Building a Kit Catamaran

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by phillw

I just purchased a 1250X and the complete Kit (Opt 1) now costs around $100K which includes the plans. If you want the furniture plans/kit as well then add another $12K to that price.The Spirited is around $120K but includes some mouldings namely the hull shoes etc. The fusions are starting to look real attractive as the aussie dollar is rising against the Euro. At today's exchange rate you can pick up the fusion for about $142K including shipping and then add the $15K for the furniture kit if required. You may need to add materials to complete the build for the fusions also. The difference between the fusion, 380 and 1250X after this comes down to the build time. The fusion is around 3000hrs, the Spirited around 4500hrs and the 1250X 5000hrs.These are for quality finishes and times can be shortened. The fusion has the added advantage of only needing a touch up around the joins externally whereas you're up for a full paint job for the other two.

Thanks Phil, for backing up what I previously said, with some current experience. The Wilderness kit WITHOUT furniture is around $25 - 30k more than the Oram 44C, both including plans.

Best wishes for your build, enjoy!

[phillw]

Alan. $25-30K sounds a bit high, if true I definitely got ripped. Does the Oram kits include all the fillers, resins, glass and routing charges etc? Below is a breakdown of the kit.

$11K - Plans
$60K - Durakore and Balsa panels with routing charges
$4K - Other building materials which include plywood, foam,WR cedar,oregon etc
$11K - Fibreglass (Uni, DB & plain weave) and fillers (West).
$14K - Epoxy Resin and hardener.

Obviously if you were to use non West fillers and resins you would probably save $6-7K but Schionning's stipulate you must buy the complete kit.

[44'cruisingcat]

My kit came with all Duflex, resins, glass, tapes, glue powders and fillers needed to build and externally fair the standard hull shell. I had to add some Duflex because I built higher and wider.

Routing was included, as was the use of the Z-press, and ATL's big fairing machine.

Resin supplied was West system for glueing and coving, Kinetix for glassing and taping. However you are free to choose other resins if you wish. (But frankly I didn't know enough to choose anything else.)

Fillers were Q-Cells and (from memory) Phenocet, I can't remember the brand of glue powder, but I don't think it was West.

There wasn't enough peelply, but we found a much cheaper source - where ATL buy theirs. You have to cut it yourself, but it's less than 1/2 the price. I can PM the info to you if you like.

I bought some additional packs of Technirez epoxy for fairing the interior. Much cheaper than West.

My plans cost $7500, but that was a few years ago now. From memory the kit was a bit less than $65k. From what I've heard, kit prices haven't changed much.

Also, because you deal direct with ATL there is no requirement to buy the whole kit. You can buy it in stages, or just buy a partial kit and do the rest yourself.

I don't think you got ripped off, it's just that the Oram is a simpler kit - ie no floors or supporting frames, no cedar strip planked curves, no foam/glass compound curves, you build the hulls in only 5 temporary female frames which you buy 2nd hand from another builder, then sell afterwards, stuff like that which adds up.

When you get to the stage of building your interior, ask ATL about Duflex seconds. Some of them are perfectly suitable for furniture building - for instance I got some which were perfect except for having double bias glass instead of biaxial.

[vic33z]

My partner bought a Schionning Wilderness 1100 kit almost five years ago and is building it in our backyard. He is dealing with me and my 3 teenage daughters, car engine re-builds, house renovations to sell my house, renovations to his house so we could move in and kitchen/bathroom total refits. I have helped him from the first day the panels arrived. I have spent many nights and days and weekends (my girls at their dad's) mixing, glueing, sanding, cutting fibreglass, rolling fibreglass, getting bruises & stitches ( of which I am proud of!) and although he has done the majority of the building, I have been there right beside him. I have had 2 major operations over the last 2 years, (surgical hysterectomy & spinal surgery) so my help was limited during the recovery. I take great offence to your statement "you could get girlfriends/wives involved, but there's only so much they can do, and they get bored with it". Give us some credit. Behind every great man is a great woman!!

Originally Posted by Jetexas

My brother decided to build a kit Shelby Cobra in my garage ... over three years ago. It's just now driving but still hasn't been painted or had the interior finished.

Life gets busy. You've got work, family, wives/girlfriends, holidays, home repairs, car repairs, fun opportunities, etc. all competing for time against the project. My brother suddenly got offered a chance to get his Masters six months into the project. That ate up almost a year of progress.

I bought a project boat last July and tackled it hard every weekend through October. Then I didn't get to touch it again until mid-January. I'm back on track for now, but my girlfriend is getting pretty irritated that she only gets to see me on the weekends and now that's down to only one day a weekend.

Of course, you try to get girlfriends/wives involved, but there's only so much they can do, and they get bored with it.

Then, on top of all that, you have to take into account the fact that you'll just get burned out and need to take occasional breaks from the project.

