A quick note...

Sorry for the lag. I've been doing some boat projects, getting some new sails for "So It Goes", buying boat plans, and wrestling with the whole VolksCruiser concept in a consumerist world that simply does not seem to understand the idea of simplicity or living within one's means.

So, with a new set of sailboat plans on my desk that needs costing out and the continuing rebuild/tweaking of  "So It Goes", I'm finding that the cost issues of the whole VolksCruiser thing coming back into something akin to focus. Which, hopefully, will result in a lot more input to this blog.

Hopefully.

In the meantime, today's mantra is...

Don't Throw Money At It!

One reason I prefer cheap as they come boats part 1...

Dr House said something that anyone interested in buying a boat should adopt as their mantra...



Everybody lies!

Folks selling you a boat tend to lie.

Folks who have something to gain in your buying a boat tend to lie.

Even folks who are honest as the day is long tend to play fast and loose with matters of truth when involved in the sale of maritime craft.

With me so far?

Another point on the whole lying thing is that the more money involved in a boat the more lies in the mix so consider yourself warned.

I actually mention all of this because the other day someone asked my opinion on a given boat for sale and I pointed out that the boat seemed in way too good condition for the asking price and that he should look a little closer because there's always something wrong with a boat for sale... Always!

He responded by saying not to worry as he was having it surveyed...

Which is where I pointed out my theory that folks who have something to gain in your buying a boat tend to lie and unless you do some due diligence you may just find yourself screwed. Plus the fact that, over the years, I've crossed paths with a large number of marine surveyors and only one of them was actually honest. Which is not to say your surveyor is a bad guy but there may be any number of reasons that giving you a good survey on a bad boat is in his/her best interest and not yours.

For instance, one surveyor I know also happens to be married to a broker from a family of brokers and just about every survey he does tends to be brokered by a relation of some sort.Which, when you consider just how incestuous the marine trades are, is not very surprising at all.

Same goes for that mechanic or electrical guy you might have look at the subject of your desire who may (or may not) have connections of one sort or another that shout conflict of interest...

Just something to keep in mind...

$0.20 a pound...

So this morning I noticed a Morgan 27 for sale for $1400 or best offer and a couple of things came to mind...

First, that it was whole lot of boat for very little money and, secondly that it worked out to twenty cents a pound.

Let me repeat that...

$0.20 a pound!

Truth be told, there are very few 27-foot boats of the classic plastic variety that I'd rather find myself living aboard. Especially if you factor the $1400 price tag.

Being a small and simple boat anything that needs fixing or needful improvements/upgrades are going to fairly easy, affordable, and is not going to take lots of time. What's not to like?

Little boats, little problems!

As far as interiors go the Morgan, being quite beamy, has better than average livability and stowage. Which is kind of surprising as it was designed and marketed as more of a racer...

Bottom line is it's a great example of a volkscruiser.

A tour of a very nice cruising boat...

James Baldwin  (of Atom voyages fame) takes a tour of Dawn Treader an Allied Seawind 30 and finds a lot of good ideas...

and in the...

"Don't knock it, it works" department.

An essay...

You just might want to read.

A rule of thumb (or something like it)...

I have a CAL 34...

Admittedly, it's not really a CAL 34 anymore having done countless changes, modifications, and implemented schemes (which seemed like a good idea at the time) that just may have the late Bill Lapworth spinning like a top. That said, if there is an afterlife I expect that Mr Lapworth is simply taking note of my playing/flailing with his great design and enjoying the carnage.

Anyway, the upside is I keep a weather eye out on the CAL 34 market and in doing so it has taught me quite a lot about what a boat should cost. Especially what a 1969 CAL 34 should cost...

Like this one...

Which is pretty much right on the money for a turnkey boat in near Bristol condition at just about $13K.

Of course, you can find any number of CAL 34's for $5K and a surprising number for as much as $30K but my studies on the subject tell me that somewhere between $12k and $15K is what you should be spending for a CAL 34 in good turnkey condition.

If you choose to go the $2k-$6k route you'll, more than likely, find you need to spend the differential between the fixer upper and the turnkey boat if you're careful, don't try to make it into something it's not, and do your own work. On the other hand, if you decide you want to turn it into a silk purse and hire marine professionals to do the cornucopia of jobs such a boat requires you're just screwed and welcome to the hole-in-the-water-yacht-club.

A lot of people opt for the $25K zone which follows the whole "you get what you pay for dude" idiocy and is just a text book example of someone who paid too much for their boat selling it off at a silly price to someone with no common sense but an insane urge to spend.

