a bit of reinvention...

Truth be told, there's not a lot of difference between most of the classic plastic designs and when you look at a CAL 34, Columbia 34, or a Whatever 34 it's easy to see that all of the designs tend to cover the same bases. Since they all use the same rig, the same accommodation plan, the same general construction, and the same level of quality, it makes it hard to tell them apart.

Of course, the main reason we find ourselves in this same old same territory is that in the late sixties/early seventies, the general consensus was that this is what worked and worked well. The simple fact that there are thousands of classic plastics still floating right side up and sailing backs that up.

Still, I wonder what Lapworth, Tripp, Irwin, and Morgan would have changed if they had a chance to change the mold they'd confined themselves to.

Being that we're now in 2023 with a world balancing on the edge of several cataclysms of our own creation, it's way past time to rethink boats in general and classic plastics in particular.

One of my favorite films is  Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s "Amélie" which I'm sure you've all seen. A classic for sure but Jean-Pierre Jeunet felt that he could have a bit of fun through reinvention...

And if you can reinvent a classic film, what's keeping you from doing the same to a classic sailboat design?

Within a reasonable budget of course.

a clean sheet of paper...

What most folks don't get with the whole idea of a VolksCruiser is that it's really all about simplicity. The general approach to getting an inexpensive sailboat and fixing it up seems to be in adding complication rather than paring things down to the essentials.

So, what would we do to a cheap CAL 34 if we had the ability to take it back to nearly the blank sheet of paper stage of design?

Hold that thought and I'll be back with more tomorrow.

Oh yeah, Happy Spring.

Some thoughts on the CAL 34...

It's come to my attention that there are several CAL 34s going cheap (as in less than $3K). This got me thinking about how I'd go about VolkCruiserizing them today knowing what I know now after living aboard and sailing "So It Goes" for ages.

For starters, there's a CAL 34 going for $1k which is floating right side up, has a mast, and an engine that does not work. I expect there are a bunch of other issues but at less than the cost of the lead in the keel $1,000 would still be a lot of boat for the money.

My first thought would be to get rid of the mast and rig since I'm sure that the rig is way past its sell-by date. The mast could be salvaged and I could sell it for $500 or so which is close to what I could build a new mast in terms of materials. Since I'm sure I'd also have to replace the dreaded I-beam, it would also be a great time to beef up the compression post to support a serious tabernacle arrangement if keeping the boat as a sloop or change the location of the step in aid of a junk or lug rig.

Then there's the non-functioning motor which I'd replace with an Atom Voyager inspired outboard installation with either a 6HP gas or electric outboard which is really all one requires to move the boat when needful. While I'm at it, I'd seriously consider moving the rudder back to the transom which would improve the balance and make incorporating a simple self-steering trim tab both cheap and easy.

As far as the interior goes, the Lapworth design works just fine and while I'm sure it would need some work and sprucing up, it wouldn't be difficult or expensive.

The rest just comes down to cosmetics.

Do the work yourself, use affordably sourced materials, avoid mission creep, and you'll have a pretty awesome boat for $7.5K or less.

I'll go into a bit more detail in the next post...

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.

A $1000 VolksCruiser...

 Here's a boat you might want to check out...

Now, for me at least, the Chrysler 26 comes pretty close to checking all of the fields on my what makes a great VolksCruiser list.

1. It's cheap and I've seen good boats going for $1K.
2. It packs in a lot of livability into a 26-foot envelope.
3. It has a draft of 2' 3" with the board up and 6' 2" when you need to get to windward.
4. It has enough displacement and ballast to get you where you want to go right side up.
   
5. Halsey Hereshoff designed it and he's a  designer I trust.
6. It was designed to use an outboard and 6HP is all you need.

The only disadvantage is that it is a small boat and not for someone who requires a lot of less-than-needful-stuff. But that's a problem with any 26-foot boat isn't it? 

A few minimal projects (the galley for instance) would make it an even a better cruiser for not a lot of money or sweat.

So, all in all, it's a great example of what you need in a small cruising boat and well worth considering.

 

A channel that is better than most...

 

A couple crossing the Atlantic in a 31-foot boat...

an interesting boat...

Certainly not the same old same.

There's more info on the boat on the Oddity blog and Yachting Monthly that's worth checking out.

A couple of odd ducks...

