Yesterday I did a Craigslist search on some of my favorite VolksCruiser candidates one of which is the Bill Tripp designed Columbia 26 MK2. As it happens I found six of these boats for sale and all of them were selling for $3000 or less. The average price was just a kiss shy of …
The current issue of Blue Water Sailing (not a magazine I read on a regular basis) has an article on “New Cruising Boats” and it seems that the cheapest boat listed is about $175,000.00 or so. Which, I’ll admit, does seem in the cheap-seats when compared to the boats on the list over a million …
When a $175,000.00 boat is considered cheap-seats… Read More »
“One of the very best boats ever designed. I based a good part of my design work around the Haida 26. I love that boat.”… Robert Perry Robery Perry sure knows what he’s talking about. For a variety of reasons I monitor sailboats for sale in a few places and a 26-foot Haida in Washington State popped …
This is about the time of year I perk up and pay attention to the various and sundry pre-boatshow press releases as there are usually some interesting bits of information on where boat design is going. Take this new boat from Dufour… It’s the smallest boat in the Dufour line which in itself is interesting …
I read recently how Keith Leitzke has returned from another cruise to nowhere in particular and it got me thinking about a few things… The first being how that Bill Lapworth’s CAL 20 is still a great minimal cruising design in spite of the fact that it was never really designed to be one. While …
regarding a very long voyage in a pretty small boat… Read More »
Checking Craigslist this morning I saw there was a Pearson Triton being sold off at a marina in the San Francisco Bay area for $750. You might say it caught my attention. It’s a great design, Dan Spurr used the Triton as his main example of how to fix up a small boat for …
OK, I get it. “Everyone” says that if you buy a fixer-upper sailboat with the goal of turning it into a cruising boat it will all end in tears. Some will tell you that you’ll wind up with nothing but an expensive disaster that you’ll have to pay someone to dispose of it in some …
On that big hole in the water you throw money into… Read More »
I’m often asked just what a VolksCruiser actually is in terms of solid definition and, for the most part, my answers to that particular question tend to be somewhat vague. It’s akin to Justice Stewart’s famous quote on what pornography is… “We know it when we see it” Which is pretty much how I’ve approached …
Eleven factors that come together to make a VolksCruiser… Read More »
So, while I really like the Lyle Hess designed Balboa 26 I’ll be the first to admit that at 3600 pounds of displacement it’s not quite up to the requirements of long distance voyaging. Now, this Lyle Hess design is a whole different kettle of fish… It’s the 26-foot Falmouth Cutter which has a beam …
Throwing a couple more 26-foot boats into the mix… Read More »
There’s a post over at Interesting Sailboats on whether the Pegasus 50 is the perfect fifty-foot long range voyage yacht or not. It’s (like everything on his blog) well worth reading. I mention this as it would appear that fifty-feet is becoming the new norm for cruising boats and it says a lot about what …
On the subject of the new norm in cruising boats… Read More »
