Being that I keep a weather eye out for used self-steering gear it’s hard to ignore that the current pricing for thirty year old wind vanes are just nuts. The other day I was quoted $2,200. for a 45-year old Aries which appeared to be in horrible shape. But, what the hell, boat folks are …
I’m at the point with the Islander that I’m overly aware of the current outgoing expenses and, while they’re minor compared to most boat projects, I’m rather miffed that the numbers are what they are. For instance, my better half today is on an expedition to go and buy some 2AWG 3/8″ cable lugs which …
I mentioned earlier that I’d found an inexpensive stove that I was going to try on the Islander and it arrived yesterday. The stove in question is this one… I’m actually pretty impressed. Inspecting the stove it appears that making it into a gimbaled stove will be non-problematic and at a cost of maybe ten …
Most of my time the last couple of days has been devoted to cleaning out the previous owner’s stuff, trying to grok his rather interesting thought processes, and making lists of things to do. The downside is I’m also having to make lists of stuff to buy, replace, and repair. Or in other words I …
There’s something to be said for a nice round number and $8K certainly fills the bill. Which, I suspect is why there are a plethora of boats for sale for just that amount. Some of which are even turnkey. There are myriad reasons that a good boat might be selling for such a number and …
There’s a Catalina 30 for sale in Hawaii that I’ve had my eye on for a while as it was selling for $5K and appeared to be in decent shape, and would not cost a fortune or too much time to sort out. The Catalina 30 is by its very nature an excellent contender for …
So, here’s a question. How do we define the cost of a VolksCruiser? Since most people think of boats in terms of length, we might want to try using that. At first thought, this seems to make sense as longer boats tend to be more expensive than shorter boats. Simple, right? Then again, how do …
So, the yearly Defender sale is with us again. There was a time when I really looked forward to Defender’s annual sale and did most of my heavy purchasing for the year during it. Nowadays, it just seems like a lot of stuff I neither want nor need selling for prices that are rather unimpressive …
Part of the problem of navigating life in a consumerist society is that, pretty much, everyone selling you something is only in it for the profit. That said, there’s nothing wrong with making a profit because, by and large, profit within reason is a good thing. Where it gets nuts is when profits exceed fair …
I’ve bought quite a lot of metal stock from Online Metals. Nothing big but over the years I’ve spent quite a lot of money with them on a variety of boat projects. Which is why yesterday, when I saw that I needed a couple of feet of 2″ aluminum angle for a mast project. I …
