i'm spending so much money it hurts

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

never mind.........this forum is neither the time or place.

Correct

It's an idiotic conversation where no one has any chance of convincing anyone else here, any more than they might convert another forumite to their religion with internet posts. Let's better stick to cruising

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Khagan1227

Having rowed crew in college, I can admire your sculling about, but that is a bit more difficult, if not impossible in a 35 ft (or larger), full keeled boat. Electric motor, forget-about-it. Used sails? I don't know the condition of sails you can get for $50, but I am a cheap bast@rd and I am willing to spend more than that on something my life will depend on.

Each to his own.

Why do you say forget about electric motors? They really do work ridiculously well on a cruising boat, and work better as the boat gets bigger as more storage capacity (volume) vs the power to run it (wetted surface area)

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Regarding the guy, his thousand dollar boat, his 2.5 gallon water jug, and "hunting land animals" for food, more than anything I find it sad that you need to take pot shots at anyone for their life style choice. I honestly try not to judge others because the older I get the more I realize that there are a lot of things going on in this world and it's arrogance to think that you know the one "right" lifestyle. People have different responsibilities, resources, and needs. I'm honestly a little surprised that in your travels you've managed to stay so close minded.

As time has gone on I have come to realize it is the people with the most money who complain the most. For example, the guy with the $100,000 boat is saying he needs to spend _more_ money on stainless rigging because he is _afraid_ his boat value may decrease if he doesn't. I have met cruisers in tonga who complain that the islanders are charging them too much for a tongan feast.. when they have more money in their boat than the entire village! I met a guy who had a 100ft boat in american samoa and his own cook, cleaning maid and engineer, and all he did was complain about how much it cost him to fill his tank, and that he didnt get laid enough! I think its my experience that _has_ lead to this conclusion.

Originally Posted by engele

Spectra degrades with UV exposure. Great for race rigging that is replaced on a schedule, but not for a cruising boat. Also it is nearly as expensive as stainless wire.

You can get spectra with 16500lb breaking strength for $1/ft. Please show me stainless which is close to this. Not to mention the cost of the end fittings. You can cover spectra with shrink wrap or other line. The UV takes a long time to penetrate.

I agree completely with the guy in nelson (I tied up next to) who stated that this technology is probably only available because of the commercial fishing industry. I would be prepared to use alternatives, but keep in mind I am using the materials available. We wouldn't have delrin without nasa, and its a great material to use for bearings on a boat.

Building a boat into a safe reliable platform to take your family out on is in no way greedy, whether that costs $100k, $800k or a million (not that most of us have any of that).

Élan

I went ahead and looked up the definition of greedy. It is someone who takes more than they need. As it turns out, I am greedy myself, though much less so than the person with the $100,000 boat. A family on a million dollar boat is therefore extremely greedy as they are taking far more resources than they really need. Unless by family you are including every person and every thing, then you are over concentrating resources for a selected few which fits the definition.

Originally Posted by xymotic

And the um... Fiberglass

Actually the glass part is just that.. but the resin can be made from various products including coal, oil, and plant and animal products (if you were willing to do enough chemistry)

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

And by all means, don't forget that it's made from petroleum......so when oil runs out, so does the dyneema.

Again, anything which can be made out of oil can be made from plant and/or animal products, as this is what oil came from in the first place. It's going to cost a lot more but no matter what it will always be possible to produce these materials as long as human life can exist.

Originally Posted by JRM

Oil won't "run out"; it'll just keep getting more expensive to retrieve. At some point on that trajectory the system will implode, but there will still be plenty of hydrocarbons in the ground. Think oil shale... Now, what happens when we run out of "cheap oil" be scary thoughts indeed.

Now isn't it a shame people burn it for fuel instead of using it for materials which we could supply for thousands of years and recycle as well?

For the guy who insists that spending $100K on a boat is greedy, and that the money should be given to charity, I counter with a thought... What about your wasted earnings potential? Aren't you being just as greedy by denying your earnings (and thus giving) potential? You could hock that boat and hit the salt mines. With a little hard work you could equal that $99K you insist someone else should donate. Instead you fritter away your time on yourself being totally selfish.

