Why is the build quality of cats deteriorating ?

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Chotu

This is also an interesting factor.

Your post is exactly why it still makes sense to take on a building project as an individual rather than buying it from a production line.

Because you can get $1.5mil or $2mil worth of catamaran for less than that running your own project.

My boat is pretty much an exact copy of the gunboat 48. You can’t get one of those heavily used for less than $1.5 million. AND it would be almost 20 years old!

Fibreglass lasts forever and doesn’t seem to mind millions of cycles, so what’s the problem with a 20 year old boat? Sure, it will likely need upgrades and refits, especially if it had deferred maintenance. But pick the right design and you have an excellent boat for a fraction of the price of buying new and a fraction of the time and stress of building your own. Amortise the upgrade/refit period over a number of years and the costs are easier to bear than as a big bang all at once immediately after purchase. Plus you get to live with your boat and use real life experience to determine what really needs to be done. Did you know all that when you started your build?

In our case, we bought a now 20 year old boat 6 years ago. Since then we’ve spent approximately 60% of the then purchase price on refit and upgrades - thankfully with two working adults for most of that time and no other debts/expenses. Now we’re out cruising on a boat that exactly suits our needs and desires and is on the same refit cycle as if the boat was new. Note that we’ve only addressed about 10% of the original works list that we compiled when we bought the boat - the rest of the items on that list were crossed off and replaced by actual needs/desires as we lived with the boat.

We look at new and newish boats with some envy - who doesn’t want soft close drawers or curved daggerboards? - but then, who wants to work another 10 years to afford or build a new boat? YMMV

[barnab]

A building project may not be the ideal approach for the vast majority of those who buy production boats today...Talking about quality I doubt the majority would be able to even match the quality of a production boat in their first build...I also doubt that the majority has the skills to start building or ~7'000 hours for the build.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Fibreglass lasts forever and doesn’t seem to mind millions of cycles, so what’s the problem with a 20 year old boat? Sure, it will likely need upgrades and refits, especially if it had deferred maintenance. But pick the right design and you have an excellent boat for a fraction of the price of buying new and a fraction of the time and stress of building your own. Amortise the upgrade/refit period over a number of years and the costs are easier to bear than as a big bang all at once immediately after purchase. Plus you get to live with your boat and use real life experience to determine what really needs to be done. Did you know all that when you started your build?

In our case, we bought a now 20 year old boat 6 years ago. Since then we’ve spent approximately 60% of the then purchase price on refit and upgrades - thankfully with two working adults for most of that time and no other debts/expenses. Now we’re out cruising on a boat that exactly suits our needs and desires and is on the same refit cycle as if the boat was new. Note that we’ve only addressed about 10% of the original works list that we compiled when we bought the boat - the rest of the items on that list were crossed off and replaced by actual needs/desires as we lived with the boat.

We look at new and newish boats with some envy - who doesn’t want soft close drawers or curved daggerboards? - but then, who wants to work another 10 years to afford or build a new boat? YMMV

That was referring to the gunboat. That at 20 years old you are still paying $1.5 million for that thing.

YOU Have an excellent boat because you got a good production boat. You hit a sweet spot. I don’t think this thread is about boats like yours. I don’t think it’s about boats like yours at all. Lol

And yes. I knew all of this when I started my build. Every bit of what you are talking about. I’m not new to boats at all. I think I’m at like 35 years now of continuous boat ownership? Something like that.

Wow. Could have been a multi millionaire if it wasn’t for this boat addiction probably. Ha ha

When I started my boat build, it was not possible to buy a boat of the caliber that I wanted, so building was the only choice.

In any case, my post really doesn’t have anything to do with your boat. Or your choices. It’s speaking more to the topic of the thread. The boats that are being discussed here.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by barnab

A building project may not be the ideal approach for the vast majority of those who buy production boats today...Talking about quality I doubt the majority would be able to even match the quality of a production boat in their first build...I also doubt that the majority has the skills to start building or ~7'000 hours for the build.

I don’t know. There are several people in this forum that have built their own boat. And I have run into quite a few out there in the wild as well. By and large everyone’s first boat comes out much better than a production boat typically. The fit and finish may not be as pretty. But the actual boat itself is typically far superior because no expense is spared on materials and technique. People are typically perfectionists that do a build. That’s why we do them to begin with. Because there is nothing out there that matches what we want.


But That’s the thing. That’s why I didn’t say building a boat. I said managing a project. Because that’s all it is.

Granted, today the labor is probably not there. But it was.

