A quick thought about boom bust economics

Mind numbing, someones making sense, and, considering hes a man who would actually know, Id say this statement is important...

A friend of mine, who has been looking for a boat for some time, pointed out that he thought the price of decent fixer upper boats would keep falling and only an idiot would buy a boat at the moment.

Me, Im not so sure.

Bubbles confronted with reality always burst sooner or later. Its just a fact of life.

Where boats are concerned it is only a matter of time before folks are going to wake up and realize it is bad economics to sell a boat for less than the price of the lead in its keel...

On a side note, one of the fastest growing  criminal activities in the US of A is the theft of raw materials from buildings and infrastructure... Copper wire/pipe, aluminum, steel, and lead being the most sought after.

Just something to keep in mind...

Listening to Blues Traveler

So it goes...

Read More..

Economics of Kit Building

I receive a lot of questions and comments regarding the true cost of building a boat from scratch, full size patterns, and kits. Since I track time and materials closely, I have found that building from kits makes a lot of sense from an economic stand point. I took some discussions with customers/potential customers and put together this PDF on the economics of kits.

In a nutshell, the cost of building from a kit is not as much more than building a boat from scratch as people think because of the extra plywood required to build from scratch not to mention the time savings.

In the meantime, we are making progress on the first professionally built Goat Island Skiff (yawl version) which will be at the Maine Boatbuilders Show in Portland on March 18-20th. Please stop by. Well be in building 2 near the stairs up to food court.

When I post next, Ill have a PDF link that goes into more detail about how the designs/kits are produced in CAD and CNC cutting.

Read More..