Here's an interesting design I've long admired...

The Clipper Marine 32 is a Bill Crealock design that I've always liked in spite of the fact that I most detest center cockpit designs. The shoal draft version only draws 3 foot six inches and it has an transom hung rudder that could easily be adapted to trim tab self-steering.

The good news is that as it's a bit of an odd duck if you come across a Clipper 32 chances are the price will reflect that. The last one I saw for sale was going for $4K in good shape.

Another similar design is the O'Day 32 which is quite a nice boat though, in my personal opinion, a bit more cluttered design but still worth taking a look at if you see one for sale in your neck of the woods.

The real big difference between the two is that the Clipper 32 only has a beam of eight-feet while the O'Day is 10.5-feet and has over twice the displacement as the Clipper..
 

A sweet ride...

I saw a Kirie Elite for sale in Edmonds Washington  state going for a silly price ($1.2K).

I have something of a sweet spot for this particular design as I saw it at a Paris boat show and it just felt like it would be a great boat. It was quite roomy for its size, had a huge aft double, and it was no slouch in terms of speed.

It was everything I liked in the Harlé Tonic design but expanded out to a 30-foot envelope. Sadly, it was also more expensive than I could afford at the time.

Now at a reasonable price with a diesel engine that works "OK" it just might be one of the better VolksCruiser deals going.

Charles Morgan is no longer with us...

Yesterday I heard that Charlie Morgan was no longer with us and it got me thinking about some of his designs. 

While there's something about the look of his Out Island series that sorta/kinda rubbed me the wrong way there's no denying that they are prime candidates for VolksCruising. Just take a look at the Out Island 33...

Way overbuilt with moderate shoal draft as befits a boat designed to go into charter it's a lot of boat in a smallish envelope. As they made a lot of them they can be found for a reasonable price and since they were built like a tank they're mostly in pretty good shape.

Two other Out Islands with great VolksCruiser potential are the Out Island 28 and Out Island 30 that are both well worth taking a look at.

Charles Morgan designed a lot of sailboats boats as well and his body of work is as impressive as you can get so well worth a study.
 

the best of times, the worst of times...

So it's 2023 and a new year. For some of us, it comes with some musing over the state of things.

As far as sailing and cruising goes, my musings seemed to be along the lines of that Dickens quote and I spent a couple of hours thinking about the good/bad reality after the ball dropped at midnight.

On the positive side...

• The cost of a good condition, under 36-foot, blue water capable boats have come down and are now very affordable.
• The cost of needful gear has become more affordable.
• Systems that were once considered too complicated or unaffordable for many are now within most cruiser's means.
• Needful information is readily available and no one has to reinvent the wheel. That said, finding good information should include a buyer beware warning.
  
• The current state of computer-based communication systems means you can almost always be connected to the world.

On the negative side...

• One of the main reasons boat prices have fallen is that we have a "Too many boats and not enough places to put them" situation so moorage and marinas have become unaffordable. A related issue is that this is causing a lot of anti-cruiser attitude on municipal and state levels.
  
• While needful gear may be cheaper, the marine industry exerts incredible pressure to get the newest, most expensive thing/flavor of the month.
• Sadly, the "You get what you pay for" mindset is counter productive to affordable cruising and really does not make any sense but considered gospel by far too many.
  
• YouTube influencers, while helpful from time to time, are mostly pimping on one level or another. Any information from most of these sources should be considered suspect and taken with a grain of salt.
• The current state of computer-based communication systems means you can almost always be connected to the world.

Actually, those lists could be a lot longer but I suspect you get the general drift. So, how do we deal with the best/worst conundrum?

For starters, VolksCruising only works if you're actually cruising. Your mantra should be "Keep on Trucking" as any nomadic society knows that being welcomed always comes with a time stamp and it's best to leave Dodge before the welcome expires. Which is a roundabout way of saying if you're going to cruise you best be on your way.

Since there are so many inexpensive sailboats in good shape, the desire to buy a fixer-upper should be suppressed. Why spend a year or three fixing a boat when you can just buy one and get gone? Sure, I know you want to tweak the boat to your needs but a major refit is seldom a good financial investment and, if you think it's required, you should be looking for another boat.

Same goes for the need some have of wanting to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. For a special few it might work but in 99% of the cases I've seen, you just wind up with a very, very expensive sow's ear.