I guess you don't consider working on open source software like opencpn or gcc or my opensource sailboat autopilot useful contributions. Working in a salt mine is somehow a better use of my time.

As for the guy who says it is good to buy new boats because it employs thousands of people. This is completely corrupt thinking. We all know the world is littered with old vessels which need someone to look after them and many will last for decades to come. It uses many more resources to build new ones, but fewer to fix and use existing ones. We also know in developed countries less than 2% of the population works toward the production of their own food. The current production system uses a huge amount of energy and water inefficiently. Permaculture involves having hundreds of different species per acre rather than a single crop. It requires much more human interaction and currently can not be performed by giant machines. All of the worlds problems can be solved in a garden of this type, and can provide jobs for everyone. This is the type of work people should be doing, not building more production boats.

With that said, I have a lot of respect for people who build their own unique boats as this is development and possible forward progress in that field, but for production boats in which more than one are made, we already have too many sitting around. Go get an existing one and fix the problems with it.

[Lojanica]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Regarding money:

I'm just kind of venting with this thread. I know it's the right thing to do, but it's hard shifting gears so much. For the last five years we've been fairly frugal, saving up money to do this. Now it's time to spend the money, and it's hard watching one way of doing things (saving) going the other way (spending).

Regarding the heat exchanger contact, thanks for that, I'll definitely look that up if a new one is recommended over just cleaning up the old. It's the housing, not the tubes; not sure if you're talking about the housing itself.

RH. Thanks for your posts they ring true for thoses of us seriously refitting. Good on you for actually getting it done.

[justwaiting]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

...... I met a guy who had a 100ft boat in american samoa and his own cook, cleaning maid and engineer, and all he did was complain about how much it cost him to fill his tank, and that he didnt get laid enough! I think its my experience that _has_ lead to this conclusion.......

.

I was wondering what in your personal experience has lead you to the conclusion that he dosnt get "laid enough"?

[xymotic]

Originally Posted by justwaiting

I was wondering what in your personal experience has lead you to the conclusion that he dosnt get "laid enough"?

a) Nobody does

b) He Spent a mil on a boat, that's a LOT of hookers

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

As time has gone on I have come to realize it is the people with the most money who complain the most. For example, the guy with the $100,000 boat is saying he needs to spend _more_ money on stainless rigging because he is _afraid_ his boat value may decrease if he doesn't.................

................I went ahead and looked up the definition of greedy. It is someone who takes more than they need. As it turns out, I am greedy myself, though much less so than the person with the $100,000 boat. A family on a million dollar boat is therefore extremely greedy as they are taking far more resources than they really need. Unless by family you are including every person and every thing, then you are over concentrating resources for a selected few which fits the definition.

I think I have half an idea of where you are coming from - and certainly you are not entirely wrong, at least not for you. But that doesn't make others making different decisions for different reasons wrong.

Although I would probably never spend $100k on a boat because I never like owning stuff that owns me (in either purchase cost or ongoing cost of ownership - that's why I bought 30' of older boat that cost IRO $30k, we shall leave the endless refit out of the equation ).....nonetheless $100k is not a great deal of money, not in 2012. It is when you haven't got it - but not for many, in the west at least. I would even go so far as to say that most could obtain that sum if they really wanted it and the opportunities it brings - from a combination of hardwork, hardchoices (not so much of "want it now" ) and some application of smarts (no need to be a rocket scientist) - the magic ingrediant is simply time.

If I had a boat I ever intended to sell, especially if I had $100k in her then it does make sense to rig her with what the market expects. In this case Stainless Steel. Won't be getting the cost of the new rigging back, but won't be devaluing the boat either. Choices.

And Greed ......As Mr Gecko said: "Greed is Good" .......personally I have never been heavily money motivated, but nonetheless (touch wood!) seem to make out ok. For me free time is valued above money - even if I look back and see that much of that free time has been wasted .......like much of the money was (and even more would have been). Choices.

Of course I am not "out there" on a boat, and fair play to those who are - but done my share of endless wanderings around the planet (I came, I saw, I drank it ), and as I grew up with and around boats never seen them as something special and certainly not a gateway to anything (I prefer the Jumbo jet ) let alone a destination in themselves . ......but maybe one day I will get around to doing just that. Or something else. Choices.

