Coastal Explorer - Version 1.1 due soon, at a price
As the guy who's been selling multihulls longer (27 years) than just
about anyone else in the U.S., I have one specific cautionary comment
about that otherwise appealing weird motor trimaran -- just like a wide
variety of really "odd duck" multihull designs that are out there in far
left field, it's a design that is subject to one situation that is so
seldom discussed....yet which causes buyers perhaps more lost money than
any other feature: risky resale value. When one is ready to sell their
boat, they usually hope to do so within 3 to 6 months. And to do so for
no more than, say, 15% to 20% less what the new-boat price was. With
established brands, this is fairly easy to do. But one of these "odd
duck" designs can languish for 2 to 3 YEARS (if the seller holds to that
15% to 20% figure). Sure, the seller may sell in 3 to 6 months if
willing to take a 35% to 45% hit.....but that waaayyyy exceeds the
comparatively minor fuel savings that can so catch a buyer's fancy in
the first flush of infatuation.
I'm reminded of when (2 years ago), one of the leading builders of sail
and power catamarans began ballyhooing the electric-drive engines they
were about to offering as a "minor" option ($15,000 extra....OUCH!) on
their sail-cruising cats. I warned my clients against them (and would
have if I sold monohulls, too) for the same concerns: highly
questionable resale value. (I also happened to think the technology --
while theoretically appealing -- was simply not yet "there" in
execution.). And sunnuvagun -- guess what was just recently announced by
that major builder? "We're no longer offering that electric-drive
option." But what about the poor souls whose salesman wasn't as
skeptical as myself? Or was the type salesman willing to sell the buyer
whatever the buyer "thought" he wanted? Said poor souls are now owners
of boats for which they're going to take BIG resale hits. Just as bad,
the company didn't stop offering those electric drives because they were
working well. So those owners have disappointingly performing,
OVERpriced vessels with overly-depreciated resale value. Thus, in their
hope for decreased fuel costs, they'll probably suffer an additional
$30,000 to $40,000 to $50,000 loss when they eventually do resell their
boats. (Do the math -- how much fuel would you have to save to justify a
$50K hit come resale time? Oh sure, if you used the boat for 60 to 75
years it'd probably prove worthwhile.....but guess what.....!)
RESALE value!! Like I said, it's one of the least discussed items, yet,
time and again, I've seen it frequently become the largest-and-fiercest
set of teeth to bite the average boat-buyer who decides to opt for some
"odd duck" design or option when purchasing a new boat.
For ANY new design feature or item, I always counsel my clients to wait
18 to 24 months. If in that time no other manufacturers have
incorporated that new "gee-whiz" design or equipment into their
respective line of boats, step back and take a hard look why. In other
words, that motorized trimaran has been out for several years. So WHY
haven't others jumped on that band wagon? (Consider this: the last
company to production-build trimaran sail-cruising boats in the U.S.
went out of business mrore than 12 years ago. That doesn't necessarily
extrapolate, feature by feature, to trimaran power boats (although
there are several distinct similarities). But it should raise a serious
"go slow" sign to any potential buyer.
Regards,
Rod Gibbons
Cruising Cats USA.
BrianC wrote:
Mike,
The common refrain I hear on these designs is that you pay a lot for a
boat that has very little room in them. I'm wondering if that's really
true.
In your research, did you get a feel for how true Nigel's claims that
"the build cost of these vessels is closely related to their deadweight
and installed power rather than overall length. So despite their
apparently large dimensions, 'iLAN' trimaran vessels are competitive
when compared with "smaller" catamarans and monohulls."??
Do you think that a boat of the "iLAN" design could be cost competitive
with a traditional monohull design (done in Aluminum from a custom
builder) - when comparing boats of equal interior (usable) volume?
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: passagemaking-under-power-bounces@lists.samurai.com
[mailto:passagemaking-under-power-bounces@lists.samurai.com] On Behalf
Of Mike O'Dell
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2005 12:28 PM
To: Passagemaking Under Power List
Subject: Re: [PUP] The future of Passagemaking?? C&W Explorer
Walter Schurtenberger, www.constellationyachts.com, built the
iLAN which was the prototype boat for the C&W Explorer.
He worked with Nigel Irens, the designer, for many years
and together they've designed and built boats that have
taken an easy dozen world records of various kinds.
once upon a time i was also taken by the C&W, enough so that
i found an address and emailed Nigel. we ended up chatting
about it at some length.
life changed and i never got to pursue that avenue, but finally
ended up down at Walter's for my project. imagine my surprise
the first time i walked into Walter's office and saw the
photographs and models of the iLAN, and he proceeded to explain
his relationship with Nigel.
