Different strokes for different folks...

So, here's a question...

"What sort of VolksCruiser do you actually want?"

Face it, everyone's different with disparate needs and situations which means one's VolkCruiser of choice may not be what others need or want. Which I suppose brings us to other questions we have to ask ourselves...

"How are you going to use your VolksCruiser?"

Want to sail around the world? Or are your ambitions more about just sailing around the Pacific Northwest? Maybe you're interested in sailing to the back of beyond or maybe you'd be content to just hang out somewhere nice and live aboard.

Different strokes (or should I say 'Boats'?) for different folks.

Which leaves us with quite a few categories. Off the top of my head I'd say we're talking about live-aboard, area cruising, coastal cruising, transocean cruising, circumnavigating, and expedition/adventure cruising. Obviously this is not all of the possible variants but it does cover the majority in broad strokes.

Here's a VolksCruiserish design by Lyle Hess that I really like...

The Balboa 26 is a very cool trailer sailor. It's shoal draft of a kiss less than two-feet with the board up allows you to get into places other boats can't. It's seaworthy, has a comfortable albeit spartan interior, and it performs a lot better than most folk would suspect.

The going price seems to average out at around a bit over $4000 or so which puts it into the VolkCruiser price range.

Like I said, I really like this design...

Then again, it's not really a boat I'd choose for a circumnavigation, transocean, or adventure voyaging. Sure the boat could cross oceans or circumnavigate but being small with limited displacement it become all kinds of problematic to carry the essentials like water and provisions you'll need for those sort of enterprises.

On the other hand, for coastal and area based cruising it would be a great boat. Its shoal draft would allow you to get into out of the way places and, in my experience the shoal draft will also save you a lot of money in terms of mooring and marina bills.

Better yet, if you desire a change of scenery you could always leave the Pacific Northwest and have the boat towed to the east coast, then coastal cruise your way down to the Caribbean if you felt the urge.

Coming up, we'll look at a another 26-foot boat more in the voyaging category.