The people that worked on my boat were from Hinckley, Catalina, and Tartan. They were actual employees of these companies working as laminators before joining my project.

A very large portion of building a boat is not actually just laminating things. It is planning, designing, purchasing. And working your butt off to afford the labor.

For instance. A lot of those thousands of hours are sanding right? I didn’t sand anything on my boat. I don’t think I could have completed the boat if I did all the sanding. I have some kind of mental aversion to sanding.

It took two guys a year working full time to fair my boat. And it was done to perfection. First, we actually fared the foam. Then did the infusion. Then it required the tiniest bit of fairing compound on the final product. Because the foam was faired first. This is the type of perfection that you don’t get on a production boat.

Granted the production boat isn’t even built that way. But if it were, this is the type of stuff that would never be done. They would have just gobbed on more fairing compound on the outside and made the boat heavier.

So, my point remains.

It’s a better deal to tackle the project of building a boat than it is to buy a production boat.

You don’t have to do everything yourself. You just hire it out. You do, however, have to be there. To ensure everything is done correctly.

The couple times that I wasn’t present and after my epoxy allergies, people did awful jobs on just about everything because I wasn’t standing over their shoulder. So many things has to be redone because of that.

But my point remains valid. You can get a much better boat for less money than a production boat if you just manage the project yourself.

Basically, I have a little bit lighter gunboat 48. I’m pretty sure I got a better deal than paying 1.5 million. And at the time of beginning the build, I think that boat was 2 million

[aqfishing]

As with anything in life there is no “one size fits all” I guess that’s what makes it interesting.
We went the charter boat route because it was the most affordable way to get what we want. Yes we end up walking away with a five year old yacht, but at least we got half our money back by then. As we use her in excess of 30 days a year we get to keep an eye on the maintenance. I think charter cats get a bad rap, they pretty good at building them to be fool proof and not have too much maintenance(well at least the R&C boats I have been on) and also reasonably priced compared to the more well build custom options like Balance, Vision, Seawind etc. However, that does seem to have changed. No. 1 they have gotten crazy expensive. No.2 the build quality and components really seems to have gone backwards. No.3 They are trying to put too much gadgety tech stuff onto these yachts and it is giving major reliability issues.
So glad we bought our 40 when we did. I always liked the new 42, but 3 years after we bought our 40, the new 42 would be an extra $300k or almost 60%. We used one for 12 days the other day, it’s a year old and the port lights are so badly corroded I was horrified. It had some nice features, but nothing to make me feel like shelling out the cash. I digress!

So back to my point and the thread. Building was definitely not an option and I honestly do not think it is for most people. Far too often I have seen home builds go pear shaped, so well done to those who did it, and are cruising on her now. Trying to project manage and use sub contractors can and has also gone horribly wrong.

I would love to own and cruise on a Balance, but then I would probably never get to go, or have a lovely yacht but not enough money to retire comfortably.

So we chose the route that suited us.

So many will say why did we not just get a 40ft mono that’s cheap and well built. After all it’s just the 2 of you?
The answer is simple…I would need to find another Admiral! And that in itself would be costly! (Besides the fact that I love my current Admiral and the whole point of the exercise is to do it with her! )

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Chotu

That was referring to the gunboat. That at 20 years old you are still paying $1.5 million for that thing.

YOU Have an excellent boat because you got a good production boat. You hit a sweet spot. I don’t think this thread is about boats like yours. I don’t think it’s about boats like yours at all. Lol

And yes. I knew all of this when I started my build. Every bit of what you are talking about. I’m not new to boats at all. I think I’m at like 35 years now of continuous boat ownership? Something like that.

Wow. Could have been a multi millionaire if it wasn’t for this boat addiction probably. Ha ha

When I started my boat build, it was not possible to buy a boat of the caliber that I wanted, so building was the only choice.

In any case, my post really doesn’t have anything to do with your boat. Or your choices. It’s speaking more to the topic of the thread. The boats that are being discussed here.

You changed the topic to talk about 20 year old boats. Other than some systems and especially if there’s deferred maintenance, a 20 year old fibreglass boat is not old. Depending of course on the quality of the original build. That’s where this become complicated and circles back to the OP’s question.

Is it just a problem with modern production charter-oriented cats and tris, or is it also a problem with similar monohulls? And is this new? As an example, I’m thinking that we’ve heard complaints about Beneteau’s implementation of their structural grid for well over ten years.

