Someone who is not your friend...

Part of the problem of navigating life in a consumerist society is that, pretty much, everyone selling you something is only in it for the profit. That said, there's nothing wrong with making a profit because, by and large, profit within reason is a good thing.

Where it gets nuts is when profits exceed fair & reasonable, and start looking a whole lot like gouging or theft.

Here's an example I happened across yesterday while trying to buy some anti-fouling for my dinghy as there didn't seem to be what I wanted on island.

Pettit SR21 is a hard anti-fouling that makes sense for a hard dinghy as it has a thin film, it's easy/quick to apply, and it's hard so scrubbing is non-problematic. Normally it's a bit too expensive for my tastes as it retails for $69.99 a quart but West Marine currently has it on sale for $35.88 so I said to myself  "That's what I want".

Of course, as it turned out, WM won't ship it to me because I'm in a non-incorporated territory and it appears that the powers that be at WM don't realize we are part of the US of A. Perhaps we could have shipped it with our freight forwarder but as that adds another $20-$30 to the transaction it makes it more than what I want to spend.

And, yes, dear reader, I'm frugal/cheap.

Anyway, since I now had an overwhelming desire to put some SR21 on the bottom of my dinghy, I started looking further afield with no luck until I got to eBay...

eBay is a rather interesting place and I used to buy quite a bit of film stuff, marine gear, and musical instruments from eBay sellers but do it less these days as it seems to be mostly greed-head dealers selling stuff for more than it's worth.

But, as it happens, there was a guy selling SR21 and he'd even ship it to me. Sounds good until you do the math...

$139.88 + $19.99 = $159.87

That's for one quart of anti-fouling that is supposed to retail for $69.99 and it's as far from a fair or reasonable price as you can get without it becoming armed robbery.

Sadly, just about every time I've gone to eBay in the last couple of years this sort of thing appears to be the norm rather than the exception where boat stuff is concerned. 

It's important to remember that marine trades are seldom your friend and if you're lucky enough to have found one who is, cherish it like you would a Unicorn. Far too many people looking for boat gear consider that the prices are going to be better than some marine vendor like West Marine whose economic pressure on the industry and consumers is both controlling as well as dastardly. However, even they don't measure up to the ripoff artists who inhabit eBay. The bottom line is that eBay is not your friend and should be treated with suspicion and do your homework before going there in search of deals.

Just sayin'...

a plastic water bottle and a boat...

The other day I found myself listening to someone going on about their stainless steel bespoke water bottle as a must have for the cruising sailor. I was not impressed.

The argument that an expensive water bottle is good for the environment is somewhat dubious in that its fabrication requires energy which is, more often not, provided by fossil fuels so not exactly as green as we'd like. Worse in fact, because do you really think someone who requires a designer water bottle is going to drink water from the tap?

Some years ago at a charter yacht show the organizers provided show attendees with "green" reusable plastic water bottles because there had been some complaints about using single serve water bottles. Of course, I found the fact that they were filling the reusable water bottles from single use disposable water bottles sorta/kinda defeated the whole purpose of the exercise.

I'll add another point regarding the bespoke designer stainless steel water bottles and say that the person hyping them had an affiliate link so was making money on any that were sold. It's just another link in the chain selling you stuff you don't need for a profit.

My choice of water bottle is reused soft drink bottles. I've mostly kicked my soft drink habit but still, from time to time, have a bottle of ginger ale. Being loathe to throw plastic away to go into landfill for like forever, I'll save it and reuse it as a water bottle. Aboard "So It Goes" we keep a dozen or so water bottle of this ilk and they're a much more green solution then that bespoke designer stainless steel water bottle.

They're also, for all practical purposes... free.

Which, sorta/kinda brings me around to an interesting but somewhat stupid sailboat design you might want to check out. It's the Sterne 25 and it's built of eco-friendly materials like bamboo, basalt, jute, linen, and plant sourced resins all of which I think is a goodly thing.

It's a cool boat for sure and as a test bed for greener materials it certainly makes sense. The downside, for me at least, is that in a world with thousands and thousands of excellent already built sailboats going for near giveaway prices,

 why are we still building new boats?