In fact, the schooner-rigged catamaran on Walter's site was
also penned by Nigel and i had the immense pleasure of meeting
him when a yard visit for my project matched-up with the "Hull
Turning Party" for the "Schooner-maran". my NavArch, Iver
Franzen, is in real life a schooner designer and the week was
full of quite spirited conversations about that boat,
especially the rig.
Nigel just started a new project up at Covey Island Boat Works,
i believe.
as Iver likes to say, "It's a very, very small waterfront."
-mo
Unabash plug: if you haven't seen Nova Scotia, you must
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the hull geometry certainly has implications -
some significant part is very much long and skinny,
so for a given surface area of hull, it will contain
less volume. the aft sections can be much beamier, though.
there are "wave piercer" designs that are less "extreme"
than the C&W, although they are also less extreme in
their efficiency.
keep in mind that the C&W was done attempting to
focus the optimization on a very small number
of variables, letting the other move significantly
in some cases (eg, L/B ratio of primary hull).
precisely how a different combination of parameters
interact is the stuff of Naval Architects like Nigel.
as for cost, the best i can offer is apocryphal.
the thing that surprised me most during
the bidding process on my project is that most of
the bids were based on the expected (dry) weight of
of the vessel. "X dollars per pound" was the first-order
predictor. I was certainly curious about that, and was told
that aside from large point masses like engines, the
effort and materials to build the structure is a pretty
direct function of "how much there is", and weight is
a pretty good predictor of "how much there is".
note this is for the structure - one can spend a king's ransome
on interiors, felling entire exotic wood forests,
gold-plated bilge pumps, and other "diversions".
the other estimator was to compute the panel areas:
so many square feet of hull surface, so many square
feet of deck, so many square feet of interior bulkheads,
so many square feet of panels in furniture, etc.
there's a (possibly different) "magic multiplier"
applied to each of those and the sum produced.
this approach requires a bit more fiddling around
to do.
but the biggest shock was that both methods produced
numbers which were surprisingly close to each other.
in retrospect, that's not all that surprising because
the materials cost should be the same in all cases,
as would fitments (engines, etc). it really comes
down to estimating the labor in man-hours. while the
shop rates varied more, the estimated number of
man-hours were remarkably similar.
so yes, i agree with the assertion that after normalizing
everything else, the cost correlates remarkably well
with deadweight.
note that my only experience is in composite construction.
metal-bending is utterly beyond my meager experience.
cheers,
-mo
BrianC wrote:
Mike,
The common refrain I hear on these designs is that you pay a lot for a
boat that has very little room in them. I'm wondering if that's really
true.
In your research, did you get a feel for how true Nigel's claims that
"the build cost of these vessels is closely related to their deadweight
and installed power rather than overall length. So despite their
apparently large dimensions, 'iLAN' trimaran vessels are competitive
when compared with "smaller" catamarans and monohulls."??
Do you think that a boat of the "iLAN" design could be cost competitive
with a traditional monohull design (done in Aluminum from a custom
builder) - when comparing boats of equal interior (usable) volume?
Brian
Amen, brother!
-mo
Rod Gibbons wrote:
risky resale value.
I believe several such efforts are underway. The Dashew's are building such
a boat, and our lists own Bruce Jones is in the design phase:
From Bruce: "I'm currently involved in designing a long, narrow
passagemaker that we will have built in Turkey."
While these boats arent for everyone, it must say something that people with
LOTS of experience are looking at similar approaches.
For me its as much about the destinations as the journey. The Admiral has
significant veto power over any decisions that involve cooking, light bright
places to live for 5 years, and many other creature comforts. If I cant
keep her happy, a divorce is going to sap needed funds from the effort ;)
I'm also concerned about resale when we return. When our voyage is
complete, I would sell the ocean capable boat, and return to a coastal boat.
I'm a big believer in having the right platform for the job. Since I may
sell our house, put that money in the boat, then recoup it later, resale
value is a concern. I watch the boat4sale web pages and see some boats on
the market for years. Theres a boat here in Seattle, priced at $850k that
seems like it should be closer to $2M. Why wont it sell? Who knows?
IMHO a long, thin passagemaker is going to appeal to a small segment of the
already small passagemaking market. Adding that encumbrance to the resale
process is something that would be reserved for people with financial
resources or flexibility that I don't have.
