About the cheap thang...

Here's a point that seems to have escaped a few readers comprehension...

 the VolksCruiser thing is not really about cheap.

The idea is not about getting a "cheap" boat and go sailing off into the sunset/sunrise but to point out that it is possible to sail a good boat anywhere you care to go in a sustainable and affordable manner on a constrained budget.

Sadly, these days, almost everyone connects the concept of quality or something being good with its price tag. I suspect if you're reading this that you already have at least, in principal, come to the conclusion that value seldom has anything to do with a price tag. Even so, the whole "You get what you pay for" mythos is so ingrained in our culture that even when we know it's false just like Pavlov's dogs drooled whenever they heard the bell we still tend to have a knee-jerk reaction whenever the word cheap comes up...

Since I happen to be writing this from a CAL 34 I'll use it as an example...

The CAL 34 designed by Bill Lapworth back in the sixties is a good design (many would say a great design). 

Jensen Marine, the builder of said CAL 34, built a good boat and if you have any doubt in the matter just go to any marina in the US of A and there will be CAL's still in use, still kicking ass, and still floating right side up.

Obviously, boats built in the 60's are now somewhat long in the tooth but nowhere near retirement age yet and pretty much still able to take you wherever you care to go.

So, all in all, it's a good boat.

As for price, you can usually find them in the $10K-30K zone. Truth be told $30K and environs is just silly expensive and if you were in the market for a CAL 34 somewhere around $15K would be about right for a good boat at a good price.

Personally I call that affordable, inexpensive, and good value for money. Cheap does not even factor into the equation at all.

There are lots of well designed and built sailboats that are in good condition floating about for very little money that will take you anywhere you want to go. They're inexpensive not because they are cheap, badly designed, or built but simply because the machine of consumerism makes them so and not because there is anything lacking in the boats themselves. 

Just something you should keep in mind.

Something you should read...

Here's a great description of the VolksCruiser ethos in a nutshell.

Sure, it's talking about riding across the country on a bicycle but, for all practical purposes, sailing/cruising and cycling/touring are the same sort of thing...

A cat that would make a great VolksCruiser...

A very long time ago, a good friend had an Iroquois catamaran and used to rave about what a great boat it was...Yesterday, looking at current Iroquois cats for sale, I have to admit he was right with an additional insight that they've also held up extremely well.

Not a big cat at 30 feet but many have crossed oceans and circumnavigated so they actually walk the talk. Even better, they do it with an amazing amount of livability in a small envelope.

It occurred to me that a lot of current designers of multihulls could learn a lot by looking at some older pivotal designs...

Anyway, the Iroquois cat, because it was well made, simple, they made a bunch, and their design is no longer what people consider a "proper" catamaran, can actually be found, from time to time, within reach of folks with a VolksCruiser budget.

For those wanting more information the Iroquois Owners Association is a very good place to start.

Keeping it simple/cheap...

Face it, the hardest part of doing the VolksCruiser thing is really about focus. It's easy to get distracted.

Pick up any sailing magazine, visit a cruising forum, or dock walk just about any marina and you'll be inundated with a staggering amount of pressure to conform and purchase shiny things you don't really need (with money you can't really afford to spend).

Which is why I tend to go on and on (like the proverbial broken record) on the importance of applying your need/want test to everything you do pretty much every step of the way and to be 100% honest throughout the process.

Yeah, I know it sounds simple but, in a consumerist society where shopping, for most, is considered a recreational pursuit, not buying stuff you don't need is not just a matter of swimming against the prevailing current it's heresy.

Need I remind you what usually befalls heretics?

I expect that if folks just applied the need/want process to their sailing/cruising expenditures that they'd save somewhere between 25-50% for starters with no need to go the DIY cheapseats route at all. That said, adopting a DIY cheapseats mindset would seriously turbocharge those savings to the max.

Which brings us around to, just possibly, the most important rule for happy, sustainable, and successful VolksCruising...

Use the brain not the wallet.

A VolkCruiserish dinghy...

Some folks suggest that you have to have a dinghy like this with a 15hp motor...

Sam Devlin tells you how to build a VolksCruiserish alternative with a couple of sheets of plywood and some epoxy.

