Daggerboard catamarans

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Don't know how they justify $25K. There wouldn't be $2000 worth of material.... $23K for labour? Ridiculous.

I bet there is a lot more than $2,000 in materials just in the boards, not to mention the cost of construction, the trunks, and some profit margin for the guys doing the work. Serially produced A-Cat daggerboards are running about $1,000 each, a new board for the Stiletto 27 are $2,700 each. For a 40' cat $20,000 doesn't really sound like all that much to be honest.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by yeloya

I had talked sometime ago with a guy in O' yachts cats who are offering cats both with and without daggerboard. I don't remember exactly but the price difference that he quoted was around 20-25.000 €.
There is no way someone can do it for 2.000 USD, simply no way..
You cannot even buy two daggerboards at that price, not talking about the trunk and the changes that have to be done in the overall structure of the boat.

Cheers

Yeloya

Can't be done? Simply no way?

Well guess what? I've done it. And for WAY less than $2000. WAY less. Materials would have been lucky to amount to $500.

And the case is even cheaper. 10mm thick solid biaxial glass/epoxy, wouldn't have been $200 in materials.

Board and case, maybe 80 hours work. To fit the case, maybe 20 hours. Up/down haul, what, $50 in materials, 10 hours. Couple of hundred for some rope jammers.

And 30,000 nm later, no breakages.

There's some healthy profit margin in$25000....

[thinwater]

I've had 2 dagger board board boats. My current boat has LAR keels that I faired an extended.

a. No one mentioned hitting things. Perhaps I am at high risk because of where I sail , but I have hit two submerged logs. Both were in deep water (not submerged trees) and both times I was going >10 knots. The first snapped a solid mahogany board with glass cover (no rot or delam--it was only submerged underway) and the other bent a rudder shaft (would have taken it off if the rudder had not jammed against the hull). Although neither was that expensive to repair (DIY--yard quotes were very ugly), they do merit mention.

b. The log that bent the rudder hit the LAR first. No damage at all. In fact, without the LAR hit, the log would have certainly removed the rudder.

You really do NOT want to use boards unless you are sure you have 4 feet under the board. In the Chesapeake bay, at least, that eliminates a lot of sailing grounds. I used to do a lot of sailing with the boards 1/2 up just because the water was under 10 feet.

I like dagger boards on a day-boat, but on my cruiser, I'm not so sure I'm sold.

[CbroTheDude]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Can't be done? Simply no way?



Well guess what? I've done it. And for WAY less than $2000. WAY less. Materials would have been lucky to amount to $500.



And the case is even cheaper. 10mm thick solid biaxial glass/epoxy, wouldn't have been $200 in materials.



Board and case, maybe 80 hours work. To fit the case, maybe 20 hours. Up/down haul, what, $50 in materials, 10 hours. Couple of hundred for some rope jammers.



And 30,000 nm later, no breakages.



There's some healthy profit margin in$25000....

That's 110 hours of work not counted in the bill, where I live, for a skilled worker that would be at least 150k€...

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by CbroTheDude

That's 110 hours of work not counted in the bill, where I live, for a skilled worker that would be at least 150k€...

Over 50,000 Euro per week?

Where IS this worker's paradise?

[ejlindahl]

~8 or 10 years ago there was a second hand Outremer 42 for sale where the factory had fitted LARs not daggers. The sales literature stated the factory had determined that there was no difference in performance of the two types. There may even have been a few posts on this forum about it. Maybe I should run out and buy it and race against my buddy's dagger Out 42....... I'd still prefer daggers.

There is a 45 for sale now with LARs 2001 Outremer 45 Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

[jdazey]

Go for it. You've been wanting a cat anyway.

Cheers,

[ejlindahl]

Hi Joe,

I just edited my post: The one for sale with LARs is a 45, not a 42. But I swear there was a LAR Out42 as well.

At this time it would have to be more convenient than Polynesia to consider a purchase.

Hope to see you in our neck of the woods sometime.

[yeloya]

Originally Posted by CbroTheDude

That's 110 hours of work not counted in the bill, where I live, for a skilled worker that would be at least 150k€...

