For starters, it’s a monohull somewhere between 26 and 38 feet long and, while there are a few outliers, the average falls somewhere around 30 feet. By current “Yachting” standards it is too old to be fashionable and its age is somewhere on the wrong side of 25. The main thing you can say about it is that it’s of an age where it becomes almost invisible.
Invisibility, one might say, is an important factor in VolksCruising. Some might even say it is as close to a superpower as you can get. Neither impressive in looks enough to make one Ooh and Aah over nor down at the heels to stand out as something better consigned to a downwardly mobile trailer park. Being too nice, expensive, cheapish, or fugly are things best avoided when keeping a low profile.
A low profile is the cornerstone to successful VolksCruising.
Back when I was a lowly starving film student, I used to work for a guy who made aluminum snowshoes that we used to paint International Orange. Having access to this high tech paint allowed me, in a fit of stupidity, to paint my 1963 VW Microbus International Orange. Now, I’ll admit that orange was not my favorite color but the paint was free; I did a great job and the van looked great. In fact, I used to get a lot of attaboys on what a great paint job from lots of folks on the quality of my spraying skills. The downside was a lot of those compliments were from LA police and California Highway Patrol who, apparently, considered orange to be code for stop and hassle. When I went down to Mexico for a few weeks of surfing in Baja, I even got compliments from the U.S. Customs folk who dismantled my van to the point that it required a total rebuild and had to be towed back to LA on a flatbed trailer.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that keeping a low profile is a goodly thing. You want someone scanning an anchorage to scan past as if you’re not even there. That said, one should keep in mind this is not only for bureaucracy but includes some villain who may be looking for his or her next victim.
In other words, in a nautical vein, a VolksCruiser looks a lot like an off white, ten-year old Toyota Camry in a Walmart parking lot.
“”ten-year old Toyota Camry in a Walmart parking lot.””
I drive a 15 year old Toyota Avensis. The German Police and Customs pulled me before I got to the Danish border at Kiel, as their spyware told them i had driven through Brussells (cocaine central). Didnt dismantle the car, but every accessible void got probed, my full size spare was an alarm for them, so it was de-aired to check for “contents”, much to my amusement. Seems the jacked and bling AMG 55s are less on their radar these days. Looking like an old hippie probably didnt help, but i come away with the impression they realized they pulled the wrong Toyota estate, and the one they were looking for had passed through already. The trade extends into Sweden and onto Finland by road, apparently.
International orange IS a great colour.