-----Original Message----- From: power-catamaran-bounces@lists.samurai.com [mailto:power-catamaran-bounces@lists.samurai.com] On Behalf Of power-catamaran-request@lists.samurai.com Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 9:00 PM To: power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com Subject: Power-Catamaran Digest, Vol 55, Issue 5 Send Power-Catamaran mailing list submissions to power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com Hello Mark, I agree with you there have been a lot of horror stories about custom and semi-custom builds and it can happen to even the largest boat builder so there's no predictable pattern here. It really boils down to each person doing his own due diligence and having a project manager looking after his best interest if he doesn't have the ability to do it himself. Fortunately the majority of builds are highly successful and as Russell pointed out it may not cost much more than some production boats and you can have a much bigger say in almost every part of your boat. Now to your questions; (a)Life Cycle Costs: Having the right boat and having a new boat with all new, tested, equipment should ensure a fairly trouble free cruise. Put 100,000 miles on a car and things will start to break down. Not that you can't cruise a 10 year old or older boat but you had better be very good at fixing things or have deep pockets to call in the serviceman. Salt water is a harsh environment and it does have an affect on the life cycle of many parts on a boat. You don't pump salt water through your cars cooling system or air-conditioning pump and you don't run the car engine 24 hours a day, so there are more dissimilar things between cars and boats than similar so I don't believe this is a good analogy. Preventative maintenance does help to prevent 'surprise' breakdowns at the most inopportune times and you should be prepared to change a water pump impeller at some time. Likewise you should strip and clean the heat-exchangers and replace their anodes according to the engine manufacturers schedule. One advantage with most catamarans, if you happen to be cruising in an area with a 5 foot tidal range or more, is that you should be able to let the cat dry out on its two hulls and do a bottom job without the haul out fee, but you need to be aware of environmental issues when cleaning off the hulls. While you're at it you may have to change some zincs and ensure all your thru-hulls are not blocked or partially blocked. Another advantage of a power catamaran, if it is set up with two independent engine rooms, is that you should still be able to make a safe harbor on one engine if you do lose the other. Having said this, duplicated systems, two of everything, is part of the extra cost you must pay for a power catamaran over a powerboat that usually shares most of the same systems. The interior of the boat should not cause any major issues due to the salty environment as most people keep it at a comfortable living temperature using heat, cool air or good old fashioned open hatch breezes. Even the engine rooms where salt water is used, it is always contained in pipes or pumps, but if you do get a salt water leak, after you've fixed it make sure you get rid of the salt water and wash the area with fresh water to get rid of all the salt and the heat of the engine room should then keep everything dry. A power catamaran is not a 'wet-ass sailing boat' with spray flying about and getting down inside the boat leaving its tell tale, sticky to the touch, mess everywhere. I used some domestic appliances on my own cat and only had to replace them after 5 years of living aboard full time. I found the convenience of full size 'steel' appliances far outweighed the excessive cost of 'small SS marine appliances' and they're much cheaper to replace. We cooked a large Thanks Giving turkey in our oven and invited four other cruisers to join us during our stop in the Canary Islands before the Atlantic crossing in 1991 and you can't do that in most marine cookers. (b) Long -v- big -v- expensive: I assume here that you are not talking about a production boat as their price will be pretty much set depending on what options you might wish to add. So here goes; Estimating the cost of a boat today is definitely not a "best guess" scenario; hopefully those people are all out of business or have improved their estimating methods. A builder must have at least a set of 'bid plans', a very detailed specification, a detailed BOM and a laminate schedule with the fiberglass square footage areas known. The information must provide enough detail for the builder to see the construction method, the tankage information, electrical wiring and plumbing schematics, the furniture and cabinetry requirements, quality of finish expected, and the scope of supply of the complete set of construction plans he will eventually receive. With this information he has a fighting chance of providing an estimate and I stress the word 'estimate'. Most custom and semi-custom builders will not provide a fixed price due to the time involved to construct the boat and the volatility of the market and price fluctuations which is nearly always in an upwards direction. A barrel of oil hovers around $75 and is predicted to only rise and this affects everything that is delivered to a manufacturer and the final delivery of the manufactured product to the builder's yard. Of course resin is a major component in a boat and this continues to rise year in year out. Each builder has his own method of payment which typically includes