Our only experience was building a 37 foot sail boat from a hull and deck--which we modified slightly. This took about 4,000 hours over two years to complete. I figured we saved a year by purchasing the hull and deck already molded, and probably the cost of the hull and deck was not much more that what the materials would have cost us. My suspician is that the 55' kit boat only is 800 hours of welding by an expert welder: that does not include any finish work or systems etc.. I have a friend who built a 55' steel fishing boat and that took 2 years with 4 people working full time: a yacht would take a little longer. The shipyard across from my house will build most boats in 6 to 9 months, but this is a full time commercial operation building boats 60 to 200 feet long. I know a number of people who have built 50+/- boats in 3 to 4 years including the hull, but this is a full time job, 8 to 10 hours a day. What do you say Peter, Paul and Steve? How long does it take? Bob Austin.

Thataway@aol.com wrote: > Our only experience was building a 37 foot sail boat from a hull and > deck--which we modified slightly. This took about 4,000 hours over two years > to complete. Alastair Bayne replies and comments, we are refitting our 49 Lord Nelson Victory Tug ,we are 2400 hrs into it so far and expect and hope to finish around 4000hrs, all we have done is install twin engines, previously single, Koop stabilisers and bow thruster on integrated hydraulics, sine wave inverter, air conditioning, refrigeration, headsand holding tanks, renew fuel and water tanks, add a few electronics, install comnav autopilots with constant running hydraulic motors, second generator etc etc We arrived back in California last night from the UK and the yard assures me we will be back in the water by the end of October, they are doing a wonderful job, the original plan was to splash end of Sept, we have increased the scope of work, and I hope we will be back in the water mid Nov but who really knows, and that is boating!! All I know is multiply estimated hours by a factor of at least 2 or 3 and if I do a job mysel it seems this factor needs to be between 3 and 5 or so Alastair and Rosemary Bayne Nelson's Lady Lord Nelson 49 Victory Tug