So, you want to build yourself a VolksCruiser...

As it happens, I really enjoy building boats.I find the whole process of boat construction both a creative outlet and deeply satisfying on an emotional level.

That being the case, I often recommend to a lot of folks that they might want to think twice before building a cruising boat because there's a steep learning curve. It takes a special mindset to build a good boat and not everyone has what it takes. 

Which is not to say I'm one of those sad people who hang out on forums telling folks that building your own boat is a project that only an idiot would attempt, it will take a decade or more to finish, and when the dust has settled you'll have spent more than a new boat would cost. My advice is more along the line that building your own boat is a great experience, which can save you some money, and be done in a timely manner providing you have your shit together sort.

Which leaves us with the perennial question...

Do you have your shit together? 

The truth is that this is a question I ask myself on a pretty regular basis. It's a go to mantra of sorts because, in my case at least, I need to keep track of what sort of condition my condition is in*.

The hardest part of building a boat has less to do with one's abilities to do dovetail joints or perfect scarfs and everything to do with keeping your shit together in the midst of a gazillion interlocking, yet contradictory tasks, which is otherwise known as project management.

Take a look at the folks around you and, I suspect, there are people who can manage a project and others who can't even manage to do even simple tasks without some involved drama. 

Another reason boat projects fail is that the builder can't follow the plan. One of the most common questions I hear about boat building is something like "I got the Bolger AS29 plans but think I'll substitute the rig from a Catalina 30 and maybe add an inboard diesel engine. What do you think?" sort. One of the things I love about building a boat is I get to follow a plan that makes sense which is a wonderful thing considering that managing a boat building project is often an exercise that makes wrangling cats seem simple.

The fact of the matter is the backbone of any successful boat build is the plan and the minute you start questioning the validity of the design chaos ensues. 

The last issue that is seriously problematic for the build is that not everyone is good at doing consistent productive labor. Take a look at one of my favorite Wharram designs the Tiki 30 which is really a nice little cruising design. According to Wharram, the design requires around nine-hundred hours of labor to complete which is an average as some folks take longer, some take less, some are part-time and some folks work full time. Now, anyone who actually works for a living has already figured out that nine-hundred hours is between 22-23 forty-hour work weeks. 

Building boats is just like working for a paycheck. It's all about the labor. When building the Wharram you don't get to count time spent looking at that big pile of plywood pondering which part you'll cut out first, daydreaming about how awesome it will be sailing the cat in the Caribbean, or redesigning the design so it looks more like a Gunboat. Nope, you only get to count the hours you actually worked that produced stuff.

Admittedly some people are not all that great at being their own taskmaster and that's OK as long as they realize that doing an hour here and a few hours there doesn't get a boat built in any kind of timely manner, if at all. On the other hand, if the builder is self-actualized and can put in productive eight-hour days, not only will he have a successful build but also be able to send "Having a wonderful time in Pago Pago" postcards to all of the naysayers who said that it's stupid to build a boat.

Like I said, building your own boat is not for everyone but for those who can, it rocks.

*H/T The First Edition.

 

A new YouTube channel you might want to check out...

A family of six on an engineless Ericson 28.

 Most certainly a channel I'll be following.

a whole lot of bang for the buck...

I may have mentioned before how much I like Phil Bolger's Jessie Cooper design. If you are looking for a VolksCruising design that gives you maximum bang for minimum bucks that is buildable in a short time frame, you'd have a difficult time finding better...

That said, it's not exactly an easy boat for most people to understand being just that bit further out of the box design-wise, so there is a WTF or two for anyone checking it out.

For instance, both the mainmast and mizzen are off center, there's only one dagger board (off center as well), and the boat only draws a foot. To say those attributes drive some people batshit crazy is something of an understatement.

The fact is, we built our Jessie Cooper for a special short term purpose. We had no thoughts of keeping it long term so we built it as a temporary boat. I'll be the first to admit that I was as surprised as anyone when it turned out to sail incredibly well and, as a result, made me rethink everything I took as gospel where boat design is concerned.

