Monday, March 31, 2014

$1 a pound...

A while back we were talking about the cost of boats and boat building and how it could be best expressed in terms of cost per pound/displacement...

So, the other day I came across a Pearson 303 selling for $5000. The boat is not in bad shape, has new sails, and like all boats it needs some work, it's a steal at forty-nine cents a pound.

Even if you spent an additional $5k and some sweat equity you'd still have a boat that costs slightly less than $1 a pound...

Now that's serious VolksCruiser territory.

Spending some time this weekend looking at boat ads to see if the the Pearson was an anomaly I found there were a lot of boats that seemed to be reasonable facsimiles that were being sold cheap because the economy sucks and far too many people simply cannot afford the cost of a marina berth or place to store their boat.

If I were in the market for a VolksCruiserish boat in the under 40-foot bracket my initial guideline would $1-a-foot all up because with some hard work, creativity, smarts, and slavish attention to the need/want criteria it's doable.

Doable is a great word is it not?