Building an Acat is an excersize in choices.

Having done it myself, one of the considerations in making a 75kg boat is resale. If you build a 75kg boat, you will be able to resell it more easily and at a higher price than a 90kg boat. A used 90kg boat isnt going to be worth much, and since a new imported Acat can be $25 plus, its worth it to think about selling it later.

The majority of the "cost" is in labor. It takes a significant amount of time to make a set of hulls, beam them up/ rig the mast/ rig the boom, mount pintles, fit daggers to trunks, add systems for the tramp, etc.

So, if you are acting on this principle of making a 75kg boat to potentially resell it later, (and you should) and considering your time as valuable (and you should) you would want a light stiff hull. Carbon in the hulls produces a very stiff boat, I wouldnt bother with a glass boat to save money. The choices then are epoxy vs poly vs vinyl. And what core material do you use? Balsa, Nomex and foam are the most popular choices. Each has its advantages/disadvantages. I like Foam, but its a pain to get into a mold. It would work well for a strip plank build. Nomex is expensive, light, stiff, easy to work with but the open cells can absorb water, and can print through on the gel coat. Balsa is cheaper, easy to work with, can absorb water, and rot. I went with Epoxy, carbon, corecell foam sandwich, painted.

Masts. To have a competitive boat, you will need a carbon mast, and a newer sail. No real choice here. Its the engine, you wouldnt want to skimp here

Booms, tiller arms, extensions can all be either carbon or aluminum.

I ended up spending about $12k for my boat. Hall mast, new sail, new tramp, foam/carbon/epoxy/painted hulls, Forte beams, boom, tiller ext/connector, carbon rudders/rudderheads from Aus, curved travelor, midsheet boom, internal downhaul, alum rotator.

I didnt do anything tricky with adjustable diamonds, or adjustable spreaders or special sytems to pop up the rudders or daggerboards.

I know John is saying he spend $8600, but I would bet that once you add every last penny you spend on expoxy, hardware, building supplies, rigging, etc you would be closer to $10k.

Bill

Heres my spreadsheet.

Keep in mind these are 2005 prices, carbon is more expensive now, and I got a couple of very expensive items in trade, so put them in the spreadsheet at $0.

Bill

thermoform the foam in 100mm/150mm wide strips across the mold.

Now you tell me? If I would do it again, I would do exactly that. Foam still doesnt lay in the mold like Nomex.

So, paying yourself or anyone that helped you a minimum wage of $10 per hour, added to the supplies how much would the boat cost all said and done?

Jeremy

I didnt keep track of my hours.

Nor should you - it's depressing. Everyone asks me that about my r/c projects (like when they see the eye-spliced 1/32" 12 strand spectra).

If I felt like I needed to count the hours it wouldn't be enjoyable.

It's the journey that's as rewarding as the destination. Like my scale wooden model of HMS Resolute. Took all summer nailing the dang planks on the bulkheads, but looks really good (for an amature job) on the table.

Thanks for sharing Bill--very insightful; thank goodness you didn't keep track of your labor hours!

This probably deserves its own thread, but Jeremy you are in CA, let me know how well it goes trying to get good help paying them 10 an hr.

Anybody willing to work for $10 an hr is not likely going to have the work ethic or the skill to produce anything near the complexity and tollerences of an A cat. Then figure at 10 an hr wage the builder has to cover insurances, taxes, bennefits and other over head items like OSHA, DEP, etc.

You should also figure in the cost of a garage or rental shed. I built composites in my garage when I was single. The smell and dust will be more than enough to piss of any wife/girl friend I know of. Put in some cost for tooling, especialy dust collection, or plan on extra time working around the mess and itch.

Then you have tooling and development. This is particularly pertinent given the discussion on the A class curved boards. Molds are expensive to build. There is a lot of R&D involved in developing a competitve boat, all of which needs to recovered buy any builder by the boats they sell. If you are lucky enough to borrow the molds, or use a developed technique for part of it (LR2 plans, or Blade plans FE) you are lucky but somebody spent money to develop it anyway. The actual cost to produce a set of curved board will likely be only slightly more than a set of straight ones. Someone will have to cover the cost of 2 sets of more expensive molds (4 molds if using a curved trunk too) There is either significan additional install labor or fixturing to ensure adsolute alignment as this will be adbolutely critical to thier operation. AND there will be a not insignificant amount of development to be done to apply these to any hull shape, as it is quite a bit more involved than a little fiberglass work.

Building your own boat is a very cool endeavor. If you have the resources to latch on to good priced components and tap others experience, it is quite possible to build a very good boat. I have never know anyone to save any money doing it though, it was stricktly for the love of the project.