Resin Research Composite Pro is better than West and costs less. Your not officially allowed to complain about epoxy prices until you pay over $200/gallon for the good stuff, like Pro-Set and MGS.
The price of carbon keeps going up, which keeps increasing the costs on foils. I have carbon here that is over $100 per meter, and you need quite a few meters to build a 7 foot long F18 dagger board.
New sail prices aren't exactly going down either, few production boats are coming with U.S built sails so that's another USD<Euro problem.
F18 daggers are now 7 feet long???
Not at all, Mike - I guess a better way to put it is,
Why are M24s so much more expensive than an F18?
You have been close to a Melges, right? For starters, there is a lot more material in those boats than ours. Considering the relative size, they are somewhat proportionally priced to a F18. Not to mention, their sails cost a ridiculous amount of money. How they ultimately justify the cost of these boats is beyond me, although I'd venture to say there are fewer of them than most people realize, and probably take a lot of labor to build.
Mike
I thought I saw a price for the 'new' Melges 20 (a 3 man, open sport monohull, like a Flying Scot on 'roids) that was about $40K!
I remember thinking at that time,
Wow, you could buy TWO racing cats for that!
I think Resin is a byproduct of Oil (Petrolium based) and I know you know what's been going on with the price of oil lately, so it's no surprise that the price of everything oil based is up too....then there's the increased shipping cost, because the delivery trucks run on...OIL.
Have you seen the price of Diesel fuel lately?
There are some good deals on used boats out there, thank God! But the price of -everything- is going up, it's your paycheck that's not going up as quickly, that's why it hurts a lot more.
and...we're off.
Where are you -off- to?
If you're going a long way, you may want to hire one of those 'Calgary Asian Escorts' I've seen advertised here! ;^0
i would also suggest that real inflation (not US govt numbers), QE1 & 2, and fuel cost have exacerbated the cost of everything
If you're going a long way, you may want to hire one of those 'Calgary Asian Escorts' I've seen advertised here! ;^0
I was just pointing out that the talk of oil was going to initiate the dive into the depths of political discord.
Give it a moment.
So the rule to keep a minimum weight is keeping costs up?
In a word: Yes.
We can build a very stiff F18 for less money if the total boat weight was 166kg. But with the rules being at 180kg, we just build a super stiff F18 for a bit more $.
How long would it stay stiff?
I'll let you guys in on a few secrets.
1. There isn't much mark up in boats.
2. They actually cost next nothing to make
3. Most of the profits are used to directly fund global terrorism
4. The rest of the profits are used by secret societies to keep things like the JFK assassination and moon landing under wraps.
So only the first one is true, but I kinda like pulling conspiracy theories outta my butt.
So, if catamaran sales fund Terrorism, does that mean that Jet Ski sales fund the Global War on Terrorism?
From what I have seen here on my lake, most of the Jet Skis are being driving by....TERRORISTS!!
depends on how many blue pills you take <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />
but seriously, the general laminate on our boats is so over specced (we use foam that is almost twice as thick as the big builders) that the boats are quite unstressed. We can do this because each boat is built carefully by highly skilled people and there is no mess left inside the hulls and the joins etc are all carefully prepared and finished. In the 166kg build there is really not much difference in the overall laminate. We just put more in there because we had to get the weight up!
I'm not saying that I want the weight to change for the class (i'm in enough trouble with the class already!!) but if we want to reduce cost and improve the longevity of the boats there are some solutions out there.
To build a stiff F18 you need to lower class weight.
To build a stiff F16 you need to increase class weight.
Sure, I'm gullible.
No, those are probably just teenagers.
Or, guys that can't afford real power boats and don't have the intelligence to sail a boat...
Mike
Exploder Tornado for € 15.900 ?
Well, that is not going to be the same as a Marstrom we have come to know over the last 20 years. So I don't understand what Roland is getting at other then trying to confuse the quality of a carbon masted Marstrom with the price of an alu masted Hobie 16 with spi upgrade kit.
We all know that that is rather going to be the other way around. When that happens you basically got an outdated design (hull and boards) with a rig that can easily be put on the other boats as well in the way of costs and performance. Or does anyone really believe that a F16 carbon rig will be more expensive then the larger Tornado carbon rig ?
In my view Roland has become a bit unhinged lately.
Wouter
1. There isn't much mark up in boats.
2. They actually cost next nothing to make
3. Most of the profits are used to directly fund global terrorism
4. The rest of the profits are used by secret societies to keep things like the JFK assassination and moon landing under wraps.
So only the first one is true, but I kinda like pulling conspiracy theories outta my butt.
Now you must die. You have violated the law of the sacred order of catamaran exploiters. Ignore the black helicopters and the men outside your windows. Your termination will be swift and painless.
To build a stiff F16 you need to increase class weight.
Sure, I'm gullible.
No, you just struggle to understand the written word sometimes <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />
To make it simple for you:-
F18 costs can come down with lower weight
F16 costs can come down with higher weight
Whilst the above statements seem contradictory, it all makes sense when you apply logic, it doesn't take a degree in composite engineering to understand that there are weight/cost/stiffness implications if you are too far skewed with one of the three factors above.
I think the comparison to the Melges 24 is valid. But you have to take more than the cost of the boat into consideration. Both boats are high performance race boats. Both classes are deep with very talented sailors. Both classes have active schedules and North American championships with great attendance levels (althought the M24 numbers have dropped off recentley). With all that in mind, which class is the better bargain? Travel to a M24 regatta, and bring your 4 crew along with you, that's gonna be expensive. Want new sails for that regatta, better take out a second mortgage on your house.
Granted neither boat is cheap by any means, but the bang-for-the-buck factor that the F18 offeres is second to none!
A new set of F16/18 sails is about $4k? (shot from the hip, I didn't look)
How much are M24 sails?!
Coming from someone who owns and has been actively campaigning M24's and F18's for over 10 years. I can tell you that Karl is spot on the costs of running each campaign. One week racing the M24 at Key West, Miami, or Annapolis costs more than my annual F18 budget. The only F18 event that comes close in cost is the Tybee 500...
A set of M24 sails is about $6,500, and they have less than 1/2 the life of F18 sails.
Holy crap.
Back in 2007, I was calling the line on the pin boat for the Melges 32 Nationals in Newport. Someone on the boat made the comment that all the competitors had new sails for that event, and that a set of sails (I think just main and jib) cost $16,000 at that time.
My response: I can buy two whole boats for that (Hobie 16 at the time)!!!
Granted, a 32 carries much larger sails than a 24, but WOW...
Mike
Since the M32's have switched over to carbon sails, the main/jib combo is over $20k.
Thank god, the M24's are still limited to aramid or dacron sail cloth.
My response: I can buy two whole boats for that (Hobie 16 at the time)!!!
Granted, a 32 carries much larger sails than a 24, but WOW...
Mike
Not true!! I was crewing on the one boat that didn't have new sails... and we got destroyed!
Thanks for the laugh Jeff!
Was it really the sails???
Reminds me of Al Bundy:
It's not the dress that makes you look fat, it's the fat that makes you look fat...
<img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />
Mike
No, it wasn't the sails at all. I was sailing with a group from Cleveland (home) that owned the boat to sail as a family. It was a really great group, but the helmsman was in his seventies, and we just weren't competitive with the pros. Great racing though, and I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to race with such a passionate group.