Now Jeff......Like so many of us here I bow to your superior knowledge and experience in boat design but how could you possibly go past a Gaff Ketch Bruce Roberts Spray ? What more could you ask for ? Finest cruising design ever, you should know that.....
(that scuttling noise you can hear is the sound of Wombat running for cover......)
ps - Nait...go for a wander over to
MetalBoatbuilding.org - Welcome to the Frontpage. It is , as you may have guessed a site dedicated to metal boatbuilding. I'm a member over there and get some seriously good advice from those people. they are going to tell you that you are living in a fantasy land if you think you can build a 50'er for $20,000 but they may well be able to tell what is feasible and what is cloud cuckoo land.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff_H
As John says, you have chosen a very expensive route that makes very little sense. If you are concerned with building a serious offshore cruising boat in a tight budget than I would not use either steel or go with a gaff or a ketch rig as all of these are comparatively expensive and time-consuming ways to build a boat. If you not planning on building an offshore cruiser then I especially would discourage you from building a steel, gaff rigged ketch.
When you talk about building in steel, assuming that you are doing the building yourself, then you want to be in an industrialized country with fairly inexpensive energy costs, say South Africa or the US. But if you want to build cheaply and sturdily, you can't beat glass over plywood.
The key to building a boat for serious cruising is to make sure that you have a really good design and not some hacked together mess or nostalgic fantasy. I know of no readily available gaff rigged ketch design that I would call a really good design.
If you have your heart set on building a boat the the advice to read "Voyaging on a Small Income" by Annie Hill is excellent. 'Badger' is still out there cruising. I also think that the advice to think smaller and fiberglass production boat is excellent advice. Having cruised very cheaply purchased, very simple boats over the year, I seriously question whether you could buy at wholesale the materials to outfit very simply and build a boat of the size that you are contemplating.
Respectfully,
Jeff
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