The other day someone pointed me to a couple of Craig’s List self-steering gears to illustrate the argument that it was impossible to sort out a cruising boat on a frugal budget. One of the gears was a Hydrovane for $4K and the other was a Monitor for $3.8K… Which, I suppose, means that if …
The initial emails on the last post tended to fall into to two categories. The first being the “You’re an idiot” sort and the second is “It just can’t be done because you need to buy lots and lots of stuff!” zone. For the moment, lets just address the “lots and lots of stuff” argument… …
Reading today’s news from the USVI, I could not help but notice that the top money guy (in what passes for a government) is simply clueless where actual economics is concerned and, apparently, can’t do simple math… That said, not really very unusual these days where politicians are concerned as we seem to live in …
All this talk about money and budget, while needful, is just a way to focus your attention on why a VolksCruiser has to have certain qualities to do its job. Getting you where you want to go, keeping you safe, and being a comfortable home in the process while not costing more than you can …
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 …
I’ll get this out of the way from the GetGo… Affordable IS important. So, back to the list: Affordable to build or buy Affordable to cruise and maintain on a tight budget The hard part when the word affordable comes into play is it means different things to different people. What’s affordable to a person …
So, having had the want list percolate for a couple of days I find pretty much everything on the list can pretty much be reclassified to go into the “Need” list… The exceptions being: Shoal draft (1 meter or less) That will dry more or less upright Outboard motor Standing headroom (6’6″) would be nice …
This TED talk really struck a chord for me. It has nothing to do with boats and Need/Want lists yet everything to do with boats and Need/Want lists…
This is just neat… A Garmin GPS chartplotter and fishfinder for $299. While being told I’m a Luddite all the time I can still see the value of good quality cheap electronic aids to navigation because they make the whole VoksCruising gig easier, safer, and more affordable. Sure you can pay a lot more for …
and in “the best of times the worst of times” department… Read More »
