waynemarlow hit it right on the head...it's mostly smoke and mirrors...
A good laminator is a good laminator...doesn't matter if he is using $4.50 a yard E-glass, $10.50 yd S2 Glass, $16 yd Kevlar, or $23 yd carbon.
It takes just as much effort to do a tight, properly wet out (resin to fabric ratio) hand layup with E-glass as with carbon...it cost just as much in associated materials (peel ply, bleeder cloth, plastic sheeting, vacuum pump etc…) to vacuum bag E-glass as carbon...a e-glass boat is built out of the same mold as one built of carbon…it takes just as much shop space to build a hull in e-glass as carbon...the pay scale doesn't change if a worker is using e-glass one day and carbon the next...
Workers comp Insurance costs doesn't change, the power bill to keep the lights on doesn't change, and the rent or property tax on the building the boats are built in doesn't change...it’s all BS…it’s all perception like waynemarlow stated above…people pay out the kazoo for something they perceive to be the best…it doesn’t have to be the best…just perceived to be the best…
If you are naive enough to believe that it cost an additional $15k to build the same F16 boat, in the same shop, in the same mold, with the same labor, with only the additional cost of 1K in materials (which I think that is being overly generous, 1 layer of 5.6 carbon inside and out, 50” X 12yds per hull/ 24 yd total @ $23.00/yd = $552.00) then they will be all to happy to take your money and laugh all the way to the bank.
As for “A” cats being so expensive…how many of each model do they make?
They change so often…it’s almost like the flavor of the week at the local Ice cream store, it would probably be much better to build them one off like the LR series….what is the point in making a mold when you will never produce enough boats out of it to recoup the cost?
If it costs $35K for tooling and you only build 10 boats out of it…you have to tack on $3,500 per boat, 25 boats you have to tack on $1,400 per boat, 50 boats $700 per boat…that is before you even get into materials/labor/overhead/profit. How many “A” cats of any particular design have been built in large numbers?
The “A” cat attracts sailors who want cutting edge design, state of the art materials, and have the money to pay for it…there was a need, and a group of builders is filling that need. You keep lamenting that Hobie and NACRA are not involved in the F16 class…well the “A” class doesn’t rise and fall on the participation or lack thereof of the big 2…what makes you think the F16 class will also?
(All retail prices I just pulled off the internet...figure a builder is getting between a 30% to 50% discount on above prices depending on the amount ordered and which distributor he buys from)
But the F16 rules allow someone to build a boat in prepreg carbon with a nomex core, to do this in the ideal way you would use a carbon mould too.. So I am not talking about building a boat in the same shop with the same workers. I am saying that you can build in a very high quality/tech and you will have a better product.
Add in the carbon mast, beams etc and you are increasing cost greatly.
As for the number of A cats being built, i would wager that there are a lot more A cats being built than f16.
But it could be as you say "smoke and mirrors"