As far as stuff goes for cruising, less is more as the old adage says. I could go into deep detail but do I really have to? 

Overall the best/worst scenario comes out as pretty positive for someone wanting to cruise on a VolksCruiserish budget. Of course, you'll need to do some critical thinking, jump through a bunch of hoops, and make some of those negatives work for you rather than against but the overall math says it's going to be a good year to get going.

Here's hoping we all have a happy new year.

great boat in a great location...

Here's a boat I've always liked.

It's the Chris Craft Pawnee and it is a very cool little cruising boat. Sadly they only built them for a year so did not make a lot of the excellent Sparkman & Stephens design.  

As it happens there's one for sale in Hawaii if anyone's interested.

A boat I was once looking for...

Every once in a while I'll see a Bristol 26  (aka Sailstar 26) for sale for a good price and it gets me thinking. Back when I was in Paris looking for a boat to buy. The sailboat in my head that I was looking for was a European facsimile of the Halsey Herreshoff Bristol 26.

It's a good design and packs a lot of living space into a small envelope.

 

As it happens there's a Bristol 26 which appears to be in reasonable shape in Annapolis going for $2.5K which is the current street price for a Bristol 26 in reasonable shape. that I find more than a little interesting. Certainly worth checking out.

Not a project you should be looking at...

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.

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.

How many guitars can you fit on a 27-foot sailboat...

 Sadly, it's a simple answer...

Not enough.

Which, for me at least, is the big downside of every 27-foot boat you're likely to come across in that they just don't have a lot of space or weight carrying ability.

Which is not to say you can't live and cruise on a 27-foot sailboat but with a finite space you'll have to make some serious life changes to make it work.

Now while I use guitars as an example, the needful stuff is more about things like water, provisions, and the various tools one needs to live your life in a way that does not equate with a prison sentence.

Where most people get it wrong with small boats is assuming they can just keep adding stuff with no regard to the fact that boats have a waterline for a very good reason. Adding a couple of inches to the waterline every couple of years is just stupid as well as being plain bad seamanship.

If your boat is designed to draw five feet then that's what it should draw. 

When I think about it, you could really do a lot worse in choosing that as a mantra.

Anyway, living and cruising on a small boat successfully requires one to adapt to living within the constraints of your chosen vessel and embracing its finite nature. Which, considering we live in a hardcore consumerist society, is never going to be an easy task. Since the answer to all problems is to "buy more stuff" you're not likely to get much help in the "How do I do what's needed using less" zone.

That being the case, you'll have to get creative and realize that most of the time you'll be swimming upstream without a whole lot of atta-boys from fellow cruisers. Which I'll add is actually a bonus as it gets rid of the whole "Keeping up with the Jones's" element in the equation and makes a lot of decisions easier.

Next up is we'll take a look on how to sort out that finite space in a way that makes some sense...

a typical 27-foot boat...

The thing to keep in mind when thinking about boats in this particular size niche is that, for the most part, they all fulfill the same needs. Which is hardly surprising when confronted with a 27ish by 9ish foot envelope.

Take the Catalina 27 for instance. It pretty much sets the norm for what you can do with a boat this small and it does it pretty well. More importantly for us it was a very popular design and they built lots of them which means that today (fifty years on) there are lots of Catalina 27s for sale.

Lots of boats for sale in a given market brings the price of a boat down and makes it that much more affordable. Which, I'll think you agree is no bad thing.

Of course, the problem with a 27ish foot boat revolves mostly about the fact that it is a 27ish foot boat. While Frank Butler shoehorned  an amazing amount of livability into such a small boat it is still a finite amount of space and most everyone is going to have to make concessions to the fact and adjust their live to that fact.

I often hear the advice that going up a foot or two will make for a better, more comfortable, and easier  to live in situation.

The Catalina 28, the  boat that replaced the Catalina 27, is a good example of how a slightly bigger newer design can improve things. I'll go on record and say that I'd much rather have a Catalina 28 than a Catalina 27.

That said, there's a catch.

The Catalina 28 is a lot bigger than the lowly 27. The Catalina 27 has a length 26.83 feet with a beam of 8.83 feet and a displacement of 6,850 pounds.The Catalina 28, on the other hand is 28.5 feet with a beam of 10.17 feet and a displacement of 8300 pounds.

