Sunday, July 23, 2017

on things being different...

tRump with a telling question, Badtux has a good suggestion, and EBM offers some good advice...

A very long time ago I was once accosted by a fellow cruiser who took exception with the fact that I would, from time to time, do paying work for other cruisers. Apparently, he thought, that asking to be paid for (let's say rebuilding a toilet) was counter to the whole cruisers "we're all one big loving family" vibe. I'm pretty sure that he also said I was a greedhead exploiting and ripping folks off. It still rankles...

In my defense, when working for other cruisers I always used a system of sorts which boiled down to that if someone just needed some help or advice there was never money involved but, if they were perfectly capable of doing the job themselves, then a reasonable payment for the work in question would come into play.

Of course, back in the day, things and cruisers were a whole lot different (Hmmm, I just channeled my dad)...

For starters, most cruisers were a whole lot handier and had a lot more experience in the manual arts. Which is not to say that there are not a lot of cruisers today who know how to fix and build stuff but they are a much smaller percentage of the overall cruising community than they used to be.

Boats were a lot smaller as well. Offhand, in the early 90's, I'd hazard a guess that the average cruising couple's boat was right in the 30-32 foot envelope. Sure you'd find the odd couple  on a 50 foot or larger boat but they were few and far between.

And, maybe the most important difference in cruisers today and in days of yore is there is a huge difference in the amount of money in play. So much money in fact that it's hard to imagine how anyone on a blue collar budget could manage at all.

Which, sorta/kinda, brings us back to the whole working for or marketing to cruisers and being a greedhead thing...

"Huge chunks of money seldom bring out the best in people"
                                                               -My dad may have said that

Back when I was doing jobs for other cruisers no one was awash with lots of cash and, as a general rule, you might say that cruisers as a group were a pretty penurious lot. Truth be told, working for other cruisers was just about the last thing a greedhead would be attracted to as there was just not that much money for the effort.

But, times do change. In a world where a sailing magazine recently referred to a half-million dollar monohull as inexpensive, you're going to find that whenever there are those kinds of sums involved mixed with folks who're not all that knowledgeable or handy...

Well, someone's going to take advantage.

Be careful. Do your math.

Just the other day I noticed someone selling 100' hanks of Endura single braid for $135 which seemed somewhat overpriced. As it happens, I really like Endura single braid and have been buying 100' foot hanks for various rigging projects from Hamiliton Marine at $86 for quite a while.

Just saying...

Listening to Coverville (always a good listen).

So it goes...