shantyboatliving.com

Clearly my interests have taken a new direction. Actually, I rarely have a new interest, as I have had so many in the last that I might call it interest recycling. For example, I was a student pilot about 27 years ago, making it to about 45 hours of flight time before my flight logs and all were stolen from my car.

If you are a reader of this blog, know that you can concentrate your reading on any category that interests you. Simply look for the category list to the right and click on the word that matches your interest.

Which Big Shanty?

So Buehler’s River Walker rings my bell for the next big Shantyboat.

http://www.georgebuehler.com/River%20Walker.html

Why? Oh, esthetics are so hard to understand. It is different, I’ll have to admit that is imporant to me. I mean, I lean toward things that others don’t have. I don’t need to be alone in my desires, but I certainly am less interested in something that everyone has. In grade school there was no doubt I would not have chosen flute or clarinet as my instrument. I wanted to play bassoon! My dad wanted me to play French Horn. Either one is sufficiently different. When it comes to boats, the same is true. I’d like the bassoon of boats.

I don’t want to have the Edsel of boats, I want this boat to work for me… I want it to do the mission and to do it pretty well. I’m willing to sacrifice some things in the name of unique, but I am not willing to ignore the mission!

More Later. Gotta talk with family for a while!

My fancies in boat building are always in a state of flux, especially when it comes to that next BIG boat I will build.

What is it’s mission or purpose? To take my wife and I out in the waters of Puget Sound and Hood Canal, from the farthest southern shallow water reaches, to the San Juans via the backside of Whidbey Island and the Swinomish Channel. It would be a boat that wouldn’t be ideal for high winds and huge waves, but with careful planning and enough time to be able to wait for good weather, it could explore Puget Sound, especially if you use the back ways behind all the big islands.

Ideally, I’d like to design my own boat, though that could be risky enough to make that a bit foolish. At a minimum I would modify an existing design enough to be able to call it my own.

Which brings me to a thought I’ve had of late. I’d love to buy a bunch of plans and study them. Many designers make their plans very affordable, while others want thousands of dollars, even for a stock plan set.

So what is a fair price?
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=38871534&albumID=1030404&imageID=41104208

At this time the boat I have the most interest in is Buehler’s River Walker. I feel his design is probably one of the most
attractive of the barge hulled boats I have looked at. His plans price is
$495. On the other hand, another respected NW designer, Sam Devlin, sells a
plan for Millie Hill, a slightly smaller boat with some similarities, and they
are $100.

http://store.devlinboat.com/milliehill.aspx

Parker sells a 36 foot sampan houseboat for $125.

http://www.parker-marine.com/sam36page.html

I’ve always wondered about plans prices, wondering about the balance between the
designer trying to get SOMETHING for all his/her work… and making the price
reasonable enough for people to buy. At first glance one would think, if the
price is too low, the designer gets pennies for each hour spent on the design,
both in the initial work and in follow up support. On the other hand, if the
price is low enough, the designer could sell many more plans, as many of us own
perhaps 5 to ten times more plans than boats we actually build. In my case none
of the plans was over $150. If the price is cheap enough, I am willing to pay to
look at the plans and seriously think about building “someday”. For me, if
the plan for this boat were $150 or less, I would buy it. I might buy 5 or 6
sets of plans over my life time at that price… with maybe another 6 or more at
the $20 to $70 price. To me it’s like buying a great book… one hell of a
book.

I can hear someone say, if you can’t afford to pay the designer for his work at
the bargain rate of $495, then you can’t afford to build a boat. I hear you,
but that is not the point I am talking about. I’d love for the designer to make
a lot of money. That’s really my point. WOuld a designer make MORE money if
the plans were lowered to a “dreamer” price level. And that price point would
be critical. $100 to $150… I’d buy tomorrow. $200 on up… I’d buy when I
am ready to build.

I’ve never written or called a designer for help, so I don’t know if that really
gets abused by some, but if they are, they could have a $150 fee that covers
limited email and/or phone support. A dreamer/builder price difference. I
wouldn’t need support to build my boat, mostly because I just don’t call
designeers. But also, I wouldn’t even consider calling unless I actually
started to build, and that could be 5 years away or more.

I’d say my experience with study plans is that they are rather worthless. The
two that I bought were simply larger versions of all the pictures you see on the
sellers website. Given that the designed doesn’t want to give away too much in
the study plans, I’d not offer them at all, opting instead for a lowered price
on the full plans.

Plans prices often seem tied to not just the complexity of the design and number
of sheets in the plan set, they also could be tied to the end user/build cost.
Those who build George’s wonderful Diesel Ducks are going to spend an amazing
amount of money and time, whether they build or buy. (and when they are done
they will have one hell of a boat!) Those who build a Rufus or River Walker
will be making a considerable investment as well, but it would be a fraction of
the amount for it’s larger brothers.

Please don’t see this as one of those newsgroup hand grenade tosses. I’d
really like to buy plans for both River Walker and Rufus, and if I could get
both directly from the designer for $125 each or so, I’d do it tomorrow. But
not at $800 plus. Would others do that? Would George make even more if the
price was less? Or am I off base or dreaming?

Final thought. I’ve sometimes wondered, what if the price for these barge
hulled boats was set at $50? Would the designer sell 300 sets over a couple of
years, as that’s the price of a non-drive through dinner out for my family.
Let’s see. I have no idea how many plans George could sell of the Rufus or
River Walker, but…

ten plans at $400 is $4000.
300 plans at $50 is $15000.
300 plans at $25 is $7500.
100 plans at $60 is $6000.
30 plans at $150 is $4500.
20 plans at $50 is $1000.
2 sets of plans at $495 is $990.

I know there is the cost of paper. Charge for postage.

George is an intelligent man, of that I am sure, so he has probably already
thought through this years ago. I wonder if the internet age changes anything?