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 …
Truth be told, there’s not a lot of difference between most of the classic plastic designs and when you look at a CAL 34, Columbia 34, or a Whatever 34 it’s easy to see that all of the designs tend to cover the same bases. Since they all use the same rig, the same accommodation …
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 …
My recent post on the Beachcomber 25 produced some emails of the “A 25-foot boat is too small to cruise or live on” variety and a fair bit of outrage. I get that. A 25-foot sailboat is, after all, a small boat. That said, in my own defense I’ll point out that not all 25-foot …
There’s a J-29 up in the frozen north that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit. For those unacquainted with the design it looks something like this… It, like most of it’s J-Boat brethren, is a boat designed and built to be competitive so you may be wondering why the hell am I looking at …
There’s an interesting forum thread on the current asking price of a Pearson 367 on the Junk Rig association forum you might want to check out. Sure fixing up an older cheap boat might seem like a lot of work but, done with some care and a prudent budget, will greatly increase the value of …
Apparently, there are so many old boats out there that it’s affecting new boat sales. Think about that for a moment. What does the longevity of classic plastic say about how well these boats were made so that in spite of abuse and neglect they’re still floating and right side up? Just sayin’…
Sure, I know that there’s a helluva lot of peer pressure to adhere to consumerist dogma but, just for a moment think about what you can afford rather than what you think others will opine on what you need to spend to be accepted. I see a lot of folks selling the idea that “price …
As far as the R2AK was concerned there were only four boats I was rooting for. One of which, Loustic SuperSonic, was my favorite. Seriously, how you could not be engaged to the story of a couple buying an old Santana 20 sight unseen, arriving days before the races start, and having to get the …
