a couple of new tools for the tool locker...

I recently bought a pair of Toughbuilt sawhorses from Lowes as they had a two for $50 price and free shipping to the USVI.

Such a deal.

Looking at them now that they finally got here (it took a month) I'm quite impressed and thinking since the two for $50 is still active buying another pair would be no bad thing.

The really nice thing about the sawhorses is that they fold up and can fit in otherwise unused space in the cockpit lockers. The downside is that they are heavy suckers.

Which puts me into the need/want conundrum... do I really need another pair?

It's a foregone conclusion that I'll be building another mast for "So It Goes" in the near future and not having four bombproof sawhorses makes for a great spar bench. Plus I'll be needing to haul out sooner rather than later so it would seem that a second pair of these sawhorses would pay for themselves within the year. Even better is that they'll save me time in the future not having to deal with the hassle of buying materials and making temporary saw horses and tables.

So, having passed the need/want test I guess it's time to get another pair.

The best dinghy deal I've seen in ages...

 It just came to my attention that West Marine currently has the Sportyak on sale. You know, this boat...

It's a great design as it's light, pretty much indestructible, unsinkable, and cheap. It rows well and can carry two people with gear or groceries which is really all most people actually need in a dinghy. Lastly it's light enough to carry up a beach or get it up on the boat from the water by one person and it has a very small footprint so most folks will find it easy to store on deck..

That said, you can build a better dinghy for less but for those folks not inclined to wood butchery of the dinghy building sort this is just about the best bang you'll find in a ready made dinghy that floats right side up.

Just sayin'

in the "relative cost of burgers" department...

The other day someone pointed me to a couple of Craig's List self-steering gears to illustrate the argument that it was impossible to sort out a cruising boat on a frugal budget.

One of the gears was a Hydrovane for $4K and the other was a Monitor for  $3.8K... Which, I suppose, means that if you find two expensive wind vanes that proves all vanes are expensive?

So, I got on Craig's List and spent ten minutes searching and found an Aires for $450, a Navik for $895, and an ATOMS for a kiss under $600. All of the gears appeared to be in very good to excellent condition. Such good condition in the case of the apparently pristine ATOMS that I was very tempted to call the owner and ask how much he would charge to ship it down the Caribbean because the ATOMS is a truly great windvane and, in my opinion, much better design than either the Hydrovane or Monitor.

Still, as it only costs me about $300 all up to build a vane it would not exactly be the frugal thing to do...

Think of it all like a hamburger. You could go to some super hip bespoke cafe and spend a hundred bucks on a burger, then again you could to someplace that makes great burgers for $12, and, lest we forget, you  can always buy the fixings for a super burger to grill at home for a whole lot less.

The fact is you can almost always make do with something up to the required task on a given budget if you just bother to do your homework and apply the need/want/utility test.

A little more on that CAL 34...

The initial emails on the last post tended to fall into to two categories. The first being  the "You're an idiot" sort and the second is "It just can't be done because you need to buy lots and lots of stuff!" zone.

For the moment, lets just address the "lots and lots of stuff" argument...

How much stuff do you really need?

The fact of the matter is that most boats for sale these days already have an impressive amount of gear aboard and the CAL 34 example appears to come with everything needful in terms of safety requirements, navigation instruments, and other needful gear. Granted, I'm sure something or other might require replacement or upgrading but there is a big difference of fixing what needs fixing and just going on a consumerist joyride because buying stuff is fun or you need to impress the neighbors.

The thing is we're talking volkscruiser here. What we are not talking about is taking an older classic plastic boat and turning it into a work of art, morphing it into something it is not, or turning folks green with envy. What we're doing is just making a good boat good a bit better and a workable platform for going to sea in an acceptable level of comfort and safety.

So, mostly, we only fix stuff that needs fixing and we only replace stuff when it can't be fixed. Which, from where I sit, seems to make all kinds of sense. It makes sense in terms of budget and it makes sense in the overall scheme of things because we live in a finite world and throwing away perfectly good stuff is all kinds of bad for the planet.

I'll be the first person to admit this is not a path for everyone and I certainly don't believe that for a second everyone should do the volkscruiser thing I'm simply saying it is doable if you want to do it. But... and there is always a but isn't there, if your path to happiness involves buying stuff the whole volkscruiser gig just ain't for you.

Worth thinking about...

Next up a couple of really simple things.

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...

a VolksCruiser...

All this talk about money and budget, while needful, is just a way to focus your attention on why a VolksCruiser has to have certain qualities to do its job. Getting you where you want to go, keeping you safe, and being a comfortable home in the process while not costing more than you can afford is no easy task. Some might even say an impossible one...

That said, I've never been real fond of the word i-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e...