Finding the right price takes a little time but it is really quite simple. Check the ads to get a feel for the price as chances are the right price will be something right in the middle as an average. Just take all the examples of the boat you're looking for and find the average price. Like I said... simple.

As a double check I like to look at how long boats have been up for sale as the too fucking high priced boats or the cheap fixer uppers just don't sell in a speedy manner. Good boats at the right price do. As it happens, I know of one $30k CAL 34 that has been for sale for going on five years now which is both sad and stupid but it really does tell you everything you need to know about how not to sell a sailboat.

More on cheap seats fixer uppers soonish...

Something...

... You really need to read.

and in the "a whole lot of boat for the money" department...

A Rawson 30 with an asking price of $5K.

It even has an Aries!

A book you need to read...

This weekend I bought a copy of "Get Real, Get Gone" and read it.

It's a good read, makes a whole lot of sense, and should be right at the top of anyone's reading  list who wants to sail off into the sunset on a small sustainable budget.

Need I really say more?

A post...

You need to read.

In the "3 R's" department...

Recycle, Repurpose, and Reuse.




Just the sort of mindset we need to apply to boats more often.

Some impressive sailing chops...

For more of the same check out this...

Some excellent reading...

In the new issue of WoodenBoat magazine there is a really excellent article on doing an affordable and sensible electric propulsion system in a sailboat. In short, pretty much everything you need to know with zero BS content.

Some of you might find it needful reading...

A good resource...

If you're thinking of a composting head.

They had me at "recycle"...

The Alternative Sailing Community from VOIIAGE on Vimeo.

and in the "making a lot of sense department"...

Is $500 a good deal or what?

A CAL 27 for not a lot of money over at Sailboat Listings...

a simple, elegant, and cheap solution...

Far too often we throw silly money at a problem when there's a simple and cheap solution just waiting to be found.

Reality based...

Reading today's news from the USVI, I could not help but notice that the top money guy (in what passes for a government) is simply clueless where actual economics is concerned and, apparently, can't do simple math... That said, not really very unusual these days where politicians are concerned as we seem to live in an age of reality-light thought process.

I mention that because while some folks can afford to live in a world where laws of physics and a finite universe are not the order of the day, folks of the VolksCruiser persuasion simply can't afford to be anything but reality based.

Which brings me around to the yearly blow-out sale that is coming up at Defender...

Well, blow-out might no longer be the best description these days as I've noticed that every year the deals seem a lot less like deals. It's just more of the same old same with a lot of hype, and with most of the so-called "great" deals being just cheap crap they bring in so they can entice you with $250-VHF-for-$50 sort of come on.

Still, it's a big sale and it is worth your while if you need stuff to at least check it out. As for my want list, the only real thing is an AIS transponder because I expect that sooner rather than later a shitload of countries are going to start requiring cruisers to have them and once that happens the price of AIS is going to go up in a big way. Then again, do I really want to cruise police states places where they require you to be tracked 24/7/365?

So, if you happen to have a shopping list and the Defender sale is in your to-do list you might want to really check out what a good price is for the items of interest. A little homework now will save you the day after "Did I really pay that much for this stuff" blues.

Also it wouldn't hurt to do a reality based Need/Want assessment and a "can I really afford this thing?" accounting exercise as well...

I'm pretty sure this is not exactly an example of progress...

Is it just me or am I the only one who's noticed the somewhat alarming fact that you can now buy cans of gas for your outboard for $7.99 a quart?

While I get the whole ethanol is bad for outboards and suchlike, the idea that we're reduced to buying gas for more than I pay for decent rum is just frelling nuts.

That said, barring someone coming up with a hack that allows me to run my outboard on cheap rum, it is a pretty good argument for dinghies you can row or sail...

A book you really should read...

Enough said...

a good read...

Attainable Adventure Cruising has a must read article up and you might want to check it out before it dissappears behind the paywall.

You still here?

So, why don't you build something?

Everyone needs a dinghy...

Right?

A couple of days ago I read a post about the cost of cruising. The problem was that it really wasn't about the cost of cruising but a list of stuff they wanted to buy, most of which were really not needed.

Of course, they felt they needed a bigger, more expensive dinghy as well.

Have you looked at the cost of dinghies of late? Looking at the inflatables from Defender, the cheapest dinghy they have is $699 but it's PVC and you'll have to buy a motor (at least $1000 for a 2HP) because inflatables don't row. When all is said and done you'll have spent at least $2k for a dinghy that is going to be problematic at best.

I won't even get into the whole "But you really need a RIB and at least a 15HP because, you know, speed..." to join the cool kids clique rant because you have a rollup inflatable and a 2HP you'll have to suffer through as a result.