Choices: mine, yours and uncle Tom Cobbley's are all different - no right or wrong, nor better or worse, just different. Some good, some bad, some fun . But given the nature of the game we are all in, money is a very useful route to making more of those choices your own .

At the end of the day it is better to be rich and happy than poor and miserable .

[carstenb]

+1 amen.

I once had a lot of money. Most of it I spent on women, booze and boats, the rest I just sort of wasted.

[gonesail]

you could always head back to port .. regroup .. make more money .. try again?

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

With that said, I have a lot of respect for people who build their own unique boats as this is development and possible forward progress in that field, but for production boats in which more than one are made, we already have too many sitting around. Go get an existing one and fix the problems with it.

I bought a boat that no-one else wanted or could see the beauty in and brought it back to life. No doubt it would have been washed up on a beach in florida somewhere had I not.

But I still find your preachy superior attitude aggravating, insulting even, for not subscribing to your less than (for me) ideal lifestyle.

[Captain Bill]

Boat_Alexndria, you are making my day. I don't think I've heard so much hypocritical BS in my Life. If you really believed this BS, you would have gone out and found a nice stone and chipped the edge into an axe blade, attached it to a stick with some animal sinew, chopped down a tree and made yourself an outrigger canoe. You could have woven your sails from plant material and made lines and rigging from coconut husks or hand spun hemp. Virtually every other technology you depend on is supplied by those evil greedy people making a lot of money. Do you think solar panels and electric motors grow on trees? Even if your polyester resin and spectra can be made from plant material, you're not going to do it on your little boat. It's going to be done by someone with one of those evil chemistry companies that are destroying the planet. You are putting down the very people who make it possible for you to live the lifestyle you choose. You say you hunt animals on land. Does this mean you go ashore and just kill any old animal that you see or do you actually obey local hunting laws? In most places, especially small islands it is illegal for non-residents and sometimes even residents to hunt.
.

[sailorboy1]

all this thread has done is make me want a bigger nicer boat

[Rocketman]

There is a saying that seams more true the older I get. "Time is Money". If you look at things a little differnt, then all those 1000's of hours spent working on a 1000 dollor boat has cost you tons and what do you have to show for it. But then again, if you don't value things the same as others you may be feeling ok about it.

As I get older, time has become more valuable then money so I am semi-retired. I can spend my time doing things I love, but also do them comfortalbly and safely because I spent my youth working my ass off. Now that I am older the apeal of working just hard enough to sail around the world is apeeling, but for me personally, I wouldn't have done it anyother way.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

.....nonetheless $100k is not a great deal of money, not in 2012. It is when you haven't got it - but not for many, in the west at least. I would even go so far as to say that most could obtain that sum if they really wanted it and the opportunities it brings - from a combination of hardwork, hardchoices (not so much of "want it now" ) and some application of smarts (no need to be a rocket scientist) - the magic ingrediant is simply time.

Too true. We have a good 500k into our boat now, some people think that is somehow too much or in some way overboard. It always surprises me, the average house here costs 400-500k. Just an average house, nothing special. Most people my age that I know own their house, maybe not entirely paid off like our boat is but certainly close to that. Nobody thinks twice about that though, because it's "normal". My friends with million dollar homes are just folks, but somehow having a half million dollar "yacht" makes people think you are one of the 1% crowd...

[Bash]

Originally Posted by minaret

We have a good 500k into our boat now, some people think that is somehow too much or in some way overboard.

Really. Since when was the $100,000 boat the high-water mark?

A buddy of mine spent more than that on his last haul-out.

[Rocketman]

Originally Posted by minaret

Too true. We have a good 500k into our boat now, some people think that is somehow too much or in some way overboard. It always surprises me, the average house here costs 400-500k. Just an average house, nothing special. Most people my age that I know own their house, maybe not entirely paid off like our boat is but certainly close to that. Nobody thinks twice about that though, because it's "normal". My friends with million dollar homes are just folks, but somehow having a half million dollar "yacht" makes people think you are one of the 1% crowd...

I would say that since you have a 500k boat, you are in the 1% crowd. In fact I would say you are probably in the .001% crowd. Be proud of it, this is nothing to be ashamed of.