Those off-center masts were non-problematic; never causing us to sail in circles as some opinionated dockwalkers said they would and, more to the point, they were actually advantageous in making a small boat's interior much bigger than it had any right to be. The lug rig (also something that made some people froth at the mouth) was powerful and although the sail on the mast on the bad tack distorted the sail shape, the difference in drive between the good/bad tack was not enough to actually measure a positive or negative difference in drive or tack angle to windward.

Pretty much the same could be said for the off-center daggerboard... While I'm sure there was a tiny difference to windward and, just possibly a kiss more leeward drift on one tack, I  never actually found it problematic enough to be able to measure said difference. I've come to believe that a dozen or so square inches of lateral resistance is well within the mind's subconscious ability to self-correct as you trim sails and steer your course to the point that it really is a no-brainer.

As far as the one foot draft goes, once you've experienced the varied joys of real shoal draft cruising you'll never want to go back to anything else.

Some more on what I'd change if I were to build a Jessie Cooper with the addition of some hindsight soonish...

A simple scow design...

Jim Michalak is a designer who took Phil Bolger's "Instant Boats" to heart and for years has been churning out various designs in the genre. Lots have been built and those using them have been happy.

He's also written a book "Boatbuilding for Beginners" on building boats of the mainly "Instant" variety which would be right at home with your copies of Payson's "Instant Boats",  "Build the New Instant Boats", and "Instant Boatbuilding with Dynamite Payson".

As it happens, he's also designed a scow called Boxtop that sorta/kinda falls into the VolksCruiser range...

Designed as a comfortable liveaboard for one, it has certain similarities to the Bolger designed Jessie Cooper (our first Loose Moose) which we built and lived on for four years quite comfortably and liked so much we commissioned Phil Bolger to stretch it out to 38-feet to become our Loose Moose 2...

At 30-feet with an 8-foot beam and only drawing a foot, it makes VolksCruiserish sense and its balanced lug main with leg-of-mutton mizzen is as about as cheap a rig as can be found for the power it provides. In short, the design makes some sense.

From the information I have the design is being offered at a discount until one has been built and tested. For more information you can write to Jim at

Jim Michalak
118 East Randle Street
Lebanon, IL,  62254
USA

A boat worth considering...

A good deal on a Bolger AS-29 sharpie...

A quick need/want refresher...

Having a couple of boat related blogs that tend to fixate on the less expensive side of things, I get quite a lot of mail of the "how-can-I-have-the-stuff-I-want-for-not-a-lot-of-money" sort.

I'm pretty sure my answers to those folks are almost always disappointing because the words 'want' and the phrase 'not a lot of money' seldom, if ever, play well together.

For instance, a bunch of years ago I really, really wanted a Krogen 38 because it had just about everything I wanted in a cruising boat... Shoal draft, good performance, flush deck, good headroom, and a civilized interior suitable for long term living aboard. In other words, the perfect boat for me!

Well, except for the little fact that back then a new Krogen 38 was completely out of my price range (unless I took up a life of crime and went into politics or won the lottery).

Not having a talent for crime and since my luck is the kind that is sort of reverse to what one wants (the only lottery I ever won was the one for my draft number which I most certainly did not want to win!) the Krogen, as a new boat, was simply unattainable...

Sadly, today a used Krogen 38 is still far more than I can afford or what I care to spend on a boat.

So how to get what I felt I needed (Shoal draft, good performance, flush deck, good headroom, and a civilized interior suitable for long term living aboard) for what I could afford?

An older boat to rehab was my first choice but the search for a possible boat was unsuccessful as there are just not a lot of real shoal draft boats in the used market that actually sail well.

So instead, I built a Bolger sharpie as something of a stopgap because living in Paris was expensive and being able to move on to a boat would allow me to save money towards the sort of boat I wanted (I still dreamed of the Krogen) and we could sail to our hearts content when we wanted to in the meantime...

