We're out of here...

Check out VolksCruiser's new digs.

We've moved and will no longer be adding new content here on Blogger. For the time being this will remain up but only God knows for how long and she's not saying.

 

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...

how size is an interesting thing...

My recent post on the Beachcomer 25 produced some emails of the "A 25-foot boat is too small to cruise or live on" variety and a fair bit of outrage.

I get that. A 25-foot sailboat is, after all a small boat. That said, in my own defense, I'll point out that not all 25-foot boats are created equal.

 

Take the Harlé designed Sangria for instance. It's a 25-foot boat with many transatlantic voyages and Atlantic circles to its credit. It's seaworthy, comfortable, and a reasonable solution for their needs. I'll be the first to admit it's not a boat for everyone nor should it be.

Compared to the Sangria the Beachcomer 25 has a much more comfortable interior design and compared to the Sangria's 3,968 pound displacement its 5,300 displacement translates to a kiss more comfort and better weight carrying. The other 25-foot boat mentioned in the post, the Irwin10/4, with its beam of 10'4" and displacement of 7,000 pounds makes for a very big 25-foot boat.

The bottom line is I'd happily set off across the Atlantic in the Sangria, Beachcomer, or the Irwin 10/4 as they'd all get me where I wanted to go in a manner I was comfortable with.

Which boat would I choose if I had a choice? They're all good designs but, as much as I like the Sangria, I'd choose either the Beachcomer or the 10/4 simply based on their shallower draft. For me the length does not mean as much as the rig, draft, and overall fitness to do whatever I want it to.

Be wary of affiliate links...

This morning I noticed a certain blog/website had a post on outfitting your boat for fishing with various affiliate links to illustrate the products being talked about. Like this lure...

The price on the provided Amazon link is a whopping $44.99 which happens to be the most expensive Cedar plug I've ever come across. My go to place to buy lures of this sort is from Tailchaser who sell great lures at very fair prices. Their reasonable facsimiles of the above cedar plug looks like this...

Even better, rigged and ready to go they only cost $8.75 and I'm pretty sure you can do the math without much trouble. If you want an even better price they currently have a couple of rigged cedar plugs on sale for $3.95 which I'm pretty sure beats that $44.99 plug all to hell.

The thing is, while I have done some affiliate sales links and still do a few (Russel Brown's great books, for instance), I feel that doing affiliate sales imparts a certain responsibility to connect one's readers with good fairly-priced products. The lure in question is in no way fairly priced with that sort of insane price tag.

For the record, I do not have any sort of deal with Tailchaser and I only promote them from time to time because they have excellent lures, great service, and their prices are as good as I've been able to find anywhere.

That said, a lot of fishing gear is way overpriced which is one of the reasons I've been putting together a basic fishing kit for cruisers that includes a handline, snubber, bird, flasher, and three of the most successful, sailing speed cruising lures for around $75.00. Which is a roundabout way of saying I've done my homework on what cruising fishing gear should cost just like anyone on a budget should do for any bit of boat gear that's needful.

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.

on the subject of a small boat of note...

Over at Sailing With Josh (always a good read) Josh has put up an interesting article on the Flicka design that you might want to check out.

an awesome shoal draft design...

Offhand, I really do think that real (3' or under) shoal draft makes all kinds of sense for anyone looking for a VolksCruiser. Having a boat that can anchor in places others fear to tread or navigate, that's also beachable if needed, and ocean capable is really a no-brainer.

For instance, take a look at the Beachcomer 25...

Drawing only 1' 3" with the board up this Walter Scott design is what shoal draft is all about. As it happens Scott also designed the Irwin 10/4 which is my favorite Irwin and another possible VolksCruiser candidate that is well worth checking out.

The Beachcomer has what I like to think of as a civilized interior layout as it provides everything needful in a manner that is both comfortable and practical. 

The cat ketch rig is a great rig with little to go wrong and much to recommend it. I'm still astonished that we we're still sailing Bermudan sloops when there are so many clearly superior rigs we could be using.

The downside of a 25-foot boat is mostly about stuff or, in truth, the inability to carry a lot of stuff you really don't need. That being the case, it's a great design for someone of a minimalist bent but not so much for those who don't quite understand the advantage of less.

There's quite a bit more information over at Catketch.com website for the Beachomer 25 you might want to peruse.

 

Someone who is not your friend...

