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...

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a quick note on what it takes to be happy

About that so-called "Persecution", a little situational awareness, and some old good advice...

I was reading an old cruising log the other day detailing a familys cruise from the UK to the Med then on to the Caribbean and back to the UK and it reminded me just how much cruising has changed in the last thirty years.

They didnt have electronics of any sort. Not even a radio. Lighting was kerosene as was the stove and there was no ice box with the more perishable provisions being simply kept in the bilge.

Their boat (an Eventide) was all of 26-feet for the four of them with not so much an inkling of mutiny...

Oh yeah, they also seemed to be having a great time in the process.

Listening to Kevin Kinney

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a quick thought on tools and toys

A cost of bad policing, something you need to read, and NASA doing it right...

The other day I was looking at the interior of a nice yacht with a lot of beautiful interior wood, lush fabrics, and a lust inspiring media center focused around a 66" ultra-HD 4K video screen and it inspired two cascading thoughts...

"Boy, Id love to hang out in this boat"

and...

"What a horridly unseamanlike interior for a cruising boat"

Sadly, I find this is pretty much my reactions to most newer designs I look at these days which all seem great on comfort to the Nth degree but are sadly lacking in the practical needs of someone cruising in the real world.

Maybe its the fact that today cruising boats are thought of as toys rather than tools while a generation ago it was all about being a tool and not a toy...

Listening to Lydia Loveless

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a couple of quick multihull thoughts

Some needful reading, a good article on murder rates, and a very interesting proposal...

As most of you are aware, Im a big fan of Reuel Parker and think that anyone building a boat really needs to have read his "The New Cold-Molded Boatbuilding". Plus his designs are way cool...

Then again, theres this puppy...

...or, as I usually refer to it, the condo from hell. Of course, with modern multihull design and aesthetics being what they are these days, it would fit right in with whats out there. But, one really does expect better from a designer who draws such beautiful boats.

I suspect Mr Parker gave the client exactly what he asked for...

However, if you look closely at the design, I cant help but conjecture that there is a Wharramesque cat crying out to be released from its burden of the bridgedeck monstrosity someone stuck on its back.

An open bridgedeck with, maybe, a small pod would be less expensive, cheaper/faster to build, and perform a whole lot better as a result. All of a sudden Im finding this design a lot more interesting the minute the bridgedeck cabin gets left out of the mix.

Offhand, if I were thinking of building something like a Wharram, Im pretty sure Id give Parker a call and see what he might come up with the same sort of brief... Which is not to say that I dont like Wharrams (I built a Tiki 31) I do but, as there is a dearth of open bridgedeck cat designs, a little new blood and insight would be no bad thing at all.

Just thinking out loud...

Listening to the Mavericks

So it goes... 

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