George Buehler Yacht Design                  P.O. 

> >Jacques Kreitmann wrote: > >Does anyone have an idea of how much it costs to have a boat such as > >Idlewild built and equipped to-day ? Would the Idlewild crew give us > >a rough estimate ? > >Response from Idlewild: > >$550,000.00 US if you're careful. > >Ben Gray >-- >Idlewild >Custom Buehler 55 >Home port: Dunvegan, Alberta >http://www.idlewildexpedition.ca/ I also asked George Buehler for comment: Hell, I don't know what else I can say that I haven't written in my books and web sites! I really think a stripped down IDLEWILD can be built for 50K. I don't know how better to answer that then the way I did. I'm not a pro builder so I can't give a quote but . . . You can get a new 382 DUCK finished out far fancier for 240K, a 462 Duck for under 400K, qnd 550K for the 55-2. There's a new 45-plus duck being built at Townsend Bay Marine, a very high end joint in Pt. Townsend. It will even have stabilizers. It's being bid at a little over 500K. It's 2 times the boat Idlewild is. Stay cheery! George Buehler Yacht Design P.O. Box 966, Freeland, WA 98249 Telephone & Fax: (360) 331-5866 http://georgebuehler.com & http://dieselducks.com

While boat building is wildly unpredictable, a little research suggests building costs are roughly as follows (assumes yard labor rather than home-builder): Hull, decks, tanks: 40% - 45% Mechanical & Electrical: 15% - 20% Interior, outfitting: 35% - 45% Options (generator, electronics, etc): 10% - 20% Sales/Marketing: 10% - 20% Admittedly, this is a very coarse estimate (adds up to more than 100%), but you get the idea. I was amazed to find that building a custom boat is roughly similar in cost to a comparable production boat. I guess the sales/marketing cost for a production boat offsets any inefficiency of a one-off custom boat (though you have to pay the designer a fee). The adverse cost comes at resale: custom boats seem to take longer to sell and sell for less than their production cousins. Peter Willard 36 San Francisco