Part of the problem of navigating life in a consumerist society is that, pretty much, everyone selling you something is only in it for the profit. That said, there's nothing wrong with making a profit because, by and large, profit within reason is a good thing.

Where it gets nuts is when profits exceed fair & reasonable, and start looking a whole lot like gouging or theft.

Here's an example I happened across yesterday while trying to buy some anti-fouling for my dinghy as there didn't seem to be what I wanted on island.

Pettit SR21 is a hard anti-fouling that makes sense for a hard dinghy as it has a thin film, it's easy/quick to apply, and it's hard so scrubbing is non-problematic. Normally it's a bit too expensive for my tastes as it retails for $69.99 a quart but West Marine currently has it on sale for $35.88 so I said to myself  "That's what I want".

Of course, as it turned out, WM won't ship it to me because I'm in a non-incorporated territory and it appears that the powers that be at WM don't realize we are part of the US of A. Perhaps we could have shipped it with our freight forwarder but as that adds another $20-$30 to the transaction it makes it more than what I want to spend.

And, yes, dear reader, I'm frugal/cheap.

Anyway, since I now had an overwhelming desire to put some SR21 on the bottom of my dinghy, I started looking further afield with no luck until I got to eBay...

eBay is a rather interesting place and I used to buy quite a bit of film stuff, marine gear, and musical instruments from eBay sellers but do it less these days as it seems to be mostly greed-head dealers selling stuff for more than it's worth.

But, as it happens, there was a guy selling SR21 and he'd even ship it to me. Sounds good until you do the math...

$139.88 + $19.99 = $159.87

That's for one quart of anti-fouling that is supposed to retail for $69.99 and it's as far from a fair or reasonable price as you can get without it becoming armed robbery.

Sadly, just about every time I've gone to eBay in the last couple of years this sort of thing appears to be the norm rather than the exception where boat stuff is concerned. 

It's important to remember that marine trades are seldom your friend and if you're lucky enough to have found one who is, cherish it like you would a Unicorn. Far too many people looking for boat gear consider that the prices are going to be better than some marine vendor like West Marine whose economic pressure on the industry and consumers is both controlling as well as dastardly. However, even they don't measure up to the ripoff artists who inhabit eBay. The bottom line is that eBay is not your friend and should be treated with suspicion and do your homework before going there in search of deals.

Just sayin'...

Why Mr Zip's your friend...

I've bought quite a lot of metal stock from Online Metals. Nothing big but over the years I've spent quite a lot of money with them on a variety of boat projects. 

Which is why yesterday, when I saw that I needed a couple of feet of 2" aluminum angle for a mast project. I got online, opened my account, and with credit card at the ready proceeded to buy the needful. They had what I wanted (two 12-inch pieces of said aluminum angle) that cost $23.54 which was a little bit high in my opinion. That said, the cost was not all that bad so I stuck it in the cart and prepared to close the deal.

The next thing I see is that they're charging me $163.00 to ship a pound of aluminum to me down here in America's paradise.

Seriously, WTF?

So, I called them and pointed out that in the past they'd sent small packages via USPS for a reasonable cost. I also mentioned that the two 12" pieces of aluminum would fit quite nicely in a flat rate box or envelope.

Nope they said, metal is heavy and we no longer ship anything via USPS and $165 was what I had to pay.

Which is wrong on a lot of levels but what bothers me the most is the lady on the phone assumed I was stupid enough to pay $163 to get something worth $23.50 which would be insane.

The really scary part is that I commonly see cruisers with blogs bitching that they had to pay silly money to get stuff shipped to them. The worst example was a guy complaining that he'd paid over $100 for two O-rings that would have cost a buck from a hardware store but since he bought them from a marine supplier for $21, he wound up with the most expensive O-rings the world has ever seen. So, yeah, I guess there are enough people out there willing to be fleeced that it is now SOP for companies to do this sort of fuckery.

I then spent five minutes online to find a metal company willing to send via USPS and came across Speedy Metals which sold me the same metal for $16 which was cheaper than their online price (I've made a note to call them in the future rather than buy online) and more importantly $7.50 less than Online Metals. The real savings, of course, is not having to pay that $163 UPS shipping charge.

I'll just mention that FedEx and UPS are not only stupid expensive for getting stuff down here but they are, more often than not, slower than the USPS as well.

Mr Zip rocks!

Anyway, since I'm not insane and can do basic math I won't ever use Online Metals ever again.

Need I say more?

a plastic water bottle and a boat...