My next dinghy, a nesting TwoPaws design will cost me the price of three sheets of 1/4" plywood, twenty bucks in lumber, a roll of glass tape, five yards, of glass cloth, and 1 1/2 gallons of epoxy. That and three full days of work and I have a cool dinghy for less than $500.

Since it rows way better than an inflatable I won't bother with an outboard but will keep my eye out for a cheap used 2HP two-stroke because, you know, some days you need to be a bit lazy. I'll also throw up a sailing rig for another hundred bucks... All told, I can't see it costing more than $800 which is still $99 cheaper than that funky PVC inflatable from Defender.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that building your own shit can save you a shitload of money.

A big part of the problem with boats...

Is that people just don't make enough of their own shit.

Boaters these days are consumers and it has not escaped my attention that a lot of folks look down at folk who actually do their own repairs, build things, and, you know, invent stuff that actually works on boats.

Surf folk get it. Building your own board is universally respected and if you happen to try something new your street cred goes up a few notches even if it does not work because everybody gets that the path of evolution is fraught with dead ends, mistakes, and if you're not getting it wrong you're simply not trying hard enough.

Bike folks get it as well. In fact, there's a bike-centric group of folks who adopted the weighty moniker of SOPWAMTOS which stands for...

Society of People Who Actually Make Their Own Shit

Just about every bicycle mechanic or frame builder I've ever come across has an innovative nature that I find mostly missing in and around the marine trades which seems to be more about the payday rather than actually building something they might be proud of.

That said, most marine trades men and women I know make a whole lot more money than surfboard shapers and frame builders.

So, here's a question...

When was the last time you saw a really cool innovative idea for sailboats on KickStarter or something like it? You know the sort of idea that made you sit up and say...

Holy shit!

Why not?

More about this soonish...

a neat little junk rig cruiser...

I've been watching this boat on the market for a while...

and why it has not been snapped up in an instant is something of a riddle to me.

Sure it's small but back when we spent a year in the Canary Islands there was a Storfidra 25 with a young family aboard who'd sailed it down from someplace in Scandinavia via a circuit of the Med. They really could have been the poster family for folks having a wonderful time cruising.

I later saw their boat in St Thomas a couple of times and I'd heard they finally sold it to go back and build a nine-meter design because they had another kid on the way and 25-feet is a little small with a family of four.

The Storfidra 25 is a very shippy boat, a great choice for a junk rig, and, I expect, would make someone a great small cruising boat.

$10K and a couple of plane tickets...

I'd like to visit Alaska by boat...

I've been to Alaska a few times to do climbs but my only experience with boats in Alaska involved ferries and a too brief day in a big skiff trying to pull the lips off salmon.

I mention this because yesterday I came across a rather nice sounding CAL 27 for sale in my old stomping grounds of Washington State that whispered to me with...

"Would it not be cool to take me up to Alaska and hang out for a season?"

The CAL 27-2 is a great boat and right at the top of the VolksCruisers I would not mind spending time on in interesting places.

So many boats/places so little time...

Bad habits...

Not too long ago someone mentioned to me that they could never live on a VolksCruiser or VolksCruising  budget because of, you know...  

Comfort.

The subject of watermakers were used as an example...



I can't help but get the feeling that a lot of what folks these days equate with the word comfort has more to do with wasteful consumption, bad habits, and general laziness than anything to do with actual comfort.

Or so it would seem...

Just a whole lot of DIY wonderfulness...

Sailrite is a great resource for anyone sailing and cruising but, for those of us on a budget, an indispensable tool in our VolksCruiser Fǔ arsenal.

Someone's trying to sell you something...

Well, actually, everyone's trying to sell you something these days. It's relentless.

Every day when I open my mail there are about a hundred or more scam emails trying to sell me something and of the remaining "real" email fully 95% of that is someone trying to sell me something or other.

You get used to it don't you...

In case you have not noticed, VolksCruiser is all about selling you something as well and, while it's not something you pay for or a bauble you can play with, it is about selling you the idea that you can do something even if you don't have a lot of money.

That said, it's not really about money at all. It's also not about budgets, cunning plans to get around paying for stuff, and advanced techniques of dumpster diving.

What we're selling here at the grand old VolksCruiser Emporium is simply the fact that you can do it.

You can do it.

Lots of people have done it in the past, people are currently doing it now, and long after you and I have left this mortal coil I'd like to think folks will still be doing it while pissing off those who like to tell them they can't in the process.

