A little insanity...

Looking at some boat ads this morning I found this bit of craziness...

$28,000 its a steal at this price; spent 62,000 on it

Refering to a 35 year old Hunter 37 for sale.

The thing is, I see people pouring copious amounts of money into boats in ways that don't make any kind of sense at all. Why on earth would you spend $62K on a boat that, at best, is only worth between $15-$20K?

Which, sorta/kinda, brings up the Endeavour project...

You could easily pour $60K into the boat... A new rig and sails could easily cost a third of that, so would a new engine by the time the dust settled and, as long as we're throwing money around like the proverbial drunken sailor, I'm sure someone will point out that an AwlGrip job would not go amiss...

What little that remains from the $60K might be enough to buy your nextgen anchor of choice but maybe not.

The thing is you'd still have a boat worth maybe $25K at most...

Do the math.

So, why rehab a semi-derlict boneyard Endeavour 32 anyway?

Well, on one hand it's to prove it can be done on a sane budget. On the other, it does happen to be a great teaching aid in the How-To of it, and lastly, I simply like working on boats so I find the process enjoyable.

That said, I'm still not sure it is a doable project and I'm still doing the math...

an interesting catamaran...

A lot more interesting stuff on their website...

Slow going on the Endeavour front...

I've been waiting on a quote for a forty-foot section of mast extrusion for the Endeavour but, as expected the rigging company who happens to be the purveyor of said extrusion...

Boy do I hate dealing with some marine businesses.

It's not that I can't live with slow and inept but do admit to a certain exasperation with just plain rude and nasty.

Really, how hard is it to answer two questions of whether or not they have forty-feet in stock and, if they do, what it costs per foot.

That said, the cost of mast extrusions and the needful bits to make up a mast being what they are these days the only really affordable way to go is to either find an acceptable used mast or to build your own.

Though it really would be nice to have the quote on a new mast for comparitive purposes...

I'm not going to hold my breath in the meantime.

A potential VolksCruiser project...

So, there's this dismasted Endeavour 32 with a dead engine that's sorta/kinda for sale here that would make a good candidate to turn into a VolksCruiser...

It's a Ted Irwin design which, before Endeavour bought the molds, was called the Irwin 32. All in all not a bad design.

Of course, the problem with any boat without a rig or working engine has very little value other than the sum of its parts which in this case pretty much amounts to the current street price of the 5000 pounds of lead encapsulated within its keel.

Doing a quick price check of Endeavour 32s for sale I come up with a pretty wide range of asking prices for boats in decent shape that ranges from $4.7K to $28K putting the average price somewhere in the 14K zone. Which says to me that while not a bad boat it is certainly not real popular and you should be able to find a good cheap one fairly easily... Definitely a good candidate for a couple looking for a cheap boat to go cruising on.

That said, it also means that fixing up a dismasted/engineless example would be stupid unless the boat was VERY cheap and you'd need to sort out the rig and propulsion systems on a very short shoestring budget...

As it happens you might say I have a cunning plan or two that might make that possible. But, more about that later...

Some needful reading...

Phil Bolger once told me when I asked him to design Loose Moose 2 that he was currently swamped with design work and, at best, it would take him at least a couple of years to find a hole in his schedule big enough to design it. He then added that, as I knew what I wanted, had a lot of experience with boat building, I could read, and had basic common sense, there was no reason I could not design it myself...

In hindsight he was right but at the time I took the consensus view that the design of sailboats was more akin to some arcane lore I could never really master. So I went to another designer to design the boat which I was never happy with so never built. Luckily, Phil found a hole in his schedule and designed LM2 for us... Anyway, I mention all this simply because Phil really nailed it when he pointed out that reading is a needful skill in the design of sailboats because everything you need to know is accessible in books.

Like this one...

Which is a reference book that you really should have right alongside this one...

Nestled up next to this one...

And, of course, can't forget this one...

There are lots of others but those certainly cover most of what you need for starters.

a quick observation...

Boat design and boatbuilding are not exactly rocket science...


Rocket Crash by sonicbomb

And, just maybe, that is no bad thing.

