A couple of thoughts regarding ballast...

Follow the money, a good point, and someone doing good...

So, here are a few numbers to play with;

• A cubic foot of water weighs 62 pounds
• A cubic foot of concrete weighs 150 pounds
• A cubic foot of iron weighs 491 pounds
• A cubic foot of lead weighs 709 pounds
• A cubic foot of gold weighs 1206 pounds

Like a lot of people I like the idea of water ballast. What's not to like... it's free, you can lose it when you don't want it around, and it works. Of course, there's a downside (there's always a downside to anything) in that it takes up a lot more room than most of us care to give up within the interior.

Case in point: Phil Bolger's take apart three piece schooner that I've often considered building as a non-take-apart boat which has often been on my shortlist for the next Loose Moose. Of course replacing the water ballast with other ballast types would gain a lot more room...

That said, somehow the idea of a 47-foot boat has lost a lot of it's allure for me but would still make a certain kind of sense due to its 1.5-foot draft and enough room and stowage to be able to work on rigging jobs and build self-steering gears/dinghies/surfboards as a nomadic shop/business model.

Listening to Bob Dylan covering Frank Sinatra

So it goes...