Loose Moose nestled in its Paris (Joinville le Pont) suburb berth which we paid $66 a month for including water/electric/showers.

We only planned to have Loose Moose for a couple of years but it was so comfortable and sailed so well that we wound up living on it for nearly five years... It may not have been the boat we wanted but it did fulfill our needs.

Loose Moose saved us so much money on Paris rents alone that we were able to amass enough cash to pay Phil Bolger to design Loose Moose 2 to better fill our needs  and build it.

The build and outfitting of Loose Moose 2 came to a fraction of what a Krogen 38 would have cost us and was entirely paid for by our savings from living on Loose Moose. Most folks get and understand the cheap and affordable boat thing but, what most folks don't understand is Loose Moose 2 (and Loose Moose before it) were both awesome boats...

Fact is, in my wants department Loose Moose 2 beat the Krogen on every point except a flush deck. It had a better more livable interior, more easily accessible storage space, good headroom anywhere you actually needed it, and would out sail and show its transom to a Krogen without even raising a sweat. Oh yeah, it could also SAIL in two feet of water!

What Wooden Boat Magazine had to say about Loose Moose 2

Which is a long and roundabout way of saying if you address your needs you just might find you get what you want.

Just good but not great...

Since we're speaking of sharpies I really have to mention Phil Bolgers Breakdown Schooner...

It's always been one of my favorite love/hate designs and, as such, deserves a bit of discussion.

Of course, it has a lot working for it... Shoal draft, reasonable accommodation, a low sorta/kinda tabernacled rig that stows within the length of the hull, easy to build, cheap, centerboard, water ballast, and it comes apart into three pieces...

Then again, it has a lot not quite right... It's a bit light, there is a huge amount of (in my opinion) misused/wasted space, the rig is over complicated for most folks tastes, centerboard, it has water ballast, and it comes apart into three pieces...

See my problem?

Now admittedly, the water ballast and three piece issues are only an issue if you build the design as drawn. The water ballast is easily replaced if you have a mind to with scrap steel/cement/lead/whatever. The same goes for the three piece issue as you simply build the boat in one piece instead of three. As for the less than robust scantlings, that is easily fixed by simply doing what most amateur boatbuilders do all the time anyway, which is to build beefier than designed.

The centerboard in this design has a whole set of issues/problems that drove me right over the edge into leeboard territory. Which, as it happens, is just fine because I really like leeboards!

That said, the rather huge area amidships just bothers me as it is... well, the word problematic does come to mind.

I've always thought that this design really should have been Bolger's pivotal cruising sharpie but that he got distracted with the novelty of the whole breakdown thing and, as a result, it escaped being a great design settling for good but very interesting.

In the grand scheme of things though, it really would be a great design to sit down and rethink for a round the world cruise...

For those wanting to hear what Phil has to say about the Breakdown Schooner it has it's own chapter in "Boats With an Open Mind".

Then again there's the sharpie...

"Once the departure is made from the true sharpie hull configuration and concept, one is beginning to gild the lily.  Costs soar and the result is   seldom an improvement."

- Tom Colvin

In my mind, the only possible exception for a boat that just might pull off the VolkCruiser concept/budget that you can build yourself is the sharpie and then only if you keep true to concept and simplicity to the Nth degree.

We're talking serious Zen simplicity...

Tom Colvin is a smart guy and his short notes on sharpies are really a must read for anyone considering building one. Or, for that matter, anyone building a boat of any kind...

The advantages of sharpies are varied and many... Short build time, low cost, and a turn of performance that will shock many. Throw in the fact that shoal draft in the sharpie world is something that multihulls can only dream of and you have the makings of a pretty interesting cruising boat.

Having cruised in our Bolger-designed Loose Moose and Loose Moose 2 which only drew 12 & 14 inches respectively, I have to say that drawing 4 1/2 feet in our current boat sometimes seems problematic.

Next we'll be looking at some sharpie design stuff...