently came down to $35K. Maybe it's just me but I think that either price is way too high for a fifty-two year old boat. As the Iroquois has a displacement of 6560 pounds that's right around $6.86 a pound at $45K and $5.34 at $35K.
As it happens, "So It Goes" is a 1969 CAL 34 and I also tend to track what the model sells for and, by my addition, a 1969 Cal 34 costs between $5K in OK condition to $20K where the boat is pretty much pristine. So, by my figuring, the average price of a good to very good CAL 34 hovers around $14K. That said, with a displacement of 9500 pounds the CAL 34 is a lot more boat than the Iroquois but sells less at $1.48 per pound.
The big question for me is whether or not the hipness factor of a 52 year old geriatric catamaran is worth the extra cost. The fact is if you were to base the value of the Iroquois on its displacement which, by rights it should be you'd be able to buy the Iroquois for around $2 a pound which would be along the lines of $13K which is very close to several other Iroquois cats I've seen over the last few years.
Most builders I know tend to budget a sailboat based on how much it weighs and not so much on what you can sell the boat for. Working out what a boat is worth in terms of weight/displacement is a great way to sort out what you should be willing to pay for a given multihull.
So, what's a person going to do if he/she want a multihull on a VolkCruiser budget?
Well for starters, I'd take a look at smaller designs like the Heavenly Twins, Iroquois, and Prout Sirocco because they're good boats and long enough in the tooth and in a less-than-hip size to have a few out there at reasonable prices.
If those boats are a bit small for your tastes you might check what you can find in the 30-35 foot niche but be warned that deals are very few and far between.
While I've not mentioned multhulls of the DIY sort I'll go on record and say that finding an inexpensive multihull in the under 40-foot niche is, more than likely going to be a DIY boat. The downside is that a lot of folks consider home-built boats inferior and, to be honest, there's a valid reason as the old adage of...
"You build your first boat for your worst enemy, the second for a friend, and the third for yourself."
... which has more than a passing resemblance to reality and, as a result, there are some truly heinous examples of boat butchery laying in wait with a "For Sale" sign laying in wait for the unwary.
More on the subject of home-built designs, what they should cost and building yourself in the near future...
This morning I read an article "10 Small Catamarans For Cruising" which ranged in price from $50K to $300K which seems to be somewhat out of reach of VolksCruiserish folk in spite of the fact that the boats in question, apparently, represent the affordable under 38-foot niche on the market.
Kind of depressing reading as it happens.
Of course, if you're not looking for condomarans and on a VolksCruiser budget you're thinking of building a DIY multihull (cat-tri-proa), shopping for a well built used one, or looking for an older pre-condomaran classic plastic production boat.
Which has me thinking that a short list of possible VolksCruiser multihulls would be no bad thing.
More soon come.
In the meantime, check out Michael Schacht's "Herbie" cruising proa for a Volkscruiser friendly multihull.