Budget matters.

Pathfinder project post – fitting out budget.

This week’s video…..measuring for the expensive cream flappy things.

Blog time, April 2023. The chancellor chappie and I have something in common this week in that we’ve both ‘done the numbers’ for our respective budgets although I suspect his numbers have a lot more nought’s in that does mine….the only nourght or zero in mine being my bank balance this month. Having slowly run down an admittedly small reserve in my bank balance during two years of building I rattled the can this week and there wasn’t much there….and definitely not enough for the next stage of the project which will be to finish the rig, buy some sails, a set of oars and hopefully a few bits and pieces.

Those of you who have built a boat will know that it isn’t the cost of building a hull that really hurts unless it’s something in hi-tec Carbon fiber that needs a plug making first, if you’re in that league though you certainly don’t need any words of advice from the cheap seats here. With small boats the greater expense is in the anciliary equipment – in my case the trailer and possibly the motor – against that the cost of sails and oars isn’t too bad but does count towards the whole expense of fitting out a boat. As it is at this stage iv’e decided against doing certain things right now so the boat isn’t getting an electrical system this year and not getting custom covers, stowage bags and suchlike until winter next year at which time I will buy the fabric and make them.

So far, the single largest expense was the trailer which we bought as a bare frame and since then had to add several hundred pounds worth of trailer furniture, a spare wheel, the custom made parts for the extended drawbar and next it’s security devices. The only reason I got that done is that my partner (Jax) gave me a big bung towards buying the trailer , which was hugely generous and this week the Royal Bank of Jackie is lending me the funds to buy the expensive stuff ; what that means is that the project can go ahead and not be delayed for 4 or 5 months while my small NHS pension catches up.

Before I started the build I asked around to try and find out what other builders thought would be the cost of completing the build of a Pathfinder and most answers were something like ‘it depends’….the main thing that it depends on , it seems, isn’t so much the basic cost of materials but the level of quality of the finishing and fitting out. A better question was how much it would cost to build the hull of a working boat finish Pathfinder, nothing fancy – just competent. Designer John Welsford thought that the basic build of the hull would cost me around £5000 for the materials and that was about right up until the stage when I decided to glass the entire hull which was a bit more in terms of more glassfibre cloth and more resin.

That didn’t allow anything for additional tools and in my case the cost of building a shelter first – the main additional tools would be basic to most woodworkers so I spent about £1000 initially, more as I went along and then about £1500 to build the shelter. On top of the hull build I used additional material to add the cuddy and I maybe wasn’t as efficient as I thought in the use of plywood so I ended up needing a few more sheets of BS 1088 plywood which is expensive but a much better option than cheap far eastern ply. All in all I think it cost me £7500 to build and finish the hull and I probably spent another £1000 on better tools as I went along : Japanese pull saws, many more clamps and a power multi tool that did all of the stringer notches for example.

Interestingly one owner I spoke to said that he had builder receipts of around £8500 so I reckon I was pretty close. What that doesn’t account for is the expensive fittings such as the engine , trailer and sails ….. I already had a bit of kit laying around so my basic fit-out includes two over sized anchors and i’m not objecting to either. As of this week the total for the trailer is about £2200 minus a wheel clamp, I have a quote for around £1500 for the two working sails and am thinking about an outboard engine for around another thousand….the oars and suchlike come first and even a decent set of oars is nearly £200 when bought new. The engine isn’t a high priority as my main aim is a set of voyages by sail and oar, having said that though I think that there are times when I might need to use an engine for a while.

Cost savings.

Relatively small fittings can be shockingly expensive, take the Bronze rudder fittings and the Bronze chainplates for example : I couldn’t avoid those costs because I have neither the tools or the skills to cast and machine Bronze but I could avoid spending £35 a pop on a set of mooring cleats (6 off) and a set for the halyards (also 6) by making my own in simple English Ash. When it comes to cleats or jammers for halyards many modern sailors would use expensive double and triple jammers but wooden cleats are not only in keeping with the boat but they are positive and much kinder to modern rope ; the boat is going to get high spec Dyneema for 2 halyards because I already have it in stock from a previous project but as advised a more basic Marlow braid for the gaff mains’l.

I have an idea to use simple low friction rings for the gaff halyards because they don’t have to move under load – they can be locked off on the cleats at a pre-set height and the tension applied by using a tack downhaul. At the moment I think I need 4 expensive jam cleats ( 2 for the mains’l and 2 for the jib) although I may also be able to get away with another pair of Ash cleats for my jib sheets…..after all that’s what my 80 year old gaffer had for it’s entire working life !

Once again, my anchor fittings (chocks) are home made in whatever hardwoods I had laying around rather than cast Bronze and right now my gaff saddle is an experiment in making a laminated GRP one. Moving forward a bit, rather than buying an expensive Bronze bow roller to fit over the bowsprit I am going to use another low friction eye with a simple lacing and then right at the bow maybe have my jib free-flying just like an Essex Smack rather than furling on £200 worth of jib furler.

Broken rules.

I have thoroughly broken my own rules though……

For nearly all of the life of my blog I have advocated low end, low cost boating based on a few simple rules ; low initial cost of the actual boat, low running costs by maintaining a simple approach and doing as much of the maintenance myself as I can. In my blog I have approached the same problem several ways ; for example that I have talked about a budget limited boat based on say a thousand pound or two thousand pound budget and trying to find a way of getting on the water inside that budget. To that end I still track interesting potential project boats but even then I have to acknowledge that it isn’t the capital outlay that ‘kills’ the boater so much as the yearly running costs like marina fees and mooring or boatyard costs.

With this project I have broken the rules in one way because I have committed to building as nice a boat as I can and it isn’t finished yet – what I have done successfully I think is to end up with a boat that lives on a trailer at home and which doesn’t incur any boatyard costs unless I have to lay alongside a pontoon or visitor berth during my travels : just to put that in cost context that saves me about £1600 per year not spent on a cheap mooring for ‘the season’ and then the inescapable cost of then having to use the local boatyard. One year of mooring costs and boatyard costs not spent nearly equals the cost of a brand new trailer plus there is no boatyard manager here who can deny me access to my own boat.

I have enjoyed being a backyard boatbuilder for a while and I hope I enjoy voyaging with this boat ; there is the odd moment when I wish I had chosen to build a true , simple working man’s craft and when I have cleared my costs and dealt with some essential spending – re roofing the workshop comes to mind – I hanker to build something like a working man’s sailing/rowing working Dory…..and still might. Before I get to that though I have a boat to finish and to do that I have to keep to the tightest focus on the budget.