That 1450 pounds of added displacement is a huge difference. As I've mentioned often that the real size of a boat is more about displacement than length. Well except when boats of a certain length becomes a design niche.

While the Catalina 28 is a good choice for a VolksCruier it is also going to be a lot more expensive then the Catalina 27 as only 620 of the C28s were built compared to the 6662 of the C27 it's safe to say that the cost of a C27 is going to be cheaper.

The whole idea of this 27-foot boat series is more about how to make a boat better within a certain size envelope than to suggest that a 27-foot boat is the best boat to go voyaging with. I chose this particular size niche simply because it is the most bang for the buck due to the greater number of boats for sale within it and the simple fact that most everyone wants something bigger. Which makes it your best bet for getting a good boat cheap.

More on the subject soon come.

Yeah, 27-feet...

Apparently, some folks don't agree that a bog standard 27-foot production boat can be a capable cruising conveyance.

I get the fact that a boat in this size range is not everyone's cup of tea but they are capable and well within most peoples means. Sure a 44-foot Swan might be better but it also costs $90K or so more than that CAL 27.

In my defense I'll also add that I never said cruising in a CAL 27, Catalina 27, or a Cape Dory 27 would be a cakewalk. A small boat comes with some issues that you'll have to adapt to as well as a certain amount of roll with the flow Zen moves to make it all work.

Still, it's been done by many and just knowing it's possible means that you're not setting out on some impossible task and that's a goodly thing.

So, the next dozen or so posts are going to be about making a 27-footer into a sailboat able to cross oceans in a modicum of comfort, safety, and style.

No consumerist BS, no rocket science, and nary a boat buck in sight.

Of course, if you find the idea of creative frugality doing things, a bit old-school, and swimming against the current trend of out-of-control consumerism a bit off-putting you might want to go elsewhere more within your comfort zone. I highly recommend the Sail Life channel as it's both entertaining and an excellent way to pass the time.

We'll get into the first installment come Thursday...

regarding hurricane plans...

Whenever a hurricane looks like it might ruin my day/week/month/year I do a quick CraigList search of possible boats to buy because, you know, shit happens. 

Call it my plan B but in the event of losing the boat in a serious storm my plan is to get out of Dodge on the first available flight in a hurry. I'll be honest as the very last thing I want to do is be boatless /homeless in the aftermath of a storm.

For the last storm my short list of possible boats consisted of cheap boats that looked OK and floated right side up that were cheap enough to pay cash (under $5K) for and small enough to make any needful repairs quick and affordable. The bottom line is that the boats had to be able to cruise and flippable to sell at a profit when I'd had a chance to sort out the next So It Goes or Loose Moose.

In other words, all the boats on my list were VolksCruisers in the 24-30 foot range.

Lucky for me that there are lots of cheap boats in that size range which are not in bad condition and are inexpensive because the market is saturated and the cost of keeping a boat one is not using is a financial black hole the owners just want to escape.

More on a few of the boats I had on my list next time...

Brass tacks...

Refitting an old boat on a budget, while possible, is no easy task. It's also a lot of work and in our current world real work is not something a lot of people are comfortable with.

It also takes a certain amount of brain power. While I won't throw stones in that direction there are a lot of people these days who are somewhat challenged in that area.

Which, dear reader, tells me that if you're reading this you're not only have the needful work ethic, basic math skills, and intelligence to fit out an old boat and go sailing.

The good news is that inflation and a shortage of boat slips is making a lot of excellent boats available. The downside is that you need to be able to find a place to put your boat while refitting and that might actually be the most expensive part of the project.

Maybe it's good time to point out that doing an unnecessary refit on a boat is the height of silliness. Any refit is going to be expensive and time consuming.

Sure, we all want to make a boat our own and sort out things the way you want them to be. That said, sailboats are mobile and, providing the boat is seaworthy, can be sailed to a place where a refit is both feasible  as well as affordable.

Some folks are lucky enough to have a big yard or access to a usable site but the current boatyard rents/charges or extortionate marina practices make sailing off to a more hospitable location a good idea.

Which is a roundabout way of saying finding an affordable mostly turnkey boat with minimal issues should be your current mantra. Bottom line it's a whole lot easier to fix up a boat in good shape than one that's landfill fodder.