Have you ever had one of those days?

Have you ever had one of those days?

Maybe I should back up a little...

For a while now I've felt that Boat Bits, VolksCruiser, Island Gourmand, and Fishing Under Sail could use a little work and a few tweaks in direction. The problem is it's really hard to do a makeover while trying to do the same old same... Kinda like the problematic nature of rehabbing a boat while you're living on it. So, a couple of days back, I made the decision to close the blogs for a bit so I could regain a certain perspective, make some changes, and get started on some other semi-related projects.

Fact of the matter is, a lot of folks don't much like my blogs and a goodly amount of the emails I get regarding the blog are negative. That said, I often do wonder why some people who dislike my posts so much apparently read my blogs religiously... Anyway, I have a fairly thick skin and as most of the folks who take exception to what I write seem to suffer infantile political mindset, have minute attention spans, and don't seem to actually read the posts in their entirety I'm not all that bothered but let's look at the instrument panel to check...

Yep, not that bothered at all.

Where the problem comes in is that I don't want to be that guy who writes the same old same stuff and disappoints or bores the regular readers who actually invest themselves in what I write or talk about. Hence, my feeling that I need to make some changes and why I turned off the blogs yesterday.

This morning when I opened my email my box was full of people wanting access to the blogs. Even more touching was the fact that a lot of people were actually worried that there might be some health or medical issue and wanted to make sure I was OK. To say that such concern is appreciated is a huge understatement...

Thank you.

So, the blogs are back up but I have to warn you that since we're going to be in that rehabbing while living on it state of affairs it just might get messy from time to time and we might miss a few days here and there.

Should I or shouldn't I...

So, there's this boat that's been for sale for a long, long time and the owner finally got serious and lowered the asking price to something that actually makes sense...

The boat in question doesn't have a mast, the motor might have last run some time in 2001, and it's also a hurricane boat with the scars to prove it... In short, a whole lot of work and a healthy dose of money to make it better.

It's just a hull and deck...

That said, It's a nice hull and deck that would make someone a great small cruising boat. As it happens, I've been looking for a good candidate to use as a crash test dummy and proof of concept  project to illustrate a lot of the ideas I have on how to rehab a sailboat in a timely and frugal manner to go along with a new build for a VolksCruiser book and media project.

Part of my decision problem revolves around the fact that the boat in question is a nice boat in the sense that you'd expect to pay a minimum of $40-$50K for a used one in good shape. I'm sure some folks might find the process of converting a design that's one step away from being cut up for the lead in its keel into a VolksCruiser instead of a shrine to the boatbuilders art offensive...

Plus, at 28-feet, it's a little small for my own personal use so I'd actually be rebuilding the boat for some unknown future owner which plays some kind of havoc with the design process having to keep in mind some future buyer/owner's wants and needs.

So, something of a conundrum...

A little historical goodness...

Since we were talking about cats...

So, here are a couple of out-of-the-box designs I really like...

First up is by Michael Schacht of PROA File infamy so not exactly surprising it happens to be a Proa named "Herbie". What impresses me off the mark is that in the proportions shown you won't have to go up towards fifty-feet in length to get a thirty-foot monohull interior...

I'd expect the sweet spot of a boat like this would be in the 34-40 foot zone with a cost to build on par with what an equivalent accommodation/payload monohull would. For my needs I'd expect a forty-foot version would work out just fine.

Two more reasons I like this concept is it sports a powerful, but inexpensive, balanced lug rig which makes all kinds of sense in a shunting sailboat and the design in general lends itself to an easy affordable build. Which, after all, is what a VolksCruiser is supposed to be about.

The other design for today is the Bit & Kontell 5.5 by Yann Quenet and it's not a Proa but then again neither is it a cat in the accepted sense...

Now, at 5.5 meters (18-feet) it's a little small for most folk's tastes but I've been very tempted to build one and sail it around the USVI/BVI/Puerto Rico for couple of months long surfari of all the good surf spots as a proof of concept to see just how it works and whether or not scaling up the concept to a full time liveaboard cruiser would make sense.