The other day I found myself listening to someone going on about their stainless steel bespoke water bottle as a must have for the cruising sailor. I was not impressed.

The argument that an expensive water bottle is good for the environment is somewhat dubious in that its fabrication requires energy which is, more often not, provided by fossil fuels so not exactly as green as we'd like. Worse in fact, because do you really think someone who requires a designer water bottle is going to drink water from the tap?

Some years ago at a charter yacht show the organizers provided show attendees with "green" reusable plastic water bottles because there had been some complaints about using single serve water bottles. Of course, I found the fact that they were filling the reusable water bottles from single use disposable water bottles sorta/kinda defeated the whole purpose of the exercise.

I'll add another point regarding the bespoke designer stainless steel water bottles and say that the person hyping them had an affiliate link so was making money on any that were sold. It's just another link in the chain selling you stuff you don't need for a profit.

My choice of water bottle is reused soft drink bottles. I've mostly kicked my soft drink habit but still, from time to time, have a bottle of ginger ale. Being loathe to throw plastic away to go into landfill for like forever, I'll save it and reuse it as a water bottle. Aboard "So It Goes" we keep a dozen or so water bottle of this ilk and they're a much more green solution then that bespoke designer stainless steel water bottle.

They're also, for all practical purposes... free.

Which, sorta/kinda brings me around to an interesting but somewhat stupid sailboat design you might want to check out. It's the Sterne 25 and it's built of eco-friendly materials like bamboo, basalt, jute, linen, and plant sourced resins all of which I think is a goodly thing.

It's a cool boat for sure and as a test bed for greener materials it certainly makes sense. The downside, for me at least, is that in a world with thousands and thousands of excellent already built sailboats going for near giveaway prices,

 why are we still building new boats?

That CAL 27 or Chrysler 26 (for example) going for cheap are most certainly a greener solution than most eco-friendly designs coming down the pike with the added advantage of being a whole lot more affordable. 

One issue with greenish materials is they've recently become a hip commodity and as a result materials known for being readily available and cheap are, all of a sudden, all kinds of expensive and difficult to get. For the last few months I've been trying to find a good source for jute (AKA burlap) to use for a dinghy build I wanted to do. The idea of replacing fiberglass with burlap was very attractive until it became hip and now is selling for more than fiberglass. Made worse by the fact that I'd need to buy a bolt of cloth rather than a few meters. The sad fact is that building green has been co-opted by consumerism and folks wanting to make a profit don't give a shit about the environment.

The real bedrock way to be green in this messy world is to use less rather than more and whenever possible, reuse, repair, and recycle.

That might make a great t-shirt as well...

Something to expand your skill set...

 

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.

 

about toilets or something similar...

 The other day I noticed that the going rate for a popular faux composting toilet was a kiss over a thousand dollars and my initial reaction was...

"Are we really that stupid?"

Apparently so it would seem if people are willing to spend $1000 for what amounts to a bucket, a jug, and a toilet seat packaged together. As the saying goes; "There's one born every minute.

The scary part, for me at least, is that the so-called composting toilet is about $400 more than what I consider the gold standard of MSDs the LAVAC. I'll go on record if I had to have a marine toilet aboard a boat of mine the only toilet I'd ever consider is the LAVAC. Need I say more?

That said, in my estimation, the only marine head that actually makes sense is the misnamed composting toilet. Misnamed because they really don't actually compost waste but simply hold the contents in a sort of stasis until it can be taken away or dumped overboard where legal.

Which is not to say that they don't work very well as we can attest to having pooped regularly into one for over a decade without ever having any negative issues at all. The fact that our toilet is the DIY variety and only cost about $100 says a lot about how DIY is often the best way to go and often better then the manufactured variety.

My dad once gave me some great advice a very long time ago regarding interpersonal relationships which also applies to basic toilet design...

"You never want to stir that shit up"

A pithy quote that cries out to be emblazoned on a quality t-shirt if there ever was one.

Since we're speaking of toilets on boats, I'd be remiss, not to mention that the current Latitude 38 has a marine toilet survival guide of sorts that is well worth reading.

 

Monique is no longer with us...

 A bit of sad news from France as we lose a much loved circumnavigator and arctic voyager.

A film I'm looking forward to...

A  50-year old Wharram, a wonky boom, and three women on a mission.

They had me at 50-year old Wharram.

There's more info on their website and Kickstarter page.