Let's take a look at some needful attributes.

A VolksCruiser has to be seaworthy

Hardly a foreign concept where boats are concerned but you'd be surprised how many people equate seaworthiness with what you pay for stuff when they should be looking at the boat rather than the price tag.

A VolksCruiser needs to be big enough but not too big

It's a fact of life that a smaller boat is less expensive to buy, operate, and maintain which is important. Lots of people have circumnavigated quite comfortably/safely in small boats.

A VolksCruiser is simple

Simple, by its very nature, is dependable, affordable, and (since it's simple) should be fixable by a normal person. Sadly, simple is not a word you find very often around boats and marine gear these days, as simple is generally counterproductive to making profits which is something you need to keep in mind at all times.

A VolksCruiser has minimal less-than-needful parts

Actually that statement should really be applied to any cruising boat... If stuff does not earn its keep it really does not belong on any boat. Which does not mean you can't have stuff aboard that pays its way by making your life better (books and musical instruments spring to mind) but, needful stuff is needful and you really do know the difference.

So, here's the thing...

Simple really is simple. 

Of course, the human condition does like to complicate even the most simple things and, in today's climate of idiotic consumerism, it's akin to heresy to follow a path of simplicity, logic, and common sense. Which means you might piss some people off so don't be surprised with a few negative comments or irksome behaviour as it's just part of the gig. You can always take comfort in the fact that you, unlike some, don't happen to have your head up your ass...

More on VolksCruiser design and shoal draft soonish.

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.

Some seriously good advice...

my VolksCruiser Want List part three

I'll get this out of the way from the GetGo... Affordable IS important.

So, back to the list:

• Affordable to build or buy
• Affordable to cruise and maintain on a tight budget

The hard part when the word affordable comes into play is it means different things to different people. What's affordable to a person making $100K a year and someone making $50K are quite different things and not a lot of rocket science involved to figure that one out. Simple.

Where the hard comes in, is that society is relentless in telling everyone that they need to consume in a way that has nothing whatsoever with one's actual financial state of affairs... Hence, when I open up a copy of a new yachting rag it's mostly about telling me I need stuff that is silly expensive and the sort of boat I really should have costs $850K...

What's worse for those who can't afford an $850K boat is the relentless pressure to conform. So whatever boat they get should emulate said $850K boat in terms of systems and accoutrements, resulting in the sort of silliness that accounts for the word McMansion (or, should we say McYacht?).

That said, it doesn't tell you what is an affordable sailboat for you and what you should budget for sailing off into the sunset, now does it? As it happens I've been looking for some cunning formula that would tell me what I should pay for a boat and how much I should spend to actually cruise for decades and, while I hate to say it, I'm still looking.

What I use at the moment is flawed but is as good as any... I start with the amount I feel I could comfortably cruise on and then work backwards towards what a boat should actually cost me.

• Affordable to cruise and maintain on a tight budget

So, here's something a lot of people don't realize ...

Just about everyone I know cruising is actually living on a tight budget.

From my observations, the reason for this sorry state of affairs is just about everyone is living that little bit beyond their means. The bottom line being that the guy cruising the rehabbed Down Easter 38 with a budget of $1000 a month is in exactly the same boat as the guy on a $3000 budget with an Island Packet 370 in that they are both spending 10-30% more than they can really afford.

The easy fix, that I most often hear, is to simply wait until you have more money before you get a boat... From where I sit it might be an easy solution but, like most things easy, it doesn't really work. With more money the guy with the  Down Easter would instead buy a 42 foot something or other and the guy with the Island Packet would be out and about in his Island Packet 460 and their new upsized budgets of $1300 and $3900 would still be in that 10-30% too little zone. 

Well, that's my opinion...

The hard answer is simple as well but it involves getting honest with yourself, lifestyle change, and getting off the consumerist-keeping-up-with-the-Jones-treadmill. The first step, and yes dear reader, a painful one for most, is to downsize from a want to need level...

More on this soonish.

my VolksCruiser want list part two...

So, having had the want list percolate for a couple of days I find pretty much everything on the list can pretty much be reclassified to go into the "Need" list...

The exceptions being:

• Shoal draft (1 meter or less) That will dry more or less upright
• Outboard motor
• Standing headroom (6'6") would be nice where needful

While I really want less than three feet of draft, for a variety of very good reasons I should add, I can get along quite well with a boat that has five feet of draft. Keeping in mind that with legs I can still dry out upright... So we'll continue to classify the three feet or less draft as a "want" rather than a "need".

While an outboard motor is my preferred method of auxilliary propulsion it really is more a "want" rather than a "need" because there is nothing wrong with an inboard motor.

