Australia Is Such an Overpriced Sh**hole - AAARGH

[Weyalan]

If the prices are high it is simply and only because people are prepared to pay those prices. If more people did head off to the USA to purchase, then prices would fall, wouldn't they?

I don't disagree that prices in Australia are expensive... often ridiculously so, but nobody is forcing anyone to buy a boat, here, for a million bicks that you could buy for $150k less elsewhere.

I have just about finished my Christmas shopping. But so far not 1 thing has been purchased in Australia.

[David M]

In 2007, adjusted for US dollars the US has a higher median income than Australia according to this...
Median household income - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by David M

In 2007, adjusted for US dollars the US has a higher median income than Australia according to this...
Median household income - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A lot has changed since 2007, especially ROE.

Average and median are both troublesome stats as they are single point and don't describe the distribution well enough.

P90s, average and SD would be much more colorful and descriptive.

3 of 5 of my Australian employees now earn more USD than I, simply because of ROE change. However, I wouldn't like to try to maintain my current lifestyle in Sydney on my meager USD wage - LOL...

[muskoka]

I think I'll take my boats to Australia when I want to sell.....

[delmarrey]

Here ya go........ A fiber glass 45' power Cat with twin 3208 CAT mains and jet drives only US$89,000.
45' Modutech Power Catamaran 1987 - Beachable! Trades considered

[TaoJones]

For sure, the pictures of DeFever Trawlers are nice, but before you let yourself fall in love with one, cat man do, read Re: Advice on buying Defever Trawler. (minaret, post #12)

TaoJones

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

For sure, the pictures of DeFever Trawlers are nice, but before you let yourself fall in love with one, cat man do, read Re: Advice on buying Defever Trawler. (minaret, post #12)

TaoJones

And post 14 from Phil

She was built in the Oriental Boatyard, Japan and the workmanship was outstanding.

and 16

As I recall, those DeFevers built in Japan in the 70's were better built than those constructed later in Taiwan. I don't believe that there were any built of fiberglass that came out of Japan at the time but I could be corrected. Certainly the 54 footers were of mahogany with oak ribs... I believe that one of the main reasons for the move to Taiwan was cost according to Art DeFever

And that particular vessel was one of the mahogany hulled ones from Japan.

[rrranch]

Not that I would ever consider living in australia, You all have a problem with all my guns for some reason, but you do have a lot of good things. Beaches are tops on my list! I almost ended up there a long time ago with a woman I met in sydney but glad I didn't. Texas is kinda nice. I just wish our beaches were more like yours.

[44'cruisingcat]

Finish the boat, go cruising and don't worry about boat prices!

[monte]

Hahja I'll take the higher prices great beaches and no guns thanks. Yeah aus is expensive. Crowded an dangerous. I suggest y'all give it a wide berth.
Monte

[Johnathon123]

It continues to amaze me the ridiculous #%@* peddled in Australia as quality boats.

I can't believe some of the cr@p I have seen advertised as "Bristol" only to look at it and see rot, threadbare sails, and the barely functioning engines.

The market is just amazing and brokers are generally happy to fuel the fire because there $$$$$depend on it.

Where possible I prefer dealing with owners direct they seem to have a more realistic view.

[Jimbo485]

You are dead set right, cat man do!

So why not buy in the US and take it home? We have bought 2 boats in Florida, zero in Aust. My sister and family bought their cat in California and sailed it back to Darwin last year.

Or you can buy our boat in Brisbane in a couple of years if you want!

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by Jimbo485

You are dead set right, cat man do!

So why not buy in the US and take it home?

Maybe because I was already half way into a build before the world turned to **** and boat prices plummeted.

And I would have no interest in bringing a boat back to Australia if I did buy Overseas as the whole reason for building a passagemaker in the first placewas to get to Overseas.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by cat man do

Maybe because I was already half way into a build before the world turned to **** and boat prices plummeted.

I feel your pain!

I bought an old racer and have been converting it to a cruiser for the past 10 years.
Now with what I have into it, at todays prices, I could have purchased something equivalent for the same $$$, w/o all the labor.

But, at least, I know the boat inside and out w/o worry. Just finish it and enjoy the results, it's all new. That's my plan.

[Wand]

Originally Posted by cat man do

...Instead I will stumble back outside to increase toxin levels to new highs and continue the insanity that is boat-building ever eager to get out of this so called "Lucky Country".

Steps down off of soapbox mumbling expletives

For the record, the "lucky country" reference was originally scribed as irony. It was the title of Donald Horne's 1964 book but has been used ever since without irony by those who have never read it. See the following obit excerpt from some years back...


It was on a hot summer's night in December 1964 that Donald Horne gave the nation - to use and much more frequently to misuse - the famous words by which he will be best remembered.

"I was about to write the last chapter of a book on Australia," recalled Horne, who died yesterday, aged 83. "The opening sentence was, 'Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck."'

Thus it was that "a series of essays held together by a last-minute final thought about what it was all about" became the best-selling book The Lucky Country.

It was meant as an indictment of an unimaginative nation, its cosy provincialism, its cultural cringe and its White Australia policy. But much to Horne's subsequent misery, many failed to detect his irony and many more, either wilfully or lazily, misinterpreted his words.

Despite revisiting his topic and his catchy title, in The Lucky Country Revisited, he was later to complain: "I have had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase."

Horne was especially scathing of journalists who slotted the phrase into all sorts of headings. One, he recalled, read, "We are indeed a lucky country for surfboards."

In fact, before he established his reputation as an academic, philosopher, political campaigner, and author of more than two dozen books, including an autobiographical trilogy and three novels, Horne was a journalist.

After starting at the Sydney Daily Telegraph, he went on to contribute to papers and magazines around the world, and to edit several publications, including The Bulletin twice, once from 1961-1962 then again from 1967-1972.

It was during one of these stints that he removed the infamous words "Australia for the White Man" from the magazine's masthead. Typically, he did not seek the permission of The Bulletin's proprietor, Frank Packer.

"I went down to the composing room and I said to the head compositor, 'Would you take that off.' I can still remember seeing it ... it was in metal. He puts his tweezers down and pulls it out. 'Australia for the White Man', and I said, 'Would you melt it down."'

Horne, who was born in the Hunter Valley town of Muswell-brook, initially supported conservative causes, but moved to the left in the late 1960s. He was highly critical of Gough Whitlam's dismissal, and as a republican, served on the Australian Constitutional Commission.