[Kinkircating]

They absolutely still make them, they just cost more than double what the charter cat manufacturers build them for. You end up having to ask yourself is spending the extra $1M worth it on a 50 something foot cat to have that level of quality, or can your mission with the boat accept their shortcomings.

The crazy thing is, all of these boats are just going to get more expensive as the years go on. But buy a quality boat built right and it will retain its value much better than any mass production cheaply made boat. It’s total cost of ownership you need to look at if you are planning to own the boat for 8-10 years.

[Redreuben]

Fibreglass is indestructible when it’s designed to be, if the design fails so does the fibreglass.

I worked in fibreglass in my 20’s and early 30’s in my experience laminators were treated with scorn and disdain, training was non existent and so the workforce was a revolving door of unskilled labour, you learn on the job but so many people just move on.
I have watched the local boat builders lower standards until they could no longer compete with the cheap Asian labour. One shop built a deck mould for cedar strip hulls, then a hull mould for foam sandwich and stitched fabric, then corematt and woven rovings.
Then bust.
Boats are a luxury, people don’t invest in boats like they do a home so it’s always the next cheapest option. Just the way it is.

[Kinkircating]

Originally Posted by Chotu

For instance. A lot of those thousands of hours are sanding right? I didn’t sand anything on my boat. I don’t think I could have completed the boat if I did all the sanding. I have some kind of mental aversion to sanding.

It took two guys a year working full time to fair my boat. And it was done to perfection. First, we actually fared the foam. Then did the infusion. Then it required the tiniest bit of fairing compound on the final product. Because the foam was faired first. This is the type of perfection that you don’t get on a production boat.

So just curious from start of the project to the day the boat splashed and had functioning rig and systems online, how many months did you spend building the boat? There is a gentlemen building a 52' Schionning with lots of high tech kit, documenting it on YouTube that is anticipating 2 years building it himself with contribution of time from friends. 10,000 total hours, seems aggressive to me, but you'd be a much better judge as you've done it, so curious what you'd estimate for his build?

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Kinkircating

So just curious from start of the project to the day the boat splashed and had functioning rig and systems online, how many months did you spend building the boat? There is a gentlemen building a 52' Schionning with lots of high tech kit, documenting it on YouTube that is anticipating 2 years building it himself with contribution of time from friends. 10,000 total hours, seems aggressive to me, but you'd be a much better judge as you've done it, so curious what you'd estimate for his build?

I don’t know. Still waiting on that rig right now.

I wish I could help. But I had a divorce. A heart attack. Had to open a new business (due to divorce), became deathly allergic to epoxy. That’s my one input. Don’t work with that stuff. It’s both slower to build with and way more dangerous even though it doesn’t smell like it is. I think of it a little bit like carbon monoxide. You don’t smell it but it can kill you. Same idea with epoxy in my mind.

So it’s not possible to account for how long mine took.

I had too many other life problems to know

I am the Frank Grimes of Boat building unfortunately.

[Kinkircating]

Originally Posted by Chotu

I don’t know. Still waiting on that rig right now.

I wish I could help. But I had a divorce. A heart attack. Had to open a new business (due to divorce), became deathly allergic to epoxy. That’s my one input. Don’t work with that stuff. It’s both slower to build with and way more dangerous even though it doesn’t smell like it is. I think of it a little bit like carbon monoxide. You don’t smell it but it can kill you. Same idea with epoxy in my mind.

So it’s not possible to account for how long mine took.

I had too many other life problems to know

I am the Frank Grimes of Boat building unfortunately.

Sorry to hear about your struggles, life definitely gets in the way when making plans. I think the health risks that you mentioned are truly underrated, and the reason to just go now vs. thinking you need to save up for the best boat possible. We are all deteriorating like it or not, so don't waste time as it's our most valuable asset next to health.

[Pizzazz]

Let's just be honest about affordability vs. quality. For most of us, the choice is between getting a boat or not getting a boat. Newer boats use high quality resin, are designed extremely well to maximize space and light and perform well. The chance that you will experience a catastrophic failure mid-ocean on a random new mass production boat with cheap hardware is significantly less than it was 20 years ago (due to quality production standards and ratings). The older boats that we see and love have a survivorship bias as mentioned above. So, let's enjoy what we have, that there are many more boats today and that the hobby is booming again.

If you really want a higher quality boat, get a lightly used, basic production boat and upgrade all the hardware and the interior to your specifications. It will be cheaper (than a limited series custom design) and it will be as safe as you want it to be.