As for the headroom... Face it, designers simply don't design boats with folks who are 6'5" in mind and, more often than not, when they do in a less than 36-foot envelope the results are seldom very good. So, standing headroom where needful is demoted to whatever I can get by with.

Next we'll talk about the word affordable...

Speaking of want lists...

This TED talk really struck a chord for me. It has nothing to do with boats and Need/Want lists yet everything to do with boats and Need/Want lists...

and in "the best of times the worst of times" department...

This is just neat...

A Garmin GPS chartplotter and fishfinder for $299.

While being told I'm a Luddite all the time I can still see the value of good quality cheap electronic aids to navigation because they make the whole VoksCruising gig easier, safer, and more affordable. Sure you can pay a lot more for a much bigger/hipper unit but an electronics package like this is pretty much all you really need.

Gone are the days you needed to pay thousands of dollars for basic electronics and that's a goodly thing.

Now, offhand I'm not a huge fan of Garmin chartplotters because Garmin charts tend to be pricier than others and a cheap chartplotter starts getting very expensive when you buy the sort of needful chart library. So, before you go out and jump on a charplotter/fishfiner combo do a little homework on the chart coverage you need and what it costs...

Which is why I tend to prefer this GPS chart plotter/fishfinder because once you factor in the cost of charts it's a lot more economical in the long run.

Either way it's a good time to be fitting out a VolksCruiser...

Relentless...

If you stop and think about it, people have been sailing and cruising for a very long time and, as a result, have pretty much sorted out all of the problems you may run into. Better yet, a lot of folks who have successfully done the cruising gig have written some pretty good books about their experiences so it's easy to get a handle on what works or doesn't...

Reading is a good thing!

Personally, I find older books have a lot more to give because they're more about actually sailing and cruising and less about buying stuff so provide a better foundation to the whole need/want thing.

I mention this because I have a serious urge to either build a new boat or find a new boat to rehab//fix up and rethinking my whole need/want parameters. The process being somewhat hampered because the whole new boat thing comes married to an overbearing pressure to buy or change stuff that don't, in fact, need to be bought or changed.

Relentless pressure...

So bad, in fact, that even I (Luddite that I am), find myself drooling too often over the latest glimpse of the silly expensive vaporware wonderment sort that gives Panbo (or reasonable facsimile) a virtual woody.

Face it, It's really easy to get sucked into the whole consumerism habit because everyone tells you you need this or that and spending money is the answer to all questions...

Just throw money at it.

No skill involved.

No uncomfortable learning curves necessary.

So, when I find myself thinking that a new 3D forward scanning sonar system that costs more than the purchase price of "So It Goes" is a needful thing, the only drug that will work is to read a book about people getting by quite happily doing it old school like Herb Payson's "Blown Away".

Works finest kind.

On the difference between a makeover and a honeymoon...

Dick Dorworth makes some good points...

Truth is, I'm not real big on advice... Sure, I might point you to places you can read up up on stuff so you have the information you need to make an informed decision but I'm not really that guy who tells you to do shit.

Well... mostly.

The hardest part of getting off the consumerist treadmill and joining the real world of need as opposed to want is just taking that first big step and quit buying stuff while you sort out your need/want regime.

Really. You can always buy more stuff later...

Yesterday I read about a couple who just bought a boat and even before they've taken possesion they're already buying "stuff", having it shipped to the boat, and, I expect, they are adding to the list of needful things to get as I write this.

Now, if it were me who'd just bought a boat I'd go and get to know it a bit before I started making changes, adding stuff, and all the mayhem that comes with making a new to me boat mine. You know, just get to know the boat and let it talk to me and tell me just who she/he is.

Call it a honeymoon...

Find out what works...

Get to know the quirks...

Find what doesn't belong...

What is truly needful...

The funny thing, is while I do not know the new owners of the boat, I actually do know the boat very well. I'm pretty sure the last thing it wants is to have people making changes before she's had a chance to let them know who she is and how she feels. As it happens, I'm pretty sure the boat has some changes it would like/need to make as well as it is something of a one off, a bit special, and very much needs to become what it needs to be.

Of course, they will have to do some work on the boat and stuff will need to be bought but, just maybe, the right work and stuff may not at all be the stuff that they think and, if they listened to the boat, something else entirely.

They just have to listen...

“A designer knows, he has achieved, perfection not when, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

a quick thought...

The other day I was checking out the VolkCruiser stats and saw I was getting some hits from a couple of new blogs who had linked to the site...

Being curious, I trundled over to check them out and they seemed like nice sites by very nice and interesting people who were all about getting ready to cruise off into the sunset/sunrise who seem to equate getting ready to cruise with a whole lot of buying stuff. Really, just about every post was about something they'd just bought or something they were about to buy and they both seemed to have a long list of stuff they thought they needed to get.

