How many DIYers does it take…?

[Cknox]

I’m a teacher and looking at buying a roughly 20 year old 38/40’ Lagoon/Leopard/FP. I’m able to take a full month next summer away from the family and higher 3 teacher buddies to work with me 70+ hours a week. I’ll be able to spend a few weekends with the boat and pre-order all parts/supplies for known problems before the “work month”.

The question is how much can 4 people working a total of 1,200 total hours over a month get done?

The group consists of all adequate home DIYers but no boat mechanics. I know this is a massive DEPENDS situation. That being said we all hear horror stories of project boats crushing dreams, breaking bank accounts and even ending marriages. As a teacher I have a very limited budget ($130K not including what I’m paying the teacher buddies) and would like to get advice on how substantive of a project boat I should take on given this scenario.

[PirateGuy]

I’d say it all depends on how many sawzalls, sledge hammers, and crowbars you intend to equip your crack crew of shipwrights with.

I bet within days the boat will look markedly
different.

Remember to buy plenty of duct tape and buckets of latex paint.

[JPA Cate]

Cknox,

Welcome aboard CF. I assume you meant "hire". Having work parties for boats is way different from houses, because access to what you want to do is crowded.

The work party concept works well for haul outs, where different people can do different parts for bottom prep and masking and painting, for instance. But there will be room for only one in the engine compartment, to do an oil change. So, 2 engines, two lower legs to change the oil. Two sets of fuel filters to replace, but only 2 oil filters, unless you have polishing installed on your yet to be bought cat.

What will help is if some of the jobs you want to accomplish can be done away from the boat, such as replacing cushions and their covers.

The big trick to having work sessions go well is to have the projects organized so that at the end of one day's work, it is all set up and ready to go for the next day. You need to plan carefully what to be doing while epoxy goes off, while primer is drying, etc. There ARE people with experience that you can hire to give you advice about this.

You might be able to do some electric *stuff* alongside getting the engines ready to go, but the jobs will interfere at the engines, the source of the electricity. When you buy the boat, be sure to ask the current owner for all the receipts for work done. If he doesn't have them, you are going to have unwelcome surprises. You might think it's like buying a car, take it to the dealership for work, but boats are not that way, and unless you're quite a well off teacher, you're going to benefit from learning a whole lot of new subjects. You will become your boat's mechanic, electrician, plumber, and rigger, over time, by hiring people who will let you work alongside them--not all will. Also, there's CF, where a bunch of folks will lead you through various jobs, and of course, there are you tubes.

The more complex you make the boat, by adding things to it, the heavier you make it, and the more difficult to maintain. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Wash machines mean added plumbing, pumps, wiring. Water makers too. There's no free lunch.

Good luck with it.

Ann

[Cknox]

Lol, equipment won't be an issue. I can price out cost of supplies but the time factor is something I haven't been able to find a resource on. Don Casey's Sailboat Maintenance Manual is awesome, but it lacks an estimate on time involved.

[LittleWing77]

Originally Posted by PirateGuy

Remember to buy plenty of duct tape and buckets of latex paint.

Oh yeah....

[GoneDiving]

With 4 people working long days, I'd allow at least 1/2 of your time for supervision and organisation. Preventing 4 guys running out of supplies and tripping over each other will pay dividends the same can be said for spending a reasonable amount of time up front to decide who is doing what, in what order and what will be required.

Cheers

[Chotu]

What ever else said about keeping the other 4 busy.

For a little while, I had 4 guys and myself working on my catamaran. My full time job was fixing power tools. I’d also do all the epoxy mixing.

[Dogscout]

Which one of you is a diesel mechanic? And who is the rigger?

[Tellie]

Though it might seem to be cheaper to hire four friends for 70 hour weeks. You might find that hiring the pros who can do it twice as fast if not faster because of their skill sets and tools might cost about the same. The knowledge and experience they bring to the table is going to be a whole lot more than a few home DIYers. It won't be as much fun as with your buddies, but it will get done faster and probably done far better. Just my two cents.

[Cknox]

I'll be the diesel mechanic and probably the rigger.

[Fore and Aft]

I doubt you will get 600 hours productive work in a month out of your buddies. There is a huge amount of effort to do 70 hours a week on the tools. I used to do FIFO in 28 day swings and by day 28 after doing 12-13 hour days I was shattered and definately not working to 100% capacity. Not knocking teachers, but you guys are not equipped to hit the tools hard and effectively for a month having just come from a classroom enviroment. In the mines we used to break office jockeys on a regular basis.
Cheers

[barnakiel]

I think home DYI are fine but not quite as good as boat repair freaks (a subset of the cruising crowd).


I think in a 70hrs week only the early hours will be productive, the rest will be half productive due to plain fatigue. Except that very young guns (18-25) can often work up to 12 hours each day for a month. Then they quit, but the job is done.



So what I am pointing at is that the number of men-hours is pretty irrelevant to how much gets done.


What counts is the quality of the men and their ability to get quality rest between work periods.


Project management comes second if not first too: plenty of downtime is all too common with amateurs.



To give you a tangible perspective my friend runs a small team of varnishers. They have just completely re-done all exterior and refreshed large part of interior on a most impressive Hoek (about 100ft) - 12 people took 3 months.


So ..... it all depends


b.

[pilott]

The Rule of Project Time: get an estimate of the time the project should take, from the ge most experienced person you can find.
Then half it.
Then increase by one time unit.
Example: estimate = 2 hours, half it and increase units to one DAY
Or estimate is 1 day, becomes half a week.
It's cynical, but horribly accurate

[thinwater]

Unless you have a massive amount of boat experience, I think the problem will be figuring out what to do and how to do it right. I can't imagine that you would know what to tackle and how to tackle it so clearly. In fact, very experienced boat owners often delay many projects until they've had a chance to get to know the boat.

[Pete7]

Agreed, take the boat sailing for a few months before deciding what you want to do. How will you know what the engine is really like? or the condition of the sails until you have spent a few hours looking at them.

Do the obvious things like servicing and cleaning out tanks etc, then just go and enjoy.

Pete