That seems a bit too much to me, but 110 man hours also is also impossible.
In our yard we charge 30 € per hour and this is roughly 3 weeks work for 2 skilled people.

3 weeks X 40 hours per week X 30 € per hour X 2 people = 7.200 €
With the materiel it should come to around K 10 € assuming that there isn't any additional work with the carpentery, wiring, etc.. inside the boat and the bilges.

Cheers

Yeloya

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by yeloya

That seems a bit too much to me, but 110 man hours also is also impossible.
In our yard we charge 30 € per hour and this is roughly 3 weeks work for 2 skilled people.

3 weeks X 40 hours per week X 30 € per hour X 2 people = 7.200 €
With the materiel it should come to around K 10 € assuming that there isn't any additional work with the carpentery, wiring, etc.. inside the boat and the bilges.

Cheers

Yeloya

Well guess I've done the impossible more than once!

Seriously, if it's taking TWO skilled people 3 weeks to build and fit a pair of boards and cases, to a NEW build, they need sacking!

We're not talking about a retrofit here. This is about a company wanting to charge $25000 extra for daggerboards on a new build. And bear in mind, this is not a Gunboat, or any high end performance cruiser. No point fitting carbon boards to a +10 tonne boat.

So there's no additional work with wiring, and minimal carpentry, if any.

$25000 is a straight out ripoff. Most of that would be profit.

[CbroTheDude]

Originally Posted by yeloya

That seems a bit too much to me, but 110 man hours also is also impossible.
In our yard we charge 30 € per hour and this is roughly 3 weeks work for 2 skilled people.

3 weeks X 40 hours per week X 30 € per hour X 2 people = 7.200 €
With the materiel it should come to around K 10 € assuming that there isn't any additional work with the carpentery, wiring, etc.. inside the boat and the bilges.

Cheers

Yeloya

Ha true numbers change their value Friday night in a bar. Still to implement dagger boards there is some investment on engineering a better weight/toughness/cost ratio and some testing needed to fit regulations, profile calculations and all these expenses that need to be accounted for. Plus eventual modifications to the bildge, deck, hull and the additional time for which the spot in the line will be unavailable.. making them an option on "production" cats seem like the most expensive way of doing it

[mikereed100]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Don't know how they justify $25K. There wouldn't be $2000 worth of material.... $23K for labour? Ridiculous.

Agreed. When I was building my cat I thought it would be a lot easier to just buy a couple of boards from Catana or Outremer than to make my own. I was told that the boards would be something like 10k each. I made my own for $1100 for the 2 of them.
I recently spoke to a guy with a FP Athena who broke a rudder. FP charged him 7k for a new one, telling him that under no circumstances should he try to design and build his own.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Firstly, to be clear, I'm not attempting to call anyone a liar here. However I am truly curious to see the cost breakdowns on this by those who've done it. As below is a simplified (to me) example of this.

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Can't be done? Simply no way?

Well guess what? I've done it. And for WAY less than $2000. WAY less. Materials would have been lucky to amount to $500.
Using a very cheap combined aggregate materials cost of $5/lb for combined glass & resin, this breaks down to using 100lb of materials for both board trunks together. So 50lb per.
Now a 10mm epoxy/glass layup weighs 3 1/3lb/sqft. Ergo 15sq/ft of laminate per 50lb at that thickness/weight. Which certainly isn't anywhere nearly enough to build a DB trunk on a boat even close to that size.

Also, this does not include the costs of the DB, the glass used to attach the board trunk to the boat, nor the extra structural reinforcements built into the boat in order to handle the loads exerted by the boards/board trunks. Plus many, many other significant costs.
Thoughts?

And the case is even cheaper. 10mm thick solid biaxial glass/epoxy, wouldn't have been $200 in materials.

Board and case, maybe 80 hours work. To fit the case, maybe 20 hours. Up/down haul, what, $50 in materials, 10 hours. Couple of hundred for some rope jammers.

And 30,000 nm later, no breakages.

There's some healthy profit margin in$25000....

.
Time to play Devil's Advocate/insert a bit of fiscal reality. And by all means, if my numbers are way off, please delineate exactly; where, why, & by how much.