For me, its a Krogen or Nordhavn. The Ducks look like capable boats, but I
know the Admiral won't buy in. My selection will be driven as much by whats
available on the used market as new, and information I get from owners about
the process of buying a new boat.
Scott
Clarification on a number of Rosepoint Coastal Explorer postings
Ron said: "I spoke with Jeff who was the 4th person hired at Nobeltec and
the creator of this program."
Jeff was brought on at Rosepoint to run the company. The software was
actually developed by Brad Christian, an accomplished software developer
retired from Microsoft. Brad and Jeff are both active boaters, and
emphasize boating features above boat show features. In my opinion
Rosepoint is still a very small company, and the price increases are
reflective of the value of the software, and the need to make the company
viable. Good software is worth paying for. Good support is worth paying
for. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet, and choose something else.
Robert asked: Ok so where can I buy version 1.0 online. I am in Thailand so
it is a bit problematic from here.
I'd suggest you drop them an email and see if they will ship it to you. It
comes in a small CD jacket, and wouldn't cost more than a few bucks to ship?
Their email address is: info@rosepointnav.com.
Finally, this discussion is just barely on topic. It's more appropriate for
the T&T list. I let it continue because it had the hint of starting to be
on topic by talking about advanced features such as AIS. There are many
more people on the T&T list that would engage in this discussion then there
are here. Let's wrap this up, and focus on passagemaking. Thanks,
Scott Bulger
List Administrator
Thanks for the input everyone. As you rightfully point out, resale
value is a big potential issue. I will continue to look more into this,
but it seems like a summary of the pros and cons stack up to this for
the C&W Explorer style (long and thin w/outriggers - passagemaker):
Pros:
Very fuel efficient - Long Range, with moderate fuel requirements
Relatively fast, compared to full displacement conventional
passagemakers
Strong and seaworthy (world record holder for around the world)
Simplicity (no need for paravanes/flopper stoppers, other stabilizers,
etc.)
Safety - ability to outrun weather easily, avoid or outrun pirates, and
minimize exposure time on the open ocean while doing major crossings.
Stable (with outrigger design)
Potential for single engine, sail backup (further reducing build costs)
Cons:
Significant resale value uncertainties due to unconventional design
Risk of a new design - long term reliability/resilience is unknown
Docking issues/difficulties - with outrigger design
Added Length - means added monthly per/ft. fees
"form factor" issues - long and thin, vs. short and fat - may be an
issue for some people
Undecided:
Cost - may be the same on a per/ton basis as traditional passagemakers
Cruising Comfort - long/thin design has an impact on cabin design &
exterior space usage, enjoyment, that may or may not be positive,
depending upon the person's perspective.
It seems that ultimately whether the cost issues (resale value, etc.)
outweigh the "pros" is largely going to be determined by variables such
as how long you plan to use the boat, number of miles traveled during
ownership, etc.
Thanks for the input everyone,
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: passagemaking-under-power-bounces@lists.samurai.com
[mailto:passagemaking-under-power-bounces@lists.samurai.com] On Behalf
Of Scott Bulger
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 8:45 AM
To: Passagemaking Under Power List
Subject: Re: [PUP] The future of Passagemaking??
I believe several such efforts are underway. The Dashew's are building
such
a boat, and our lists own Bruce Jones is in the design phase:
From Bruce: "I'm currently involved in designing a long, narrow
passagemaker that we will have built in Turkey."
While these boats arent for everyone, it must say something that people
with
LOTS of experience are looking at similar approaches.
For me its as much about the destinations as the journey. The Admiral
has
significant veto power over any decisions that involve cooking, light
bright
places to live for 5 years, and many other creature comforts. If I cant
keep her happy, a divorce is going to sap needed funds from the effort
;)
I'm also concerned about resale when we return. When our voyage is
complete, I would sell the ocean capable boat, and return to a coastal
boat.
I'm a big believer in having the right platform for the job. Since I
may
sell our house, put that money in the boat, then recoup it later, resale
value is a concern. I watch the boat4sale web pages and see some boats
on
the market for years. Theres a boat here in Seattle, priced at $850k
that
seems like it should be closer to $2M. Why wont it sell? Who knows?
IMHO a long, thin passagemaker is going to appeal to a small segment of
the
already small passagemaking market. Adding that encumbrance to the
resale
process is something that would be reserved for people with financial
resources or flexibility that I don't have.
For me, its a Krogen or Nordhavn. The Ducks look like capable boats,
but I
know the Admiral won't buy in. My selection will be driven as much by
whats
available on the used market as new, and information I get from owners
about
the process of buying a new boat.
Scott
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