I'm a DIY because I'm not rich! If I was rich I'd have a new Pogo and Jack teaching me what I'm doing wrong!
News flash: cool fast boats sell.
- Thread starter Jackdaw
- Start date
Daniel Spurr s book, "Heart of Glass" covers many of the subjects in this thread. Many interviews of the pioneers in the boating industry giving their thoughts on success or failure.
What did they say? I be keen to hear what they thought back then, and how it compares to the reality of today.
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Just found out this evening, at a dinner gathering, (don't call'em dinner parties here in LHC because we wear shorts and t shirts and talk about batteries) that my friends K & D 's brother is on the 2 year waiting list for a Pogo 36. Just sold his business for big bucks but of course lives over there, in England. I may have to go with them on the biannual family visit.
I thought that boat was awesome. I'm sure I drooled all over the magazine when I first read about it.When Roger Martin's Presto 30 came out nearly 10 years ago, I thought it would catch fire. Fun, fast, simple, could plane as well as take to a beach(with the board up).
And at 100K for a new 30'er, it wasn't as ridiculous as many new boats.
There was a lot of media interest at the start and I knew of one here in our neighborhood and followed it's adventures. In fact somebody in the area took up the tooling to build them.
http://www.rodgermartindesign.com/portfolio/presto-30/
Well that was then,... I haven't heard much and I can't find one for sale. Sort of fizzled as a production boat. The market didn't materialize here for the boat.
Dennis
Overall the reverse of the old quote: "a rising tide will float all boats" is what generally took many boat builders out. Not just the economy. Pearson, for example, sold to a large corporation which then cut back on quality in the building, no longer used the cutting edge designers, and too many became involved to make decisions, hurt the company as well as a slowdown. Many other boatbuilders could not build a boat for the price quoted a year or two earlier.
If business, boats, and materials interests you, Spurrs book should be in your bookcase.
Someday you will wake up and realize that mechanical aptitude is a curse.
They just got used to a wildly expanding market. Easy business selling anything that would float. That was never going to last, and anyone the expected to got caught out in a big way. Really, in the USA only Catalina found its way through. Partly because it’s a private company.
But not because they sold fast boats. (The Capri did not keep the company afloat.)
The Capri line suffered from a branding issue and the popularity of the J24 and J22. A real racer would never sail a boat built by Catalina, what did they know about building fast boats. So the brand never caught on and J Boats dominated the market for fast racing boats. Sometimes the arrogance and snobbishness of hard core racers is really off putting and counter productive, but that is a topic for another thread.
Very true that growth, and expected repeated growth, is not sustainable. IIRC, however, there were other factors at play during the bust period that included a nationwide if not global recession as well as that industry-killing boat tax.
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990: The act imposed a 30% excise tax on the amount of price over $30,000 for autos, $100,000 for boats, $250,000 for airplanes, and $10,000 for furs.
Most "scoffed" at the $100,000, because most of us thought and knew that $100K for a boat back then would get you what is easily a million dollar boat now, and wouldn't impact those of us buying even $50K mid-30 foot sizes.
It had an extremely chilling impact on the industry, though. Rich people don't get rich by spending their own money. (So I'm told...
). So the high end production boats in the 38-45 foot range got hammered, as did the big expensive boats. "I can wait for a boat, but I'll be damned if I'll pay that kinda tax," said Boaty Richie Rich.Go back up and read: THIRTY PERCENT!!!
Many companies closed as a result. Had nothing to do with unbridled growth spurts.
While that might exist, I'd argue that has nothing to do with this point at all. It has to do with the fact that Catalina has no idea how to sell boat and design boats for racers. They never have. Not once.
If you look at J/boats or some of the Beni First, its clear that not only are they designed as fast boats, they are also catering to the racer community. They support One Design fleet efforts. They built one design boats, and not with three keels and 2 rigs. They agree to build them the same for a long time. And the the production build level makes them the same weight and same hull/heel shape. And key: they are aim at wide open market points that will support wide and popular growth of the boat.
The the Capri 22 and 25 are decent boats in the own right, but Catalina had no idea how to try and compete with the j22 and j24. Arrogance had nothing to do with it. With the 22 and 24 well established, those two races were already lost, and they should have tried someplace else.
Even to this day they have trouble with that. The Capri 275 (which I like) will never appeal to racers, mostly because they could not pick a single target market for it (racer or fastish daysailor), and therefore gave it a too-small rig and made it weigh way too much. The two keel options was just the final straw.
