So what does the cost of lead mean anyway...

I suppose trickle down effect does work where torture is concerned, something hardly surprising about Florida, and what's going on...

The other day I was thinking about the conundrum of  current boat pricing and how it relates to building your own boat.

For example: let's take a look at just about the cheapest/fastest to build 38-foot boat you're likely to come across... Phil Bolger's Loose Moose 2 design.

LM2 is a good boat to build because it is simple, uses materials intelligently, has about six months of full time labor involved (though I expect if building it again I could do it a lot faster), and, in this case, its simplicity helps us understand the important bits/costs we have to deal with...

Some basic costs we need to factor in are...

• About 80+ sheets of plywood
• A bunch of lumber
• 50 gallons of epoxy and assorted fillers
• Glass fiber
• A ton of lead or so
• Lots of other stuff...

As you can see, we're using a sort of broad brush here but the high points on the list are lumber, ply, epoxy, and lead. The big ticket items if you will. But, for simplicity's sake we'll confine ourselves to just the lead because it is something of a constant at around $1 a pound.

So, right off the bat we're talking about nearly $2200 for lead and that's if you get a good deal...

More about things of a ballast nature tomorrow...

Listening to France Gall

So it goes...