The return of child labor, a podcast I’ll be following, and in the “crime pays” department…
Someone asked me the other day what boat I’d buy if money were not an issue and, while it’s a silly question, I did do some thinking.
In fact, I did a lot of thinking. It turns out that the bottom line is no one is building or selling a boat that ticks all my wants for a cruising boat. Surprisingly, my wants are actually few and can be summed up with the words seaworthy, shoal draft, and simple. Throw in the reality that I am no longer a young man and have zero interest in following fashion or trends.
If price were no issue, the boat I’d build would be a 36-foot sharpie based on a Bolger design. Or, in other words, a very simple, affordable boat.
As long as we’re in dreaming mode, this Meta 36 is a design I do keep looking at while considering the next refit on our Islander 36. Simply because I love the sorta/kinda retro interior and I’ve never seen a bad boat come out of the META yard. Then again, my pockets are nowhere deep enough to consider the €332,000 price tag but I can steal a lot of great ideas that will work just fine on an Islander 36.
Of course, the Islander 36 will be able to sail anywhere the Meta 36 can at a fraction of the cost so what advantage would there be in spending all that money?
That 36ft sharpie is not much different from the LM you built, no? Apart from the obvious. Not sure an AS 29 would be ideal for “offshore”, but keeping anything under 10m in Euroland saves bucks. Quality ply is shocking expensive these days, and AS29 at 55 sheets, is looking in excess of $10K just for plywood itself, and its surprising just what that can buy in todays market.
I long ago came to the conclusion that a sharpie like Loose Moose is as seaworthy as most so called blue water boats. Throw in the added perk of being able to sail in a couple of feet of water makes for a pretty awesome combo.
The reason we didn’t build a sharpie is simply that there are so many affordable boats for sale that building a plywood sharpie becomes a lot more expensive than we cared to pay. Add to the fact that finding a place to build just made the build a new boat something of a bummer.