Thanks, Special K - you apparently said it better than I.

I think the F18 class is trying hard to keep the cost down, but it's a battle hard to win. Each development is incrementally more expensive.

The board length is a great example, a set of custom autoclaved carbon boards for a F18 do cost a small fortune. Some top teams have them made by Reverie. £1100 for one. £2200 a pair. That's $3500 just for the daggerboards...

I hope that the class rules are going to be amended to limit the length of the daggerboards to limit cost.

OK, I've got to chime in here. Well, I don't have to, but I am.

Pete, this vid of Monty Pythons is awesome!- from a conservative point of view!

Macca, I have met you twice, here in the states. I think you are spot on with your summaries of the costs, etc. But dude, sailing a 'Macca', now that sounds pretty fly!

Good day to all

Check out Vetcentric - some products of their prices are very good.



pet meds

pet meds? they must think our "cats" are sick

Ok I was not going to jump in...
Cost are up but really the cost of the actual materials come on, that is Carbon Cloth, Foam, and Epoxy is just a small fraction of total cost, plus the boats are built in SE Asia where labor is next to nothing.....I'm not buying the spin on materials causing a 50% increase in cost.
I bought a full roll of carbon for $2500, 10 gallons of west system epoxy for $800 I’ll throw $500 for the foam that is $3800 and enough to build several Cats with less than half of the roll of Carbon used.

Materials ARE way up, but this is not the major cause of the cost.
It is the expectations of what people are purchasing that is driving the cost escalation.

Lamination materials are typically sold by the pound. An H16 hull weighs more than an F16 hull, but there is a huge difference in the labor that goes into one. Controlled resin contents and more importantly the finish work that goes into a modern hull to finish seams, keels etc. Nobody wants a performance boat with H16 style hull joints. We used to get by with stamped metal blocks, stay adjusters etc. Now we buy a boat and it has to have carbon blocks – really. It was 2-3 bucks for a stamped strip with holes in them for the side stays, now we expect 45 dollar sta-masters or 75+ calibrated turnbuckles., high tech tapered lines etc.

Horizontal cut Dacron sails were norm, now we have to have radial cut Pentex, carbon, whatever super sails to compete. Some 5 times the amount of sewing and a huge jump in material cost.

All these things add up to way in excess of double and if you really look at what people are getting for their money, I would venture to say the cost of an F18 or other performance boat is a better value, relative to what you are purchasing, now than the boats that were being raced 20 years ago. Do we need those things – that is debatable, but it is what we have progressed to.

If costs are the driving factor, then hey there is a class still for you – Rick here would love to see everyone on Waves.

Are you kidding me? You may try to sell it by the pound but nobody buys it by the pound. Bagging and infusion takes less labor then hand lay-up of the olden days, the labor is at Asian rates, the finish is the result of the mold or tooling. OK High tech parts may cost more I still don't see 50% but I'm getting dizzy from the spin.

Well, sounds like some domestic, boutique builder could produce small quantities with a nice tidy profit built in!

Sorry for my passion but I feel the boat builders in the US have gone the way of Wal-Mart - Made in Asia. This entire shift means there is more profit to the company yet we see higher prices to the customers. We will see what happens to quality as time goes on. But if you budget to drop 30k - 45K for one or two years of sailing cool.

It goes back to if you want to play you got to pay and if they can get away with it so be it.

Here’s the spin.
I build composites for a living so I know a bit about this. I do not build boats anymore so there is no interest here on my part other than as an observer.

Polyester resin, gel coat, chop strand mat and rovings are all purchased by the pound. These are the things that make up your H16 of the day. I have visited a factory making F16. They were using Vinylester resin and gel coat still purchased by the pound. The fabrics are textile weaves, knit cloth and uni directional fabrics. The knits are still by the pound, but the uni and textiles are by the square yard. (Note Chop strand mat and woven roving run between 1.05 1nd 1.50 a pound, knits anywhere up to about 2.50/lb depending on the fabric weight, where a 6oz textile weave is about 3/sy or almost $9 per pound should you care to compare)

With an H16 assuming your mold is good you glue together the hull and deck, trim the edge and you are done. The newer performance hulls all have finished seams, requiring labor to fair and finish whether it if it is gel coat or paint it is still a lot of work. I have followed your blog – so you should know a little bit about the amount of work that goes into a fair shinny surface. Apart from the regulations on most developed countries this is a big part of the reason many of the companies have gone to China.

Open up your Harken or Ronstan catalog and look up the difference in price between the carbo line and the Hexaratchet stuff, look up Dyneema lines vs. pure polyester, look at sat-masters vs. holed chain plates. Everyone more the double at current prices. Add to that the fact the cost of the cheap stuff has still had its fair share of increase as well.

Our junior sailing fleet is made up of Sabots with dacron sails and Open Bics with clear plastic, wind surfer type sails. The dacron sails are pretty much bullet proof, the plastic not so much. At three years old they started to crack and tear. It was costing us $40 a panel to repair vs. replacing them for $450 each.

One of the kid's father works for Neil Pryde. He goes to their loft in China every two months. He looked at the Bic sails and said he could get them duplicated in his loft for $150 and he'd cover the shipping.

Here I agree with you, on the bail out to China. Pretty crappy and it is not a US only issue as several Euro builders have and are making the jump as well. You can all buy boats now made inthe same shop - what a deal.

You do have 1 performance cat builder still building in the US - Falcon

Yep! And as long as Matt keeps the build in the US that's where I'll buy my next F18!

Youre not factoring the cost of hardware
I just built out an acat mast
I thought I could save some money just buying a bare tube

20 hrs labor and $1,700 in hardware later I had a mast...

There's a lot of hardware that goes into a complete F18

mimi not to get into a debate my point is they, me and you buy bulk 1 gallon, 5 gallon, or a drum of resin, a roll of cloth. I agree that cost is fixed by some unit of measurement.
They do not purchase say 12.32 pound for an individual boat or part. I have been in more than a handful of small boatbuilding shops (boats less than 40 feet) looking at the operations and some very large ship yards…
When I bought my first NACRA 5.2 I cleaned up the seams on that hull anything can be taken to the 10th degree. I’m guilty of that 100 times over I guess that is why I like to build boats and restore old cars.
It has seem that costs have gotten out of control…..well until or if I every roll out the TMS-20 then everything I say now will be retracted except build in USA always.

I gotta ask. What was the breakdown on 1700 in mast parts?

i would think economies of scale are needed to be profitable (that doesn't even take "competitive" into account)

I think if you're laying up a hull with a glass chopper gun, you will be buying glass spools by the pound.

Ha I remember my first boat building job they had a hell of a chopper gun!

Jake how do you vacuum bag Chopper Mat?