Of course, there's some guys that can just churn out the work. One of the guys in the Cobra club spent two days completely unpacking every box of the kit and organized and labeled the hundreds of bolts and parts. Then he put the entire thing together and had it running in four days.

So no, the kits aren't that complicated. It's making sure you've got the time for the kits that is so hard for most people.

My biggest advice if you're going to build a kit is have a place to build it that is not costing you extra rent. That way you're not just throwing money away for every month there's no progress.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by vic33z

My partner bought a Schionning Wilderness 1100 kit almost five years ago and is building it in our backyard. He is dealing with me and my 3 teenage daughters, car engine re-builds, house renovations to sell my house, renovations to his house so we could move in and kitchen/bathroom total refits. I have helped him from the first day the panels arrived. I have spent many nights and days and weekends (my girls at their dad's) mixing, glueing, sanding, cutting fibreglass, rolling fibreglass, getting bruises & stitches ( of which I am proud of!) and although he has done the majority of the building, I have been there right beside him. I have had 2 major operations over the last 2 years, (surgical hysterectomy & spinal surgery) so my help was limited during the recovery. I take great offence to your statement "you could get girlfriends/wives involved, but there's only so much they can do, and they get bored with it". Give us some credit. Behind every great man is a great woman!!

Post pics! (of the boat, not the surgery!)

Keep going, it's well worth it. You'll end up with something you can truly be proud of - much moreso than if you had bought a similar boat, IMO. And it will truly be YOURS.

This is what we grew in our backyard:

[vic33z]

Sorry I got on my soap box earlier. I am very passionate about our project. When we are finished we are taking my three teenage daughters with us and sailing up the east coast of Australia to start with, hopefully then we all still love it enough to go further afield. Your pic is awesome. I have to get my IT support to help me send pics though lol (that would be one of my twin girls, 17 yrs old, they know stuff!!) lol

[tuskie]

Wow VIC33Z ! Things must really be hectic at your place.

I"ll definitely be showing your thread to my wife and teenage daughters. I'm sure that it will be inspirational! I only have two teenagers however, so I'm not sure whether my build will take more or less time than yours. LOL

Seriously though, what is your realistic expected completion time? And how many hours are you both putting in, on average, each week?

Build times are the "black holes" of amateur boat builders (and a few pros too!). Whilst the Australian kit cats such as Fusion ,Schionning,Oram, etc. have gone a long way to assist project planning, there still remains a fear of "time blowout". There are the amazingly quick build times reported by the esteemed "44'cruisingcat" and a few others. However, I've also seen a couple of builds "die in the bum", to use a boat building expression. One plywood construction in my local area (Brisbane) has been there for 30+ years! I'm sure that's no record either!

There are a couple of truely awesome amateur kit builders who aren't just building great boats, but also describing, photographing and budgetting all costs and time inputs. And then posting it all onto a website! A couple of these from Australia are:
Mahna Mahna and The Scrumble Project

Whilst I have closely followed their progress and sincerely thank them for sharing valuable knowledge, I still worry a bit about that "black hole".

[vic33z]

Hi Tuskie! Thanks for your reply. In for a penny in for a pound lol You can only go crazy once so we might as well do a good job!! I would love to be in Brisbane right now instead of here in Wollongong dying with a bad cold . . . sniff, sniff lol
How old are your teenagers and are they girls, boys or one of each? I have twin girls who are turning 17yrs this month & my youngest daughter is turning 16yrs in October. They are not giving us too much trouble. . . yet! But teaching 2 'L' platers is NOT fun let me tell you lol and the worst thing is we'll be doing it again in October, yikes!!!
What are you building and where are you at in your project? Ours seems to be going on & on & on. . . . but we keep plugging away. My girls are getting a bit impatient with us because they just want to go. We hoped to be on the water this December but that is surely NOT going to happen, so the next time frame realistically is, fingers crossed, october/december 2011 Untill then we keep busy building, our house is 90% renovated now (which has to be sold before we go) and the cars should behave, so now we just have to dig deep and get it done. My partner, is a shift worker as well, so some weeks lots get done & others virtually none. Night shift sucks, cause he sleeps till lunch, eats and tries to get boat jobs set up or done and then back to bed before he heads off again. Arvo shift is the best actually, cause he is up early and works till he goes to work at 3. Me, I work around dropping girls at school and afternoon stuff, casual childcare work, and his shifts. When he sleeps I try to get things glassed in, clean up the mess or work on jobs he has set up for me. I am quite confident now in glassing, cutting tapes & peel ply, using the jigsaw, drill, sander, drop saw & router, not so much the angle grinder. I'm getting better at coving, although my partner does it so much faster and more proficiently but he says thats because I need more practice ha ha.
I agree that the "black hole" looms just over head and "dying in the bum" has come close on occasions, but we are also inspired by reading other people's fabulous stories of places they've been and how they got there. We religiously purchase "Australian Multihull World" and quite often "Cruising Helmsman", which is mostly about monohulls, but still there is still knowledge to be gained and great stories to read.

