25D vs. 27

[Jerry Hammernik]

Just weighing in on the teak question. I use (boat is in Wisconsin) Epifanes Rapid Coat followed by their Wood Finish Gloss. I remove the old finish, and apply 5 coats of Rapid Coat. Then I sand before applying 3 coats of Wood Finish Gloss. If I touch up any nicks or wear spots I can get 7 or 8 years before I start over. I have the advantage of a heated work environment in my back yard. Is it worth it? That's a personal opinion. I have people stop by on the dock all the time telling me what a beautiful boat she is. I confess to enjoying that. It lets the boat know I care about her and appreciate how she takes care of me.
Your mileage may vary.

[Dick Kobayashi]

Not to overly flog this (but, hey, we are on page 6). You might consider the value of a friend with a truck, perhaps a sort of quite special friends with benefits arrangement. He tows; he sails. That leaves you only with the purchase of a trailer. btw in life there is ALWAYS a guy with a truck who could use some cash and will tow. I guarantee it. Money can often be better deployed to buy services than stuff. And the service provider benefits too. There are many who want to sail/help out who could never afford a boat. Help them and you will be helped. Be selective though.

Much of the advice on this thread and on this Board generally tends toward simplification and that gets us back to Casey and " The Thoreau Approach"

FW

[John Stone]

Just weighing in on the teak question. I use (boat is in Wisconsin) Epifanes Rapid Coat followed by their Wood Finish Gloss. I remove the old finish, and apply 5 coats of Rapid Coat. Then I sand before applying 3 coats of Wood Finish Gloss. If I touch up any nicks or wear spots I can get 7 or 8 years before I start over. I have the advantage of a heated work environment in my back yard. Is it worth it? That's a personal opinion. I have people stop by on the dock all the time telling me what a beautiful boat she is. I confess to enjoying that. It lets the boat know I care about her and appreciate how she takes care of me.
Your mileage may vary.

What a boring world it would be if we all thought the same thing, or did it the same way, or wanted the same thing.

Keep on keeping on.

[fritz3000g]

btw in life there is ALWAYS a guy with a truck who could use some cash and will tow.

I'm really curious about strategies to find such people, and how to broach the topic.

I don't know a lot of truck owners, and the ones I do either don't need cash or are very protective of their trucks for one reason or another. I live in the city, so maybe that's why.

I don't think it's me they're worried about. I've regularly had people willing to let me borrow other kinds of vehicles.

[John Stone]

btw in life there is ALWAYS a guy with a truck who could use some cash and will tow.

I'm really curious about strategies to find such people, and how to broach the topic.

I don't know a lot of truck owners, and the ones I do either don't need cash or are very protective of their trucks for one reason or another. I live in the city, so maybe that's why.

I don't think it's me they're worried about. I've regularly had people willing to let me borrow other kinds of vehicles.

There are plenty of small independent short haul truckers that use 1 ton puck ups to move all kinds of stuff. Goggle them in your area. Also you can post something on Craigs List. Just get references. Also check with businesses that cater to truck accessories. They know all kinds of people with trucks. Boat yards are another place. I don't know about where you live but here in coastal Carolina you can't swing a dead cat in the boatyard with you hitting a big pick-up. Just start asking. At worst you're gonna meet all kinds of interesting people and probably make some friends too.

[John Stone]

Also, don't overlook small airfields where many people keep their pvt aircraft. Those guys are always working on planes. It's a big social club like the yacht club. They are moving engines and aircraft parts all the time with contracted truck haulers using pickups and utility trailers. Lots of those guys would love a gig to haul a boat.

[Dick Kobayashi]

Well, you don't really need to address this until you own a boat and trailer. I concur with the suggestions above. But also note that the guys who work in boat yard, like the fixed base operator crowd, tend to own trucks and know how to move boats. It is a kind of word of mouth thing. Another source is municipal Public works guys, The heavy equip operators mostly own trucks and are licensed and work (usually) for a strict public employer. You might get a feel for this by simply chatting up folks at the DPW yard in what ever community you live in and/or what ever boat yard you currently use or is near you.

There are two costs in boat ownership

- what you pay and
- what you avoid

[fritz3000g]

There are plenty of small independent short haul truckers that use 1 ton puck ups to move all kinds of stuff. Goggle them in your area. Also you can post something on Craigs List. Just get references. Also check with businesses that cater to truck accessories. They know all kinds of people with trucks. Boat yards are another place. I don't know about where you live but here in coastal Carolina you can't swing a dead cat in the boatyard with you hitting a big pick-up. Just start asking. At worst you're gonna meet all kinds of interesting people and probably make some friends too.

