Let’s say you want to buy a Westsail 32… Let’s say you study the market and see that you can buy a pretty exceptional turnkey example of the design for $50K and a mostly turnkey example fo $30K that might need a bit (around $5K or so) of TLC. So, what do you do? Buy …
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the process of simplification and why so many of us seem to have so much difficulty with the process… It really should be simple, shouldn’t it? As it happens, Mariah of Comet Camper Blog fame/infamy actually teaches a class from time to time on the nuts and bolts …
I’ll repeat that. There is no one right boat. I mention this because, on a pretty regular basis, people tend to ask me which boat is the right one for them and they always seemed a bit disgruntled when I tell them that pretty much anything that floats right side up that they can afford …
Yesterday, Dmitri Orlov (whose blog and books you really should be reading) asked for some help in replacing the engine in his boat. It got me thinking… There are many ways to raise the needful cash to get a boat and go cruising other than the standard one of being born to a well-off family …
Here’s a point that seems to have escaped a few readers comprehension… the VolksCruiser thing is not really about cheap. The idea is not about getting a “cheap” boat and go sailing off into the sunset/sunrise but to point out that it is possible to sail a good boat anywhere you care to go in …
Here’s a great description of the VolksCruiser ethos in a nutshell. Sure, it’s talking about riding across the country on a bicycle but, for all practical purposes, sailing/cruising and cycling/touring are the same sort of thing…
Face it, the hardest part of doing the VolksCruiser thing is really about focus. It’s easy to get distracted. Pick up any sailing magazine, visit a cruising forum, or dock walk just about any marina and you’ll be inundated with a staggering amount of pressure to conform and purchase shiny things you don’t really need …
So, here are a couple of out-of-the-box designs I really like… First up is by Michael Schacht of PROA File infamy so not exactly surprising it happens to be a Proa named “Herbie”. What impresses me off the mark is that in the proportions shown you won’t have to go up towards fifty-feet in length …
Yann Quenet shows us how it’s done… Kinda makes all sorts of sense.
A while back, a guy I knew dropped me a line from Ushuaia down at the tip of South America and he was just a little bit perturbed. As it happens, the reason for his upset is that the boat anchored next to him was a Westerly Centaur, a 26-foot bilge keeled “family” cruiser, not …