Interesting Thread.
One factor that seems to get too little mention is the basic "sport" of sailing, and especially the real world requirements for sailing performance. Whether you consider a 60's or 70's sailboat with its "dated" keel and rudder profiles or an 80's / 90's boat with what are still "mostly current" underwater shapes, there is little to entice you into a brand new boat. Our boats move in a displacement environment and the interaction of hull and water has not changed over the decades.
Heck, when I brag of sailing and motoring at 7 kts and my friends with older designs point out that they do this at 6 or 6.5 kts, these are NOT big differences.
Aside: I was out observing a casual 'winter race' this last Sunday. Nice day with typical off season winds of 2 gusting to 5. The thing is that the large (20+) fleet of mixed designs - old small IOR and some new 40' J Boats were all moving to weather the same, and there was not that much difference off the wind except that tall masts can put up more sail area higher up and go a little faster. Cost of "fun per boat" --- hmmm.... boats ranged form a rough value of 5K to 200K.
Same fun quotient.
That 34' Ben. I looked at in the show last January, had a cheap looking "Ikea" interior and was not as well built as our boat... and it was base priced at $170K. Oh my.
Back to new boats.
About the only design differences they can invoke just move the interior accommodations and their weights up and down, and performance always depends on the "power to weight" ratio.
That's why builders keep trying to lower the wight of hulls by using light weight coring, even tho a careless moment in the layup will produce vast rebuild costs 20 years later. Engine packages are lighter nowadays, a little. Spars can be lighter, but only if the customer can afford carbon fiber.
There are, IMHO, technical hurdles that are too costly for a declining market that was never much more than an enthusiastic niche even in its heyday of the fuel-shortage 70's.
I would guess that this is why the "new designs" keep manipulating hull shapes so that they can declare that they are somehow more desirable than the hull forms of 30 years ago. From the DLW downward, they are little different, and the trend toward poorer performance in many new designs has led to less-dense (and cheaper) iron keels that take more energy to push thru the water. Those broad power-boat sterns for large dockside sleeping areas are quite a detriment also.
Yeah, I am just crying into the wind. Waste of pixels....
The better news is that actual higher-performance sailboats with well designed accommodations will always have (a few, knowledgeable, educated ) buyers waiting.
I have actually turned down offers to buy our boat -- and while I might kinda like trying something different, the Admiral sez we are no way thru sailing yet!
Fair winds to you all!
One factor that seems to get too little mention is the basic "sport" of sailing, and especially the real world requirements for sailing performance. Whether you consider a 60's or 70's sailboat with its "dated" keel and rudder profiles or an 80's / 90's boat with what are still "mostly current" underwater shapes, there is little to entice you into a brand new boat. Our boats move in a displacement environment and the interaction of hull and water has not changed over the decades.
Heck, when I brag of sailing and motoring at 7 kts and my friends with older designs point out that they do this at 6 or 6.5 kts, these are NOT big differences.
Aside: I was out observing a casual 'winter race' this last Sunday. Nice day with typical off season winds of 2 gusting to 5.
The thing is that the large (20+) fleet of mixed designs - old small IOR and some new 40' J Boats were all moving to weather the same, and there was not that much difference off the wind except that tall masts can put up more sail area higher up and go a little faster. Cost of "fun per boat" --- hmmm.... boats ranged form a rough value of 5K to 200K.Same fun quotient.
That 34' Ben. I looked at in the show last January, had a cheap looking "Ikea" interior and was not as well built as our boat... and it was base priced at $170K. Oh my.
Back to new boats.
About the only design differences they can invoke just move the interior accommodations and their weights up and down, and performance always depends on the "power to weight" ratio.
That's why builders keep trying to lower the wight of hulls by using light weight coring, even tho a careless moment in the layup will produce vast rebuild costs 20 years later. Engine packages are lighter nowadays, a little. Spars can be lighter, but only if the customer can afford carbon fiber.
There are, IMHO, technical hurdles that are too costly for a declining market that was never much more than an enthusiastic niche even in its heyday of the fuel-shortage 70's.
I would guess that this is why the "new designs" keep manipulating hull shapes so that they can declare that they are somehow more desirable than the hull forms of 30 years ago. From the DLW downward, they are little different, and the trend toward poorer performance in many new designs has led to less-dense (and cheaper) iron keels that take more energy to push thru the water. Those broad power-boat sterns for large dockside sleeping areas are quite a detriment also.