That CAL 27 or Chrysler 26 (for example) going for cheap are most certainly a greener solution than most eco-friendly designs coming down the pike with the added advantage of being a whole lot more affordable. 

One issue with greenish materials is they've recently become a hip commodity and as a result materials known for being readily available and cheap are, all of a sudden, all kinds of expensive and difficult to get. For the last few months I've been trying to find a good source for jute (AKA burlap) to use for a dinghy build I wanted to do. The idea of replacing fiberglass with burlap was very attractive until it became hip and now is selling for more than fiberglass. Made worse by the fact that I'd need to buy a bolt of cloth rather than a few meters. The sad fact is that building green has been co-opted by consumerism and folks wanting to make a profit don't give a shit about the environment.

The real bedrock way to be green in this messy world is to use less rather than more and whenever possible, reuse, repair, and recycle.

That might make a great t-shirt as well...

Worse than fingernails on a chalkboard...

I've been following the build of a Bolger design of late and it's akin to fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard to me.

Admittedly, it's a very common mistake that's being made but I find that the misuse of epoxy just drives me batshit crazy.

Epoxy is great stuff but it is expensive and it would be great for users to do a little reading on the subject on how to use it. "The Gougeon Brothers on Boat Construction" is a veritable tome on how to use epoxy in boat building that's actually free that should be on everyone's bookshelf or computer. If tomes are not your thing System Three has an excellent booklet entitled "The Epoxy Book" (also free) which tells you just about everything you need to know to use epoxy correctly.

While not free Russel Brown has written an awesome book "Epoxy Basics: Working with Epoxy Cleanly & Efficiently" that taught me a lot and I've been working with epoxy and glass for going on fifty years now. 

So, do me a favor read a bit and and up your game and upgrade your technique as it will speed up the work, save you a chunk of change, and keep me from muttering obscenities when I see troweled on epoxy that needs hours of sanding to fair up.

Just sayin'

 

Just spend less...

The real trick, where refitting an old boat is concerned, is simply to not spend a lot of money on it. Or just spend less.

While spending less is a very workable tactic, it butts up against the consumerist mainstream and viewed by a substantial proportion of people as being akin to heresy. I’ll point out that being heretical does not always make you Joe Popularity.

I’ve posted from time to time that pressure treated pine (AKA Miami Teak) is an excellent wood to use in various boat building projects. What’s not to like? It works easily, pairs well with epoxy, is more rot resistant than many boat lumber species, and it’s affordable.

Well, if any wood can be called affordable these days...

Most of the plywood in our 53-year-old CAL 34 is just plain painted exterior ply. Which might surprise some, as almost all of it is in good shape. The only issue being the bits that had teak veneer which peeled off because Jensen Marine used Weldwood back in the day. Which is actually pretty impressive when you consider Weldwood glue held up just fine for forty years.

Choosing more affordable wood or materials that do the same job as more expensive ones results in a more affordable boat. For instance, for the coach roof hand rails. Instead of using teak, I used pressure treated pine and the needful lumber cost all of twenty dollars. If I had used teak in the same scantling (I like beefy hand rails) the cost would have been close to $120 per handrail.

That’s a substantial difference and savings. Since I’m averse to varnished wood, no one actually knows what species the handrails are as they’re painted white.

It’s not just wood. All refits require you to make decisions and, at least in my experience, there’s always a less expensive option available that works. The only downside is you have to do some research to sort it all out.

Still, there’s the pressure to buy “Marine Quality” a misnomer if ever I’ve heard one. The truth about marine quality is all about high mark-ups and has little to do with the actual product. I know a chain of marine stores who stocks their shelves with stainless fasteners that are seconds or closeouts. Their selection of screws and bolts is so bad that you have to examine each one, as so many are defective. Whenever I shop there, I see people buying these fasteners at inflated prices in bulk when they could easily buy better for pennies on the dollar.

The same goes for goops and suchlike. I don’t use marine paint except for anti-fouling. For topside paint, I use single component paint that costs a fraction of what marine paint costs and works just as well. Since I use a lot of epoxy and glass, I buy bulk from folks like RAKA who have excellent products that work as well or better than the “name brands”. My experience with caulking compounds has led me to prefer cheap hardware store polyurethanes. It’s become almost impossible to find fresh 5200 or Sikaflex resulting in goop cured in the tube and expensive waste.