That said, it would be a very good thing to do your homework on the subject of boat design and the practicalities of putting a boat together before you embark on any major boatbuilding or boat modification/rehab. Really, there are a lot of good books on the subject and the time it costs you to read and digest them will pay off in many ways and most importantly helping you avoid having a boat that does not float right side up.

On the other hand, if you're crazy and not very bright you can do what a lot of folks do and go the internet forum route which will be counterproductive in terms of  building or fixing your boat but it will be highly entertaining to folks like me who enjoy a great clusterfuck as long as it's somebody else flailing around making a fool of themselves... Just saying.

More about those books you should be reading tomorrow...

So, a quick note about boat plans...

Here's something important to keep in mind...

Boat plans are not a sacred text and you can change them as much as you like as long as you realize that if your changes/modifications/cunning plans result in a clusterfuck of a boat it's all your fault.

With me so far?

Here's something else you need to know about what a designers job is all about...

A designer of boats job description does not include teaching you how to build a boat, babysit you through the process, and do your thinking for you.

In the next few posts I'll be talking about building and possibly changing a particular plan which just may fall into what some people consider heretical territory. Folks with a delicate and orthodox nature just may want to skip the next couple of weeks or so...

More soonish...

What's coming up and something SHINY...

For starters there will be several more posts on the Laura Cove 28 as well as a couple other boats I'll be comparing it to and, just maybe, something out in left field as far as VolksCruisers go.

In the meantime I need to look at and do some research on an idea that seemed to pop into my head while I was reading the new issue of "Good Old Boat" but it most certainly falls into "I have a cunning plan" territory.

More soon come.

Stuff...

The hardest part of the whole VolksCruising gig is not about storms at sea, pirates, dealing with bureaucrats in exotic locales, or the problems presented by living on a minuscule budget...

Nope, those things you can deal with. Problematic maybe, but the really big problem we all have to deal with is the stuff thang.

Seriously the more-than-problematic nature of finding a place for stuff on a finite platform/space called a sailboat is the big problem that never goes away...

For instance, one of the things I have to factor in for the next boat is where the electric hookah compressor related hoses/regulators/ancillary gear (like float bags) is going to be accessibly stowed along with the 2000W four-stroke generator that powers it. Talk about problematic.

Of course, with a hookah rig aboard, you're just bound to come across stuff you'll want or need to transport to a place where there's a good nautical flea market which just might be a thousand miles away... But then what are you going to do with the big stainless plow anchor, that 30kg Bruce, and the half-dozen milk crates of nautical bric-a-brac bottom plunder?

Then there's the tools and needful materials problem... They all take up room and when I look at a boat design, more often than not, I'm looking at stowage space and wondering where I can store 10 gallons of epoxy/related fillers, a lot of fiberglass tape/cloth, a partial roll of Sunbrella, enough sailcloth to build that new sail I need, misc pieces of stainless/aluminum/plywood/lumber as well as paint/varnish/goop and a few spools of rope and Dynex for rigging jobs.

I could go on and I have not even got around to guitars but I'm pretty sure you catch the drift.

The thing is that all of those items I mentioned actually earn their keep and for a person cruising on a budget multiple income streams make sense but the stuff that fuels multiple income streams tend to take up space but it's space that pays for itself in a lot of needful ways...

Maybe it's time to rethink just what sort of boat a volkscruiser needs to be...

More on the Laura Cove thought process...

So, we we're still talking about the Laura Cove 28...

What's to like?

1. It's got a very roomy interior and a lot of storage area for its size.
2. It would be both simple and quick to build.
3. It would not cost an arm and a leg in the process.
4. The lug rig is simple, powerful and cheap.
5. It's towable.
6. It has real shoal draft.

What's not to like?

1. It's still a 28-foot boat and, while bigger than one might expect, packing in long range cruising gear, provisions, and the tools needed to make a living will be problematic.
2. It has a really small cockpit.
3. Like just about every other boat designed in the last twenty years or so, no real provisions or cunning plans to make all of the needful stuff (solar panels/wind generators/gas generator/self steering/dive gear/misc stuff that winds up on deck as a clutterfuck) integral to the mix.

 Think about all that for a bit.

Next up will get into the nitty gritty...