Yeah, I am just crying into the wind. Waste of pixels....
The better news is that actual higher-performance sailboats with well designed accommodations will always have (a few, knowledgeable, educated ) buyers waiting.
I have actually turned down offers to buy our boat -- and while I might kinda like trying something different, the Admiral sez we are no way thru sailing yet!
Fair winds to you all!
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OK, back to new boats!
Hidden at the US sailboat show was the Wahine 26, a US-built luxury sailboat. Designed to be small and easy to handle and sail, its basically the size of BlueJ in almost all key measurements. A new First 25s will set you back $100K, word is this is closer to $200k. Reportedly, the build quality at C&C/TPI is VERY HIGH. It will be interesting to see what the uptake is; not 'fast' as in Pogo fast, but it will do OK and look great doing it. But I suppose that too is in the eye of the beholder....
http://www.wahine-yachts.com/specifications/
Hidden at the US sailboat show was the Wahine 26, a US-built luxury sailboat. Designed to be small and easy to handle and sail, its basically the size of BlueJ in almost all key measurements. A new First 25s will set you back $100K, word is this is closer to $200k. Reportedly, the build quality at C&C/TPI is VERY HIGH. It will be interesting to see what the uptake is; not 'fast' as in Pogo fast, but it will do OK and look great doing it. But I suppose that too is in the eye of the beholder....
http://www.wahine-yachts.com/specifications/
I find this all so true. Speed hype in new sailboats, has been - and still is - the most overused sales pitch for decades and decades. Performance improvements are always evolving in new boat design but the actual effect, if you compare apples to apples, has not amounted to "the game changer" every generation of sailboat design, has claimed.Interesting Thread.
One factor that seems to get too little mention is the basic "sport" of sailing, and especially the real world requirements for sailing performance. Whether you consider a 60's or 70's sailboat with its "dated" keel and rudder profiles or an 80's / 90's boat with what are still "mostly current" underwater shapes, there is little to entice you into a brand new boat. Our boats move in a displacement environment and the interaction of hull and water has not changed over the decades.
Heck, when I brag of sailing and motoring at 7 kts and my friends with older designs point out that they do this at 6 or 6.5 kts, these are NOT big differences.
Aside: I was out observing a casual 'winter race' this last Sunday. Nice day with typical off season winds of 2 gusting to 5.
Same fun quotient. Fair winds to you all!
In an average coastal cruiser, the family of four owner, is moving maybe a minute or so a mile faster, in 50 or 60 years! That's a lot for racers, but doesn't amount to much as the average boat sails.
Racing boats are faster still, but faster 'racing boats' we've always had. It's a niche.
The new generation are planing hulls (already not new). Will they be the game changer? I doubt it.
A 35' planing hull with a family of 4, their gear for a couple weeks, sailing up to an old 35' coastal cruiser - circling it, a couple times, then leaving the old boat over the horizon? That IS a game changer. Count me in!
More important to the average user in new boat designs - I think, has been the improvements in sail handling. Those improvements are huge and we're all benefitting (new and old boats).
That's exactly what we are talking about. We've loaded up a Pogo with 4 people, all the food and drink we could buy, full tanks, an anchor and 200 feet of chain, and simply blow by regular boats. And they looked all stressed and wobbly; we trucked straight through.
The 36 is the same deal.
But English doesn't seem to be their publicist's primary language.
And it comes with a rigid bang, too!
I didn't see them, "sailing circles" around other boats.
Sure in perfect conditions, you can get a good flat plane. You can do similar things with multi's. But what about all directions and conditions, more what the average and crew will sail in?
That was my point, that's what we did. Off the wind at almost any angle, we went by boats at almost twice their speed. Twice. Upwind their are mortal, just like any boat. And we're good sailor but not rock stars. But boats are actually pretty easy to sail. I just did a 15 seconds search to find that video.I didn't see them, "sailing circles" around other boats.
Sure in perfect conditions, you can get a good flat plane. You can do similar things with multi's. But what about all directions and conditions, more what the average and crew will sail in?
My take on the multi-hull story; you put ANY weight on a cruising multi-hull and it's not much faster than a mono. They really slow down as the hulls sink in, and they REALLY sink in when you load them up. The advantage of multis is ROOM, not speed.
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