[Kinkircating]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

Let's just be honest about affordability vs. quality. For most of us, the choice is between getting a boat or not getting a boat. Newer boats use high quality resin, are designed extremely well to maximize space and light and perform well. The chance that you will experience a catastrophic failure mid-ocean on a random new mass production boat with cheap hardware is significantly less than it was 20 years ago (due to quality production standards and ratings). The older boats that we see and love have a survivorship bias as mentioned above. So, let's enjoy what we have, that there are many more boats today and that the hobby is booming again.

If you really want a higher quality boat, get a lightly used, basic production boat and upgrade all the hardware and the interior to your specifications. It will be cheaper (than a limited series custom design) and it will be as safe as you want it to be.

This is a great point and spot on in my opinion! There is definitely survivorship biased at play here. The other thing that I would add to this is that technology has made sailing and crossing oceans significantly safer than 20 years ago as well. Modern weather routing and services drastically reduce the risk of getting into trouble. Can it still happen, yes absolutely, but in most cases, you'd have to have chosen poorly to be out in conditions that are life threatening.

There are a bunch of recent YouTube videos talking about "Blue Water" boats and how they don't make them like they used to made by people who's opinion I really respect. They have stories about how they've been caught out in some bad stuff, but when I ask them some simple questions like: 1) were you sailing out of season? or 2) did you knowingly sail into it having the forecast? And inevitably the answer is yes they knew it was coming but went anyway. Now maybe that's because they had a great boat and trusted it's capabilities, but all of the "stories" they have would be easily avoided.

Hell read "storm tactics"...which is 256 pages of explaining how they were sailing when they should not have been, where they shouldn't be and they hove to. It's a good book and the tactics very relevant, but if you mixed in Starlink or Iridium Go with downloading forecasts and sailing in season, the book would only need to be a blog post.

that's my $0.02

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Kinkircating

Sorry to hear about your struggles, life definitely gets in the way when making plans. I think the health risks that you mentioned are truly underrated, and the reason to just go now vs. thinking you need to save up for the best boat possible. We are all deteriorating like it or not, so don't waste time as it's our most valuable asset next to health.

Agreed. If traveling around the world is what you are looking to experience just go right now. There might not be a tomorrow. I couldn’t agree more with that.

It is a difficult calculus however. After something like 35 years of continuous boat ownership here, I really knew what I didn’t like. I actually was going to leave the hobby. What I didn’t like is getting no sleep because I’m rolling. I also wanted to get places a little faster because life is short. The more weeks you spend underway the less weeks you have to check things out. I know being underway is fun, but only to a point.

So it was either the boat I built or changing direction in life. That’s how I was seeing it at the time.

And I would not trade my waterline length or beam for anything in the world. Except more of it. Ha ha

To me, those are a couple of the most important factors for comfort. It’s not about being fancy. It’s not about trying to look a certain way. It’s about eating up that chop and staying relatively motionless.

But I still insist that for the money, you will get a significantly better boat if you take on the project yourself rather than handing it off to a project manager at a different boat building place. Significantly better. Because you care.

Every stitch of work I did on that boat was with the thought that the life of my loved ones depended on it.

The boat was built with absolute perfection. Structurally, it is exceptional and extraordinary. There are no defects. I didn’t allow for any because I was thinking so much about how if one small defect existed, and that defect caused a structural problem that resulted in putting my loved ones in danger, I couldn’t live with myself.

Pretty sure the laminator that heading out for lunch with a few beers or ducking out early on Friday for the weekend doesn’t feel the same way.

Even the owner of the company or the quality control person doesn’t have the same vested interest that one does if they take control of their own boat project.

They aren’t building a boat because their life depends on it. They are building a boat because they want a paycheck. There’s a big difference in the motivation and quality.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Chotu

I don’t know. Still waiting on that rig right now.



I wish I could help. But I had a divorce. A heart attack. Had to open a new business (due to divorce), became deathly allergic to epoxy. That’s my one input. Don’t work with that stuff. It’s both slower to build with and way more dangerous even though it doesn’t smell like it is. I think of it a little bit like carbon monoxide. You don’t smell it but it can kill you. Same idea with epoxy in my mind.



So it’s not possible to account for how long mine took.



I had too many other life problems to know



I am the Frank Grimes of Boat building unfortunately.

You’ve had a very tough road to travel; I’m very sorry to hear about your troubles. Not unlike a significant percentage of other boat builders - many of which never finish. At least you’re almost there!

How long has it been since you first started to build something associated with your cat? Surely you know your start date within a month or two? I’m curious.