You can reduce pretty much everything you need to buy for a boat using the same formula by simply choosing what works well but costs less.

Let’s just call it educated frugality.

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....

 

In praise of Miami teak...

Folks around boats tend to become obsessed with costly materials which they give near-magical properties to whether or not they deserve it.

So yeah, let's talk teak... Or to be more precise, why you don't want to use teak.

Truth be told, teak in my opinion, is a far cry from what I'd consider a good boatbuilding wood. It's expensive, hard to glue, and judging from the number of boats with rotten teak I've come across, not at all as rot-resistant as people give it credit for.

The funny thing is that back when teak started being used for ship building it was mainly used because it was the cheapest thing around. How it has become the king of marine lumber is more about good marketing and a whole lot of folks who don't really know the first thing about wood.

That said, I'm a big fan of what's known as Miami teak which you might be more acquainted with as pressure-treated southern yellow pine.

Yeah, the cheap stuff...

How cheap you ask? Last time I looked pressure-treated southern yellow pine costs all of $100-$200 a cubic meter and, for those of a curious nature, decent but not great teak these days is going for $2500 a cubic meter.

Quite the difference wouldn't you say?

The one downside of pressure treated wood is that the copper involved tends to have a tenacious ability to show through stains, epoxy, and varnish. Personally I find that slight green tinge gives me a certain feeling of comfort knowing that my wood is well protected from a lot of what causes "soft" wood and I embrace it as being a goodly thing...

Then again, I used to have a Fender "Wildwood" guitar which I loved. The Wildwood process being that they'd inject the growing trees with water soluble dyes giving them what I thought was a very interesting look...

 

So for me that slight green tinge is just something that makes the Miami Teak all that more interesting.

Why your local lumber yard might be your first stop...

I've got a couple of pieces of wood that have been sitting out in the open for the last couple of years as sort of a "when-will-this-stuff-rot/fall-apart" test.

Now, I'll admit it's not a serious scientific test and more a simple bit of satisfying my curiosity but it has been enlightening.

The wood in question is a bit of yellow pine "2X4" , a bit of cypress 1"X6" and a scrap of some formply I used for a mold section when I was strip-planking my new mast. For a control I have a little offcut of teak and a scrap of marine plywood.

As to the conditions it's been subjected to, I happen to be in the Caribbean and it's been through the same old same tropical weather and conditions that everyone warns you about when they are telling you that you need an expensive tropical hardwood because anything else will deteriorate and rot.

So, here's the thing...

The pine 2" X 4" is, except for some minor discoloration, just peachy keen and so is the cypress 1' X 6". As for the formply it looks pretty much as it did when I cut it out. I should restate the point that it has been out in the sun/rain/humidity unprotected all this time.

The teak on the other hand has some "soft" spots and the marine ply is delaminating.

So ends this test as I threw out the control groups the other day...

While not exactly conclusive, it does reinforce some opinions I've had for a long while about teak being just about the last wood I'd use for boat construction (well, unless it was FREE) brought about by having worked on a lot of boats with serious rot issues that involved teak and redecking an old schooner built in 1910 whose original pine deck was in pretty much pristine condition the problem being the oak beams under the deck which were soft.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to build a new T-section boom for "So It Goes" and I'll be building it out of yellow pine. It's cheap and more than strong enough with the addition of a bit of carbon roving I happen to have laying around. Coated with epoxy then painted, it will likely last twenty years or so with minimal maintenance. Better yet, I don't have to take out a mortgage to be able to afford a more seamanlike wood.

Even more important, woods like yellow pine and cypress are much more sustainable materials than exotic hardwoods... Not only are you saving a lot of money, you're also doing the right thing ecology wise. What's not to love?

The formply, on the other hand, needs some more testing where long term epoxy/glassfiber adhesion is concerned. That said, If I were going to build a sharpie or any traditional plywood construction boat I'd be looking very seriously at formply for the hull, deck, and bulkheads...

Some simple addition...

So, you've been looking at the Michalak scow Boxtop and saying to yourself  "I could knock one of those together in a hurry for not a lot of money..."