It was just a little depressing...

Of course, it's all understandable and the pressure to conform to the consumerist agenda is both ruthless and unrelenting. Come to think about it, there's not a whole lot of pressure from any direction telling folks to use less and simplify is there?

Just something to think about...

Money,money, money...

OK, I'll admit stuff costs too much...

Just the other day someone mentioned to me he was going to forego a self-steering gear because he'd have to pay in excess of $5000 to get a good one and if he could not have "the best" he'd simply make do with a used underpowered, prone to failure, and non-user serviceable tillerpilot he could get for $200 at a nautical swap meet.

Do I detect a certain failure of logic somewhere?

For an example of where such logic may leave you, check out this post about a guy who needed to be rescued and lost his boat due to the lack of a self-steering gear... He thought he had to have the best as well.

Today I looked for a few minutes and found several Aries gears for under $1000, an Atoms for $1250, and a Sayes rig for $750... All in good shape and all top quality self-steering gears. I expect with a little more searching you'd be able to find one for even less.

Really.

Understanding the need/want paradigm...

If you're reading VolksCruiser it is more than likely you're sailing on a budget or you're thinking about it.

On the other hand, just possibly, you are actually looking for a hip, fashionable, and trendy sailing site and you're just hopelessly lost...

Of course, no one likes to be reminded they are on a budget but, the truth is, that we all are and you're not alone. The only real difference is how many digits in the operative number.

Which brings us back to the whole how to spend less thang and how your best tool is being aware of what you want, what you need, and the common sense to understand the difference between the two.

It's really that simple.

That said, it's important not to jump to the conclusion about what need entails (or want for that matter) because some things you need are more esoteric and don't quite fit into everybody's list of basic requirements. What you do need to keep in mind is that happiness and what makes us happy are very needful things indeed.

The trick, I guess, is knowing where true happiness lies and what is simply the illusion of it.

Some simple addition...

So, you've been looking at the Michalak scow Boxtop and saying to yourself  "I could knock one of those together in a hurry for not a lot of money..."

So what would it cost to build?

Well for starters, you're looking at around 50-sheets of 1/2" plywood which, if you go marine, is a chunk of change. Marine ply would set you back between $4500-5000 but you could go the best quality exterior route for about half that.

Then you'll need lumber for the framing and spars. My quick guesstimate for that is about $1000.

Of course, you'll need something to glue and seal the thing together so expect to spend around $350 for epoxy (double or triple that if you want to glass it as well).

It goes on but we're at the point where we have to ask ourselves why are we spending this kind of money when we could buy a 28-foot sailboat already fitted out in fair to good condition for less?

Which is not to say we should not build this or another boat but since we're not going to save any money doing it there would have to be some other compelling reasons why we should.

For me, this particular boat's virtues are its rig and its extreme shoal draft. Face it, if you want a boat that draws a foot or sports a balanced lug rig, you're going to have to build it yourself. Offhand I'd say that is more than enough reason to build if  I actually needed those features in a boat.

One thing to keep in mind is that the need/want test for any boat building exercise is crucial...

Forget perfect...

Perfection is an interesting and somewhat elusive concept in general, especially when connected to things like boats. From my experience, I put perfection in things of a nautical or marine nature about as likely to exist as honest politicians or pink unicorns...

Need I say more?

Which is not to say there is not stuff that is awesome but the whole concept of having the "perfect"  boat or whatever is really more about bragging rights rather than actual function.

Trust me, f-u-n-c-t-i-o-n is far more important than being able to tell someone you have the best this or that.

We knew a couple who circumnavigated in an Irwin 28 which, while not a bad boat, is certainly not most peoples idea of a long distance cruising machine. Their trip around the world took a bit less than four years and nothing needed fixing rather than the normal expected wear and tear...

Someone else we know with an expensive "perfect" cat with all the mod-cons, bells, and whistles made it all the way from Florida to Panama before abandoning their voyage and chosen lifestyle because stuff mostly did not work and needed fixing all the time.

Of course, in most boatie circles the folks on the Irwin 28 would be deemed to the the crazy ones...

What do you think?

Doing the need/want two-step...

Yesterday, over at Boat Bits, I mentioned a pretty cool new bit of electronics from Velocitek which has me drooling...

Hey, I may be Mr Cheapseats but I still like really cool stuff!

So, I did some need/want addition and, sadly, it's not really something I need. Even more interesting after doing the need/want calculations I realized that I don't even want it as it's just a machine telling me what my brain already knows.

That said, it would actually be a great learning tool for newbie sailors of the cruising sort to learn how to tack and sail to windward better. So it is something to consider.

Of course, if it were a lot cheaper it would be a whole different equation...