Great advice. Glad to hear that you're not swinging live cats.

Also, don't overlook small airfields where many people keep their pvt aircraft. Those guys are always working on planes. It's a big social club like the yacht club. They are moving engines and aircraft parts all the time with contracted truck haulers using pickups and utility trailers. Lots of those guys would love a gig to haul a boat.

Thanks!

But also note that the guys who work in boat yard, like the fixed base operator crowd, tend to own trucks and know how to move boats. It is a kind of word of mouth thing. Another source is municipal Public works guys, The heavy equip operators mostly own trucks and are licensed and work (usually) for a strict public employer. You might get a feel for this by simply chatting up folks at the DPW yard in what ever community you live in and/or what ever boat yard you currently use or is near you.

Awesome - I'll look there too.

Well, you don't really need to address this until you own a boat and trailer.

I think that's mostly true, but it's also likely that at some point the perfect-ish boat will come up for sale and it'll be 1000+ miles away. Seems like it would be useful to understand the relative costs of owning, renting, and hiring a truck before that happens. I'd also really like to learn about the engineering (and liability, marketing, etc...) that truck manufacturers put into estimating their towing capacity, in order to understand which vehicles are over-rated and which are under-rated. I suspect this will take a few years to learn. I wonder if there are any good books on the topic?

There are two costs in boat ownership
- what you pay and
- what you avoid

I'd be really interested to hear stories of avoided costs.

The main way I've avoided costs so far is to learn how to rig the MacGregor quickly enough that doing so takes less time than retrieving it from a mooring pin. This also avoids the need for bottom paint and makes it easy to work on while it's parked next to my house. Including the purchase, maintenance, parts (including the outboard I lost in 200' of water), and the increased cost of a car that can tow it, my annualized costs over the past 5 years have been about $600/yr.

Once I get a nicer boat that can't easily launch, I'll likely end up doing most of my sailing trips at the local sailing club on their boats ($350/yr) and just use the nice boat for longer trips on bigger water a few times a year. In that scenario, I can tolerate quite a lot of inconvenience to get the nice boat on the water and sailing each time I go out since it'll happen less frequently.

I think there are a couple of other kinds of costs: opportunity cost and risk mitigation.

WRT Opportunity Cost, this is the one that I'm just now starting to learn about. Since I started my business, my time is much more valuable than it used to be. Now the question of whether $50 is worth spending to save an hour of time is a valid one, since I make more than that in an hour of work. I don't especially like my work and would prefer to spend my time doing stuff with the boat, so I usually still choose to save the money and do the work myself.

Once I start to approach financial independence and work less, though, both the math and my attitude might change. Maybe I'll want to work a little bit so I can stay engaged. Maybe I'll want to go out on the nice boat more and would prefer to have it handy. Maybe opportunities will come up that I can only take advantage of if I own a truck (e.g. spur of the moment trip to the Bahamas), or maybe things will come up that I'll have to miss out on since I wasted money on a truck (e.g. can't go on a trip because a new autopilot doesn't fit in the budget).'

WRT Risk Mitigation, I often choose the riskier path and save the money. Like many sailors, I suspect, my personality craves risk. When I first bought the Mac, I towed it with an underpowered vehicle for about 3 years because it's what I had and because I had a lot of experience towing moderate loads, and I compensated by being a very careful driver (most driving accidents result from not paying close attention). Eventually it fried the engine and transmission, but the vehicle was cheap so that was fine. There are many other stories - mostly on the water - but I digress. I like to understand and quantify the risk I'm taking (especially the risk of hurting other people), but generally choose to intentionally take some risk, in part because risk mitigation is often very expensive and in part because taking risks is really fun for me (and generates fun stories).

With a CD there will be new kinds of risks to mitigate, such as whether to buy an AIS or whether to raise the mast myself. The 2500 lb trailer will become a 7500 lb trailer, so the towing risk will become much greater and will fall outside my experience. How much to pay to mitigate that risk? It's a good question. On towing forums, the answer appears to be "whatever it takes" which seems illogical to me. Life is full of risk. Let's say I take a trip across the country while (as carefully as possible) towing a trailer that's 20% above the rating for my vehicle. Which of my risks is greater:

1. towing the trailer
2. stopping for a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a soda
3. getting Covid

I know people who would choose each of these, but the answer can actually be calculated and estimated. I haven't done the math, but having done other kinds of relative risk calculations I doubt I could guess right before doing the math.