Offhand, I think an 11m50 version of this boat would make a great cruising boat...

So, do you know why we don't see more interesting designs like these? Why most multihull and monohull designs are just the same old same?

I could blame the yachting press for slavishly promoting/pimping whatever their advertisers are selling, the idiocy of designers only really designing for three markets (those being yacht charter, racing, and luxury play toys for the rich) none of which are optimum for just plain normal folks, or the collective greed of the marine industry where profit trumps everything else... To some extent I'd be right.

That said, the real reason we're not getting the boats we say we want and need is that we're simply not supporting the sort of designers who are putting heart and soul into different boats knowing full well that, more than likely, no one is going to take that leap of faith, buy a set of plans, and build them.

It's our fault...

So, if you want more innovative cruising boats whether it's a bluewater sharpie, a scow, catamaran, or proa buy a set of plans, build a boat, and go scandalize an anchorage .

Nuff said...

a few words on my anti-cat/tri agenda....

The other day I received an email from a reader who took exception with my "buy old boats and rehab" bias and went on to suggest that more posts be about building new boats of the VolksCruiserish ilk. He then went on to say that it would be even better if I concentrated on multihulls...


Houston we have a problem!


Actually we have a bunch of problems trying to build a multihull VolksCruiser. For starters, there are almost no designers of multihulls designing cats or tris for folks on a budget. Add to that the simple fact that multihulls, by their very nature, demand higher spec'd and lighter materials which are a LOT more expensive.


Which is not to say that someone can't build a frugal cat or tri but it is still going to be a great deal more expensive to build than a monohull of the same seaworthiness, livability, and payload. For the record, in today's economy, you can buy a used monohull in good shape for less than you can build one (in most cases). On the other hand, a good fixer-upper monohull will cost a fraction of a new build or used monohull.


So, the reason I mostly tend to point people on a frugal budget towards good rehabbable designs that you can find for cheap is not because I have an anti-cat or tri agenda but simply that for cats and tris in the current state of things, there are just bugger all choices if you want to go to sea and cruise on a budget.


Truth be told, I'd really like my next boat to be a catamaran and I can no longer keep track of the number of hours I've spent going over and costing out various study plans only to find that either they weren't up to real cruising or simply too expensive to build for what they provide.


Now, if any aspiring multihull designers care to send me some details of VolksCruiserish cat or tri designs they have in their back pocket that can be built on a blue-collar budget without acquiring crippling debt in the process, I'm all ears. What's more, I'll be happy to do more posts on VolksCruiser about cats/tris and tell as many folks I can about such beasts...


Hell, I might even build one...

Because quite a few people just asked what a Centaur costs...

Just a quick look at some Westerly Centaurs for sale show me an average asking price of $9199. That said, no one really ever pays asking price for a boat...

So, let's just peg the real world price (in the US of A) at somewhere around $7600 or about $1.14 a pound.

Pretty much says it all...

Small & simple...

Yann Quenet shows us how it's done...

Kinda makes all sorts of sense.

Just a couple of boats in an anchorage...

A while back, a guy I knew dropped me a line from Ushuaia down at the tip of South America and he was just a little bit perturbed. As it happens, the reason for his upset is that the boat anchored next to him was a Westerly Centaur, a 26-foot bilge keeled "family" cruiser, not unlike this one (though I expect without the bikini clad helmswoman)

My friend, on the other hand, had a big go-anywhere serious cruiser by Garcia. A very expensive boat that had been designed just for cruising such out of the way serious places like the tip of South America and the lower latitudes. So, to find he was sharing an anchorage with such a humbly-pedigreed design had him all kinds of out-of-sorts.

Made worse, I suspect, when the elderly couple rowed over to bring him some freshly-made scones and to compare notes about their respective voyages as they'd both come from the same neck of the woods and sailed, more or less, the same voyage to find themselves together in that same particular harbor...

Fact is, he mentioned there were a lot of "surprisingly" small modest boats doing the Horn that year almost all with little fanfare and precious little man-against-sea posturing.

Which just goes to show that pretty much anywhere you go there will be small boats of a VolksCruiserish sort scadalizing the anchorage.