Hi Mark, ABYC does recommend standards for boat building and I'm sure most builders adhere to it, but there can always be the occasional slip by an individual tradesman that may not appear until something goes wrong. ABS certification for a complete build is a long and expensive process that is usually only asked for by owners of boats over 75' to be sure they get the quality they are paying for. It requires plan approval before the work can commence to ensure the engineering meets their criteria. Once construction commences there are regular survey inspections at various stages along the way and this is to ensure engineering practices are adhered to. The inspections are similar but not as intense as having a project manager oversee every part of the build, but you do get a certificate from the classification society stating that it complies with their rules and classification can earn you an insurance discount and a better resale value. A design team for a project can consist of ten or more or it can be as few as two. Sometimes the smaller team can be more efficient if it consists of a very experienced designer and a naval architect/engineer. If it's a production boat it will be easier to amortize the design costs over a shorter period of time. Be assured the design costs have to be recovered, as do the tooling costs, production costs, dealer fees and warranty allowances and in the end everyone must make a reasonable profit. This is why some custom boats don't cost much more than some production boats. It certainly does help save time and money if you're a hands on type of guy when it comes to diagnosing and fixing small problems on your boat. If you have to call someone in every time something goes wrong then long range cruising may not be a good idea for you. You could take along a friend or a crew member who can find and fix things for you. A good 'fixer' may also find a problem before it becomes serious enough that it curtails your cruise. Going serious cruising must be taken seriously. You can't just buy a boat and go offshore cruising with no real experience, although some people have done it and survived it's not recommended. Before you buy a boat do your own inspection or have a survey done by a reputable surveyor, even on a production boat if you're going to trust your life and your bank account to this boat. Once you buy the boat that best suits your requirements you then need to gain experience on it. It's not a conundrum so much as a process that you need to go through before buying the boat and then before taking the final step to go cruising. Cheers, Graham Captain Graham Pfister President & Principle Designer TrawlerCat Marine Designs ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:36:56 -0800 (PST) From: Mark <mark424x@yahoo.com> To: Power Catamaran List <power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com> Subject: Re: [PCW] Buzzards Bay 34 pricing Message-ID: <977041.30777.qm@web31809.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In building construction, many of these issues are dealt with by the local building codes, e.g. you can't have a hidden splice or even a junction box that is not accessible, must follow color code standards....Contractors can loose their license if they don't comply. Occasionally we hear about ABS or CE certifications, do they cover any of these things or is it really only about seaworthness of the hull design? In many industries there a whole teams that focus on "design for" issues, such design for manufacturability, design for maintenance, design for quality, etc. It doesn't seem that there is the scale in this industry to absorb those kinds of costs. I was chatting the other day with a fellow that had a circumnavigation cut short due to some mechanical and budget issues. He went on and on about the poor quality of the marine maintenance services, even in the high priced boat yards here in southern California and mentioned some of the issues that Ed cited. It certainly is a conundrum. Mark _______________ Mark Long Marina del Rey, CA