[tuskie]

Good luck VIC33Z: that's not a bad effort, finishing a Schionning 1100 in 6 to 7 years whilst working, raising 3 teenagers, renovating etc. etc. I hope you don't get too bored when cruising time comes and all there is to do is sail and relax!
I have two girls, 16 and 14 years who like trips on our power trailer boat, but aren't really excited about fibreglassing, etc. We are leaning towards a Fusion 40, and have been speaking to a number of people who have gone through the building process of these. Hopefully our life situation will allow us to complete one of these in 3 to 4 years to coincide with leaving our jobs in 5 to 6 years time. The Fusions as you would realise, are costlier but quicker than a Schionning kit.
We are also keeping an eye on the second hand market, as we haven't yet made the committment to DIY. A great value, quality cruising cat that already has a wet bottom could easliy tempt me. The choice of sailing, fishing or relaxing at anchor on the Great Barrier Reef could easily win out over coving, sanding, fairing, sanding, sawing, sanding, etc. Saving money, getting the type of vessel (I think that) I want are the main reasons for us going down the kit path. Crunch time, however is coming soon.
May your Schionning deliver all that your family has dreamed that it could.

[Tropic Cat]

Originally Posted by tuskie

....We are also keeping an eye on the second hand market, as we haven't yet made the committment to DIY. A great value, quality cruising cat that already has a wet bottom could easliy tempt me.

Wise comment. Used boat pricing is still falling and the Euro now seems to be in trouble. There are deals to be had out there.

[spiritcat]

The 'Black Hole' of time is always a problem when building a boat. We started building our Spirited 380 in September 2007 and all going well will be launching before Xmas this year. We both work full time so life means getting up early, working on the cat, off to paying work by 8, home by 5 and back into boat building.
We have been lucky in that we have friends come over in the weekend and help and our son who is a boat builder has had a few weeks on when he is not busy surfing or travelling, so that helps. Our 17 yo daughter is not that interested in helping as she gets 'itchy', but does clean the shed out occassionaly.
The longest job is fairing and we have had help doing that, even though it has cost a bit of pocket money, the result has been better that we would have done on our own.
In the end, we will end up with a great cat, sell the house and buy a small unit and go sailing. keep your head up out of the dust Vic33z, just think of those tropical sunsets at anchor.

Peter

[vic33z]

Hi Tuskie & Spiritcat! Thanks for the words of wisdom and encouragement. We will surely hope to keep that 'itchy' stuff at bay, and dream of all the tropical places we have ear-marked on our wall photo/article gallery, it's like our inspiration wall. We have kept stories, articles and photos of places we have read about. Somedays, though, it doesn't seem to have it's magic. . . a bit sad. Never mind, good luck Tuskie with your search for a boat with 'a wet bottom' or a suitable kit for your family.
Hey spiritcat, my girls don't help with boat building either, they usually just come out and give their opinion on our progress and check up on us occasionally. I would love them to help with the odd job sometimes, but oh my god 'it's messy out here, I'm going I'm getting itchy, ah see ya' very helpful lol

[egret]

The Fusion 40 people in Mackay can build your boat on site anywhere in the world or at their workshops in Mackay. They can do the lot or assist you when required. This kit I believe goes together faster and with better finish for hours required than any other. They also now have fully moulded interiors so this makes fittout easier to do. You should check them out as they have plenty of information and are only to willing to help.

[beau]

I met a guy recently who built a Fusion 40 from a kit. He then had the interior fitted out professionally. It ended up costing him AUD $1.2 million.
The interior was nice but they used a fake timber laminate on the interior It would have been so much better in real wood.

I built a 39ft motor/sailer Trimaran in Aluminium.
All the pieces came laser cut out and numbered and were then tacked together.
I used professional boat builders and the 2 guys who did the job were finished in 5 weeks. (shell only,painted)
I did the interior myself.
Next boat, I will build a 50 ft, again in Aluminium, basic fitout here in Australia and motor/sail to the Phillipines for a quality timber fit out.

The other aspect is resale value, a professionally built boat in a material such as Aluminium has higher potential value.

[egret]

Sounds like they touched him a bit or he had to much money to waste.
The guys at Fusion Catamarans Mackay can build the total package for $ 470k + g.s.t. This gives you a white gelcoat interior finish with timber door surrounds and everything you need to sail it away. They will veneer the interior or do whatever you like at axtra cost of course or you can take it away and have that done elsewhere.
At this price for a basic package it is the best priced cat on the market for its size and performance I think.
Of course there are others that may sail faster or carry more weight but as an all round package I think the Fusion 40 is up at the top of any list.
What do you think?