So yeah, I am trying to sell you something and "relentless" really should be my middle name.

Horsepower and sail area...

That somewhat sad and neglected Gemini catamaran is a great example of the more is better silliness where engines and horsepower come into play...

Really, eighty horsepower?

The Gemini is a light boat (some might even say TOO light) and it does not take a lot of power to make it get up and go. Its rig HP is something close to 6.3 HP @ 10 knots of wind, 8.5 HP @ 14 knots of wind, and 17 HP @ 20 knots of wind. Which pretty much says to me that anywhere between a single 8 HP and a 25 HP outboard would be OK and my engine of choice would more than likely be a 9.9HP because the Gemini has a fair amount of windage otherwise I'd have gone with the 8HP.

Then again, eighty-fucking-horsepower...

Offhand, I just can't see why anyone would want an engine that exceeds their rig's horsepower unless what they really wanted was a power boat. If so, why even bother to carry around an expensive rig?

For those keen on checking their rig's HP, the formula is HP at 10 knots of wind = .015 X square feet (use .020 for 14 knots and .040 for 20 knots). Not perfect but it is accurate enough to tell you what you need to know.

So, just what's wrong with this picture?

A great resource...

Walkin the talk...



Their website is a real cornucopia of good solid cruising and sailing information so really belongs in your bookmarks.

a book you need to get...

I bought "Tiny Floating Homes" by Chris Troutner and read it over the weekend.

It's good.

You should read it.

Need I really say more?

Nobody (important) really cares...

Face it, a lot of folks put far too much importance on what other people think...

Ya think?

I've lost track of the number of times someone has told me that they'd love to go cruising but they can't afford to do it in the style and fashion they believe is required to fit in comfortably in what they seem to believe is some sort of high school fashion clique from hell.

Or, to use a more concrete example, that if you show up in an anchorage with a funky classic plastic or homebuilt that you'll find yourself in the equivalent of social hell or limbo, people will point in derision, and you won't get to hang out with the cool kids...

Of course, none of us ever want to repeat our angst-ridden high school experiences so I do get the fear of not fitting in and it's understandable.

But...

Here's the thing, most everyone is so busy worrying that they won't fit in and you'll be judging them, that they really don't give a shit what sort of boat you show up in at an anchorage.

Really.

Which is not to say there are not a few patheticly insecure folk whose only coping mechanism is to try and make other people's lives miserable. Lucky for us they are a tiny minority of the folks out cruising and tend to posse-up with other like-minded damaged souls and, since they pretty much stay amongst themselves, they're really not all that problematic and not important at all.

Yeah, just like high school.

Simplicity vs comfort or something like it...

Over at Two at Sea they're talking about simplicity...

Well, actually they're not as it happens. What they are talking about really has nothing to do with simplicity and everything to do with defending the status quo of consumerist yachting. That said, you should really make sure to read it because anyone thinking about VolksCruising is going to hear this argument a lot.

First of all, I really need to go on record that I have Two at Sea on my RSS feed because it is one of the better cruising blogs around, I agree with about 97% of what I read there, and they are a great resource you might want to have bookmarked.

Secondly, I don't have any issues with folks cruising at higher budgets in general, having all the toys that they can cram into their boat, or otherwise cruise differently than I do. Well, unless they bitch and moan about how expensive it is in the process. Go ahead, and by all means buy the $5K virgin latex mattress or the $25K integrated instrument system if you want to but, if you do, you don't get to bitch and moan about how much it costs.

What I do have problems with is bogus arguments like the comfort vs simplicity one when the real argument should be complication vs simplicity as comfort really has nothing to do with it.

The idea that someone with a simplicity-oriented boat can't have things like hot water, a watermaker, showers, electric lights, and refrigeration is really something of a disingenuous argument. It's also a disingenuous argument with a lot of traction and the whole idea that simplifying your cruising life is akin to Neanderthal camping sans even the most basic comforts is easily the most popular misconception regarding cruising.

From where I sit, comfort, both as a concept and a reality, is actually quite simple and neither problematic or expensive to provide. So well within the realm of VolksCruisers on a budget.

Fact of the matter is, if there's one great single factor for me that gets in the way of comfort and me being a happy camper it's needless complication, bad systems, and things that break down.

Sadly, these days, most are so brainwashed that comfort, satisfaction, happiness, and value is all about stuff, how much stuff we have, and the cost of our stuff in comparison to other people's stuff that we no longer even know what real comfort or value is anymore.