So what would it cost to build?

Well for starters, you're looking at around 50-sheets of 1/2" plywood which, if you go marine, is a chunk of change. Marine ply would set you back between $4500-5000 but you could go the best quality exterior route for about half that.

Then you'll need lumber for the framing and spars. My quick guesstimate for that is about $1000.

Of course, you'll need something to glue and seal the thing together so expect to spend around $350 for epoxy (double or triple that if you want to glass it as well).

It goes on but we're at the point where we have to ask ourselves why are we spending this kind of money when we could buy a 28-foot sailboat already fitted out in fair to good condition for less?

Which is not to say we should not build this or another boat but since we're not going to save any money doing it there would have to be some other compelling reasons why we should.

For me, this particular boat's virtues are its rig and its extreme shoal draft. Face it, if you want a boat that draws a foot or sports a balanced lug rig, you're going to have to build it yourself. Offhand I'd say that is more than enough reason to build if  I actually needed those features in a boat.

One thing to keep in mind is that the need/want test for any boat building exercise is crucial...

Is this the year of the Trilo?

I went shopping the other day and with just about everything I popped in my basket I felt a certain "I'm-sure-the-price-on-this-has-gone-up" twinge. It's getting a lot more expensive these days and if canned tuna goes up you have to know that so are boats and boat related products.

Seriously, have you looked at what good quality clear VG Douglas Fir is going for these days?

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"  Hunter S Thompson

That quote really says it all... Dr Thompson could easily have been talking about building a boat in 2014 where the same old same no longer makes any sort of economic sense and if you're going to do it you'll have to think a bit outside the box.

Then again, maybe the box is the answer...

Dave Z, of TriloBoat fame is currently doing the pretzel logic two-step thing while designing his next boat and reading his thought process on the subject is quite enlightening.

Personally, I'm pretty sure Dave is on the right track and, while I don't exactly agree with everything he says, he is most certainly on to something and, I expect, with just a small bit of evolution (and some French scow influence) he'll nail it.

Now, with that out of the way, the most important boatbuilding word for 2014 is F-O-R-M-P-L-Y...

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hunter_s_thompson.html#wCIsDAblZlHbtFel.99When the going gets weird

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hunter_s_thompson.html#wCIsDAblZlHbtFel.99

Solving the cost per pound equation one step at a time...

Most people don't realize it but it is really rather easy to make building or rehabbing a sailboat a whole lot more affordable...

For example, let's look at hatches since I recently replaced a few on "So It Goes".

My options were to buy new hatches, try and find used hatches, or build new hatches. Of course, it's really a little more complicated because there is a real plethora of hatches available at a variety of price points and quality levels...

Take this Bomar for instance...

It's a really nice hatch, it's stainless and seriously heavy duty! The problem is it also costs way more than I care to pay at $849 for the size needed.

On the other hand, I could always go with a less expensive hatch but the cheapest I'm going to find is going to be around $300 or so... Not happy making!

Used ones always seem to have issues as people mostly replace them when they leak so there is a good chance I'd just be buying someone else's problems.

So why not build? The material to make a strong and leak-proof hatch are at most (including hardware) $75, it's an easy project well within the abilities of anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time, and they're more likely to not leak than the various expensive made to order hatches available these days... Do I hear an AMEN!?

The three hatches I recently built for our boat to replace the leaky Lewmars took a half day of less than inspired work while costing a sum total of about $60 for the wood, glass/epoxy, and hardware. So you might say that I've saved between $840 to $2487 dollars.

As far as I know, the best discussion and how-to of building hatches is in Fred Bingham's "Boat Joinery & Cabinetmaking Simplified"...

...It's always worked for me.

What I want for next Christmas...

Dudley Dix has some excellent thoughts regarding the whole why it's smart to build your own boat... I'd call it a must read.

That said, I still think the most logical choice for a VolkCruiser budget is to rehab something cheap/free in reasonable shape but I'd much prefer to build from the keel up if funds allow.

The big problem, of course, is that materials pricing continues to go up and even being open to alternative boat building materials (formply comes to mind) unless some designer comes up with some new (as opposed to old dressed up to be new) ideas I just don't see it.

I can hope though...