[jmaue]

My two cents....
I started out searching for a 22-then 25D-then 27. The 22 wasn't priced properly and the owner was not motivated to correct. Couldn't locate a 25D on the great lakes and the 27 was well outside of the estimated value. So then I discovered a 28. It has 6ft 2in of headroom, 8 opening ports, a generous amount of cleats and plenty of handsome teak. Compare the cost of a 25D and 27 to that of a 28. Knowing what I do today, I suggest leveling your sites on a nicely maintained CD28.

[Speedgraphic]

My two cents....
I started out searching for a 22-then 25D-then 27. The 22 wasn't priced properly and the owner was not motivated to correct. Couldn't locate a 25D on the great lakes and the 27 was well outside of the estimated value. So then I discovered a 28. It has 6ft 2in of headroom, 8 opening ports, a generous amount of cleats and plenty of handsome teak. Compare the cost of a 25D and 27 to that of a 28. Knowing what I do today, I suggest leveling your sites on a nicely maintained CD28.

This has been a bit of a frustration for me as well. I think I really only need something like a 22 or Ty Senior, and would live in ultimate luxury on a 25D. All of these have kind of outsized prices for the moment. It pushes you toward a boat like a 27 or 28 because they cost the same upfront, or less. However down the line they'll cost more to maintain and rig. I also consider a Sea Sprite 23, but overnighting on one does not seem as realistic as even a 22. The last nice 22 I saw listed though was asking a bit over $10k.

It's tough to know what to do...so I just end up waiting until I find something reasonable...

[fritz3000g]

This has been a bit of a frustration for me as well. I think I really only need something like a 22 or Ty Senior, and would live in ultimate luxury on a 25D. All of these have kind of outsized prices for the moment. It pushes you toward a boat like a 27 or 28 because they cost the same upfront, or less.

I've been thinking of an Albin Vega as the discount CD that's less nice and cheaper but about as functional. Similar weight to a 25D.

The forum is less engaged though.

[fmueller]

Fritz,

been reading this thread again ... fun ... nobody here is going to mind a "fer ner" who owns an Albin Vega hanging out ...


Fred

[fritz3000g]

Wanted to finish up this thread by saying that I just purchased a 25D and will launch on Lake Michigan this summer.

I had shared that my plan was to wait a couple of years till I'm close to retirement. Here's why I chose to move forwards now:

• It's stored on a trailer, which is very hard to find based on a year's worth of watching. Storing on a trailer (summer and winter) will save approximately $2k per year, as well as giving me the ability to travel.
• It's 8 miles from a marina with a steep and deep ramp where I can store on the hard with the mast up and launch myself. My current vehicle can handle towing it 8 miles at sunrise (no traffic, 15 mph) and launching it.
• It's 3 hours from my house. I wasn't aware that there was a 25D in the Midwest at all (much less one on a trailer), so had been planning around having to haul 1000 miles rather than 8.
• It's in excellent shape with few issues, and while the motor is original it still operates very reliably.
• My neighbor offered to let me use (or buy) their beat-up but reliable RAM 2500 if I want to move it longer distances.

I really didn't want to buy a boat right now, and was seriously considering getting a Balboa 27 instead for the shallower draft (2.6 vs. 3.5 ft). However, finding a local boat/trailer combo was an opportunity I couldn't pass up even if I'm unlikely to get much use out of it the next couple years.

The one weird thing about it is that it has almost no electronics except Radar. Why that would be I have no idea.

Thanks again everyone for all the great advice! I'll be around

Pictures: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[mgphl52]

Pictures: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Google drive doesn't auto-majik-ly allow folks to view your pics...
Congrats on the purchase!

[wikakaru]

Google drive doesn't auto-majik-ly allow folks to view your pics...

You can't just copy the URL as it appears when you access Google Drive, you have to use the "Get Link" feature in Google Drive to share on a forum like this.

* In Google Drive, navigate to the folder you want to share and click the "Shared" icon (the silhouette of two people).
* Click on the words "Copy link".
* Paste the link address from your computer's clipboard into your post.

Everything in the folder you are sharing will become public, so make sure you aren't sharing your whole Google Drive, just the folder with the files you want to be public.

Google Drive Sharing.jpg

--Jim