A quilt with a message, when we’re not the good guys any more, and in the “It’s about time!” department…
Personally, I find the subject somewhat perplexing because everyone seems to have a different concept of affordability. For instance, there’s a young couple I know who just bought a fifty-foot sailboat for something like $100K. They expect to spend another $100K to make it right. They did mention that they thought their outlay was affordable.
Now, I cringe when my preferred guitar strings go up $1 a set which results in an elevated attack of severe sticker shock. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize a $200K fixer upper is not in my affordable wheelhouse. No frelling way!
I can’t I afford a $200K boat project as I know full well that I’d never be able to afford the upkeep. Throw in that I don’t need a $200k boat, it pretty much seals the deal.
The really depressing part of affordability is that stuff these days mostly costs more than it should. Price gouging is a given, obscene profits are considered de rigueur, and the simple idea of fair value is a foreign concept. Which results in a SNAFU set of affairs.
Mostly, I see a lot of unaffordable boat projects being promoted as the one true path to sailing off into the sunset. It’s depressing. It’s also one of the reasons that I hardly ever watch boat project videos on the internet anymore.
I’ll leave you with the sort of boat project I’d really like to see. Someone who makes $15 bucks an hour with some reasonable skills and the ability to critically think his/her way through the process.
I’d actually watch that.
Oh yeah, I’ll add the proviso that fund raising is not part and parcel of the project either.
Triloboats DIY barge sailers! Time for the concept to come into its own. Or maybe a major push to re-rigging classic plastic with polytarp junk rigs on steel pipe masts. Or learning to sail engineless and throwing out the blown diesel with yawlboat training wheels Yadda yadda yadda . Buoying the spirits of the $15 a hour crew.