One of the first things I ask myself every time I do a need/want breakdown on boat stuff is whether getting something will make my life aboard better and comfort is always a prime consideration as it should be. Life, in my opinion, being way too frelling short to be uncomfortable when you don't have to be. Being comfortable is very much in the need category and if you're not factoring that into the formula you're not going to be a very happy camper.

Need I really mention that being a happy camper is really the prime directive?

A short radio program...

... You really do need to listen to.

a niche market of sorts...

Since I've been working on the VolksCruiser project I've noticed a certain niche market in used boats. The upshot is that someone buys a dirt cheap boat that is not selling for pennies on the dollar and then cleans it up (as in just throwing away junk and some liberal application of soap and water) then resells it for a chunk of change more and then simply repeats the process with another boat.

What a great business model! There's obviously no shortage of old boats that need to be cleaned and de-cluttered...

While cleaning up a boat is often not a job not for the faint of heart or squeamish it's not really that hard and as a clean uncluttered boat is worth more than a mold farm and a whole lot easier to sell it.

So, if you happen to notice that cheap funky awful looking CAL or Pearson you were thinking about buying magically reappears looking tidier and sprightly for a few thousand dollars more, you might want to keep in mind that you could have bought it for a lot less and a couple of days cleaning.

For those folks who have a boat for sale... I suspect there's a lesson to be learned here as well.

Some needful watching...

Vixen's Voyage from Nicole Halabisky on Vimeo.

about sustainability...

A reader mentioned something the other day and it's been buzzing around in the back of my mind ever since...

"For most, cruising IS unsustainable both monetarily and psychologically."

As it happens, I have to admit that he's right but the proviso "For most" means there are exceptions and, if you're reading VolksCruiser, there's a goodly chance that you may be just such an exception.

Exceptional, some might say.

Anyone can buy a cheap boat, fix it up, and sail off into the sunset and prosper until the boat starts needing repairs, you run into unexpected expenses, and the money runs out. Fact of the matter is, that's pretty much the whole standard cruising plan most folk seem to run with and, if you're only interested in cruising short-term, it's not a bad plan at all. On the other hand, it's a pretty piss-poor plan for the long-term.

Cruising as a sustainable lifestyle, at best, is problematic...

Which, I suspect is why so very few people actually talk or write about it in any depth because it's a difficult subject and oh-so-much-easier to talk or write about boat designs, cunning plans to fix up a boat on a budget, and other interesting but needful nautical minutiae. Truth be told, I think most writers of a nautical bent (myself included) tend to leave the details of how to go about cruising on a low budget in a sustainable manner for the cruiser to sort out for themselves.

Not unlike the old problem solving technique favored by certain designers of boats where they just leave out the parts they can't figure out hoping the builder will sort it out once they arrive at that stage of construction.

So, yeah, sustainability is problematic but we really do need to deal with it in a better way than most of us do as a rule.

We need to talk about it more...

We need to share information...

We need to do something about the negative social stigma that results in trying to live a sustainable non-consumerist life on a planet with finite resources and too frelling many people...

And...

We need to do it sooner rather than later.

Which, if you will, is a sorta/kinda manifesto regarding what a lot of VolksCruiser is going to be about in this 2016 thingy and it might not be for the faint of heart.

More soon come.

What the hell does Henry Rollins have to do with VolksCruising?

He's got the right attitude, makes all kinds of sense, and understands the power of Y-E-S...

More on boat value or what the frell is a boat really worth anyway?

While there are lots and lots of good boat deals about, it would not be amiss to mention that the used market is a little nuts...

Well, actually it's just plain batshit crazy!

So, here's two nearly identical Columbia 26's...

One's, apparently in better shape than the other but they are both in what I'd call medium condition. Which means that you'd want to spend some time fixing them up but nothing drastic or too expensive.

They are, however, priced quite differently... The asking price on one is pretty much what you might expect at  $3,800. while the other is going at $15,500.

Really! Can you spell B-U-G-F-U-C-K-C-R-A-Z-Y?

It gets even stranger when it's pretty obvious that the cheaper one is a lot nicer...

So, what should a Columbia 26 actually cost?

A while back I was interested in buying a C26 to use as a VolksCruiser crash test dummy and my research came to the conclusion that a near perfect well-equipped and turnkey example was worth somewhere between $5K and $6K. So the $3.8K asking price for the one Columbia is about right (that said, do keep in mind that an asking price is just that so you should be able to get a boat for less and sometimes a LOT LESS). As for the other C26 it's obviously nuts but it is needful to keep in mind that boats like this one seriously distort the market and cloud the true value of all of the boats of the same type.

The moral of all this is to do your homework and NEVER let price be your guide to the quality of a given boat...