I think at least some of us consider the best product is the best value. And you usually get neither cheap.
2017 Domestic Boat of the Year
- Thread starter Simon Sexton
- Start date
Um... you do not say how you address quality.... just cost... in aircraft... that fly... and, um... damn...
Frankly, the thread was a pretty thinly veiled advertisement. I feel certain the copy is in a magazine coming out in Jan. I am all for designs advancing, but I am not for being advertised to in the forum... CALL THE ‘BOT!
I enjoyed Jackdaw’s enthusiasm over the European manufacturers much more, but this thread is going to devolve into the same discussion.
I enjoyed Jackdaw’s enthusiasm over the European manufacturers much more, but this thread is going to devolve into the same discussion.
Hake might be doing OK, but no new boat for this year. IP is close to being out of business. Hinkley only builds powerboats now.
We'll I don't want to take the thread off track. But it applies to planes or boats. Do it quickly and do it right the first time. I'm in IT, and our role is to help automate, measure, inspect etc. We help put out a better product thru technology.
I'm with other posters. I think that the BOTY award is a shallow event
Another factor affecting the boat market is the extreme life expectancy of a fiberglass boat. Automobiles today last maybe ten years; fiberglass boats probably forty. Remember the term "planned obsolescence". Automobiles used to rust out immediately after the warranty ended. As long as most of us can buy a used boat and sail it for a lifetime the new boat market will struggle.
There's the Shock Corporation but no new boat this year. The Shock Harbor 20 remains very popular in Southern California.
http://www.wdschock.com/harbor-20_10-1
http://www.wdschock.com/harbor-20_10-1
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They race Schocks in Hilton Head SC and they are nice boats but I think my next toy is going to be a Flying Scot. It's a foot shorter at the dock but a foot and a half longer at the water line, it planes and can hit 20 knots in the right conditions. If there's no nearby club that's a bummer but for sailing excitement, it's the boat.
You do know about the windmill? 17' of pure adrenaline. Designed by one of the greats in 1953. It has been out performing every monohull in its class ever since. Plans are available on the internet. Just 4 sheets of plywood, some stringers and some rigging. Large community too.
http://www.hinckleyyachts.com/models/sailboats/bermuda-50/
Hinckley advertises two sailboats in their stable of boats today. However, I wouldn't put any company that markets a 42'er as a daysailer in the same market as Hunter, Catalina, et al.
Hinckley is obviously taking the marketing strategy of producing high end over mass appeal. Not many boats out there but the money seems to be there for the company. I don't know what their financial prospectus looks like, though.
If the concern here is the overall health of the new boat industry, this is definitely an issue. I don't think boat manufactures can afford to build obsolescence into their products the way the auto industry does, because they cost so much to begin with and they are a luxury item for most people. To invest a year's salary into something like that and have to replace it in 10 years, people just wouldn't buy a boat. As it is, no one can get what they put into a new boat when they want to trade up, sideways or down. However, you can buy an older boat, wash it, change out some hardware, repair some glasswork and maybe make a little back on it. If you do the work yourself.
On the other hand, if the concern is the heath of the sailing community instead; long lived older boats are its
saving grace. That is the only factor that keeps sailing affordable for people like me.
If we are taking a longer view and expressing concern that hard times for new Boat's means a future reduction in old, affordable boats, years down the line then, yep. Boating goes back to the DIY and custom one-offs with a greatly reduced market base. Except for companies like Hinckley that cater to a limited but, bomb proof market. This includes the corporate racing circuit. That market suffers when people stop caring about the next step in AC or Clipper boats and don't watch any more.
I actually think some of this concern is based in jealousy. We see the new design changes coming out for high performance race boats and we want one but we can't afford one. We look to the affordable used market and those boats can't compete in the same races. It's too bad but, what 'cha gona do?
- Will (Dragonfly)
Hinckley does build their DS 42 and their latest, Hinckley Bermuda 50. Hinckley went with the power boat market decades ago and sailboats make up a small portion. But Hinckley was always a semi custom builder. They only built 200 of the icon that made them famous, the Bermuda 40, and that was over a decade span.
I think they have only built 2 B50's. The boats sell in excess of 2mil, which is why I find the Catalina 42 at 250K, a feat.
Custom and semi custom boats are most of the new boats I see in this area. We have several active custom boat builders and design houses on the coast of Maine. A new 40'er can keep a small to medium yard busy for a year or two.
I've followed many of these custom projects from design brief through launching.
The trend in these custom boats (for 1-2 decades), has been less attention to cruising long term and more emphasis on performance and ease of sailing: daysailing, racing and short term coastal cruising are what the owners are requesting. Style has changed. The heavy complicated globe girdler is out. Lighter better sailing boats are in. Traditional design elements have re-joined new ideas making for more graceful looking boats.
What do we care what these high end owners want? I believe they are a part of the overall market that we sailors, as a mass, drive. The new products are a telltale of the market, be it new or which used boats are popular. These new boats are like the new fashions that often look bizarre coming down the runway. 'We' aren't going to buy them but we are driving the trends that go forward.
I think they have only built 2 B50's. The boats sell in excess of 2mil, which is why I find the Catalina 42 at 250K, a feat.
Custom and semi custom boats are most of the new boats I see in this area. We have several active custom boat builders and design houses on the coast of Maine. A new 40'er can keep a small to medium yard busy for a year or two.
I've followed many of these custom projects from design brief through launching.
The trend in these custom boats (for 1-2 decades), has been less attention to cruising long term and more emphasis on performance and ease of sailing: daysailing, racing and short term coastal cruising are what the owners are requesting. Style has changed. The heavy complicated globe girdler is out. Lighter better sailing boats are in. Traditional design elements have re-joined new ideas making for more graceful looking boats.
What do we care what these high end owners want? I believe they are a part of the overall market that we sailors, as a mass, drive. The new products are a telltale of the market, be it new or which used boats are popular. These new boats are like the new fashions that often look bizarre coming down the runway. 'We' aren't going to buy them but we are driving the trends that go forward.
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I am on board with that! I think we are just beginning to reap the benefits of IT and its precision metrics in manufacturing. I am curious about what I could do with the tools.
Hake and Island Packet are the same thing and no where near going out of business, lots of Maine builders as well, Hodgons for some huge racing yachts.
If they have managed to retool their business to become a semi-custom 'build a boat when a customer show up' then maybe. But they were a product builder, with a full-time workforce geared around building boats against a production/sales backlog. Huge difference.
It could. But mostly now it means new technologies and production and design techniques that allows for a stronger boat that is lighter. It happened in cars, planes, bikes, etc. Boats too.
Tell that to the designer of the Volvo Ocean 65 which is designed to race twice around the world through the Sothern Ocean and has a displacement of 27,560 lbs on a 65.6 foot waterline. Lighter no longer means weaker.
Two years ago Seaward (Hake) kept wanting to sell me a demo boat with twin engines. I wanted one built with only one engine and a few minor mods, no call back. I'm no longer enamored with any American builder. I'll buy used.
Also happened in passenger trains, a field where I worked in a former life. A weight penalty was applied to our passenger train manufacturers, who then attempted to lighten the trains they subsequently made for us. The results in two fleets were thinner roof skins that prematurely rusted out. Other problems appeared with less durable plastic machine components replacing brass and steel parts that had been service proven in the past. We also had frame cracks in one fleet that may have been the result of lightening the product. Engineers may design to achieve a lighter product, but they are not infallible; time will tell, though.
Here is an example for your consideration:
MAPFRE, which broke their mast on March 30 while training for the Volvo Ocean Race 2017, will be back sailing by mid-April.
More about this available on line.