So, the last few days had me shopping for a small affordable catamaran, and, like Dr. Thompson used to say, things turned ugly. Part of the problem is that the words “affordable” and “catamaran” just don’t seem to fit into a sentence together. Wharrams, long the gold standard for budget cats are selling for silly …
One thing you have to keep in mind is that no one is designing or building what I’d call a VolksCruiser. Take that Pop 25 from the last post as a good example. It starts out with a hull and accommodation that just screams VolksCruiser yet when it comes to the rig it starts getting …
Here’s a boat I’ve mentioned before both here and over at Boat Bits… It’s Roberto Barros’s Pop 25 design which is a pretty neat boat of the VolksCruiser persuasion. I’m putting it up here today because I’ll be talking about some construction details that might apply to another design tomorrow and you might want to …
Everybody has their own budget parameters and most have both a public and private parameter set. Everyone is so concerned about what people may think about their financial well-being that they feel the need to fudge on what they can or cannot afford. I trust you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, this inability to …
I tend to confine my perusal of sailboats of the VolksCruiser ilk to Craigslist and Le Bon Coin. Both venues have what I’ll call a mostly reality-based interface as long as you know what you’re looking for and have done your homework. That said, whenever buying something used like a boat it’s best to be …
So, here’s a boat that just made it into my top ten VolksCruiser candidate list… It’s the Ted Irwin Endeavour 32CB which came from the same mold as the Irwin 32. The main change is that when they refurbed the mold they added a few inches to the length and beam which also added a …
It occurred to me that you just don’t see a lot of homebuilt cruising boats in the Caribbean these days and I find that all kinds of depressing. One reason is that DIY boatbuilding has become something of an antisocial activity in a “We are what we buy” world. A world that seems to look …
As much as I love the CAL 34, I’d much rather have a Columbia 34 MK2 SD or Columbia 34 MK2 CB. What can I say but that extra bit of shoal draft makes all the difference. Another reason I like Bill Tripp’s design is its great foredeck that’s big enough for a dinghy without …
It’s come to my attention that there are several CAL 34s going cheap (as in less than $3K). This got me thinking about how I’d go about VolkCruiserizing them today knowing what I know now after living aboard and sailing “So It Goes” for ages. For starters, there’s a CAL 34 going for $1k which …