a deposit and scheduled or top up payments for major purchases and invoices presented. Could you really build a spacious boat for a relatively small incremental price increase if the systems were kept relatively fixed? Not really as a size increase is still an increase in material and man hours. Some savings can be made in the quantity and types of equipment you fit and in the quality and type of finish you would be happy with. For instance a work boat quality finish would cost less than a super yacht quality finish or somewhere in between. Most boat builders are fair business men and if they're not they may not be around for long, except for some who keep popping up under different names, but that's another story. A boat builder is entitled to make a profit the same as any other business and you should find all boat builders will quote about the same to build the same boat, if anyone comes in way under, then they either made a mistake, or run like hell, because you may very well finish up paying a lot more from the "cheap guy". (c) Cost game changers?: New technology almost always costs more in the beginning. You only have to look at the electronics industry for perfect examples of that, your $1,000.00 computer is now $500.00 in less than three years. Basic business requires that a company recover its R&D costs typically over a 3 year period, depending on the industry, the size of the investment and the market, etc. It is possible but unlikely that a revolutionary new technology that would replace fiberglass cloth or resin and save thousands of dollars to build boats will come on the market and if it did its R&D and material costs would still have to be paid for, which would automatically inflate the price. Builders do all they can to keep costs down and sell their products at a competitive price and it's up to each prospective boat purchaser to thoroughly research the market and decide which boat represents the best value for him. The only realistic way to save money on a boat that you will be happy and comfortable cruising on day after day is to look at its performance and buy or have built a boat that is very fuel efficient as this will save you money year after year, especially with the predicted permanently increasing cost of a barrel of oil. This makes some of the 'green options' now available definitely worth taking a second look at. Cheers, Graham Captain Graham Pfister President & Principle Designer TrawlerCat Marine Designs Message: 4 Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:22:39 -0800 (PST) From: Mark <mark424x@yahoo.com> To: Power Catamaran List <power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com> Cc: info@mdcats.com Subject: Re: [PCW] Buzzards Bay 34 pricing Message-ID: <309879.16145.qm@web31811.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yes, Many thanks to both Graham and Russell, your comments are incredibly valuable. I think many only hear the horror stories of custom builds gone wrong or think it's very expensive and tend to eliminate that option early. A couple follow ups while you are on the line: (a) Life cycle costs: There is the old joke that cruising is fixing your boat in distant ports. What is your sense of both the truth and the cause. Is this a perception that arises from many long range cruisers sailing/motoring 30 year old boats on limited budgets? Inconsistent quality in marine mechanics? Is it a combination of harsh environment and high parts cost due to low volume sales? While I have no doubt that salt water is a hash environment, when you think about a car driving around pot holed streets caked with ice and salt, well that's a harsh environment as well. Should we just be keeping the boat sealed and de-humidified and use cheap consumer grade components (i.e. harden the vessel instead of each part)? Is it a result of too many gee whiz systems? Is it a result of space constraints, so repairs are that much harder and thus delayed more than they should be? My observation is that a fair proportion of cruisers fall into one of two categories, either the almost completeyself sufficient do-it-yourselferor the folks with a substantial budget - e.g. the self restored 67 Mustang or the big benz. What is stopping the Camry or Honda Pilot of boats? (b) Long vs Big vs expensive: In the old days people would estimate the cost of a boat in $/lb. Beuhlermay still do that. I've read many designers say (relative to monos) that long narrow boats aren't any more expensive than short/wide. Yet we all know that the retail cost of a boat goes up exponentially with length/size. Could you really build a spacious boat for a relatively small incremental price increase if the systems were kept relatively fixed? Is it that slip fees so dominate the financial equation that people want to pack as much into as little as possible? Is it that the consumer has been brainwashed and the guy who wants a 50' boat compares all 50' boats and wants the one with more stuff and the guy that had a 40' boat in his head won't look at the 50'er that's a stretched 40? (c) Cost game changers?: Is it just an incremental game of tweaking and optimizing, or are there opportunities for new materials or technology to drive major cost savings? It could be the massive investment in composites by the aircraft industry, the drops in price of CNC mills and cutters,....if you could dream up a technology - or make an existing technology much cheaper - that would lower production costs by 20, 30, or 40% - what would it be? Many thanks! Mark ___________________ Mark Long Marina del Rey, CA