Okay, let's look for a moment at the above quoted figures just for a solid glass DB case 10mm thick, as stated. Board not included. And these figures are in $USD, with supplies purchased roughly at bulk rates. For an approximately a 40' catamaran.

The dimensions of the DB case would be roughly 2.5' long, 6" wide, & 7' tall. So 42sqft of area, not including external, integral trunk stiffeners, added enhanced hull & deck strength at the case's top & bottom, interior structures to attach the case to the boat, etc. Nor the design fees for same.

Say we use $8/lb epoxy, & $4/lb axials. So that for 42sqft of glass, that's 70lbs of resin, & 70lbs of glass. At a 50:50 ratio. Which works out to $840 per DB case.
That's not including any of the above listed "extras", nor tooling, consumables, design costs, electricity, shop rent, labor, insurance, taxes, materials write offs due to goofs, & just plain unavoidable waste (the utter minimum of which is 10%), etc...

Then, to attach the DB case to the boat, you’d likely want to use somewhere close to as much material for this as went into building the case itself. So that when you hit something with the board, the case doesn’t tear loose from the hull & hole you.Besides which, the loads on DB’s can be utterly huge, at least on a performance boat.Specifically, well in excess of twice the weight of the boat at times.

So if we add up the cost of one DB trunk, & the material required to connect it properly to the boat’s structure. Along with say an extra 15% for waste, & goofs. That’s $2k (USD) per board trunk.Not counting consumables, & all of the other costs associated with building a boat.Nor taxes, the board itself, It’s hardware, coatings, design costs, tooling, etc.

Now. Does anyone need me to do the math on what a daggerboard for a 13m+/- catamaran will cost? Using carbon fiber, or no? And yes, this question’s (mostly) rhetorical.

So, the above said, how does one build such a board trunk for a few hundred dollars, or less, as claimed? Especially when using the stated materials. I’m genuinely curious to see the math on that.


PS: I'd also love to see the costs & materials breakdowns for building boards for boats of this size on the cheap. Including what materials were used, in what quantity, where in/on the component being built, & at what price. And a ballpark layup sked for the boards would help on this too.

[Cavalier MK2]

Well the first place you can save on weight and epoxy/cost is by using ply and timber. A cubic foot of fir weighs about 36 pounds, a cubic foot of fiberglass weighs 96 pounds. 1/2 marine ply is suitable with a couple layers of of polypropylene inside for abrasion and fiberglass to reinforce the ends for impact. Timber trunk keel laminates with layers of uni or biax to take the splitting forces bulk up much faster and are lighter again than glass alone.

For people wanting to research these systems I suggest downloading a copy of the Gougeon boat building manual and contacting the Mariners Museum in Newport News to research their extensive Newick plan collection.

Materials come down to a couple sheets of ply, some timber for keel and trunk end laminates, a few yards of various cloths and fibers, a couple gallons of epoxy.

For foam/glass Ian Farrier's site has lots of information for the DIY sailor as do others. The main thing is to plan the supporting structure and bulkheads to take the loads. Some designers will sell plan sheets in both timber and foam glass from a stock plan. The blends of cost, weight and performance are out there you just need to decide what is best for you.

[yeloya]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Well guess I've done the impossible more than once!

Seriously, if it's taking TWO skilled people 3 weeks to build and fit a pair of boards and cases, to a NEW build, they need sacking!

We're not talking about a retrofit here. This is about a company wanting to charge $25000 extra for daggerboards on a new build. And bear in mind, this is not a Gunboat, or any high end performance cruiser. No point fitting carbon boards to a +10 tonne boat.

So there's no additional work with wiring, and minimal carpentry, if any.

$25000 is a straight out ripoff. Most of that would be profit.

So nif you sayu you did for 2.000 USD, that's fine. Congratulations..

We are probably talking about different DB's and trunks. If it worked for you, it doesn't mean that will work everyone. We have seen here the prices ranging from awfull factory prices down to 2.000 USD. Anybody who paid less than 2.000 USD to win the contest ??
BTW, where from did we come to this contest of chepeast possible DG manufacturing ???

Cheers

Yeloya