A different yacht charter...

EBM making sense, can't fix stupid, and in the "Take this job and shove it" department...

As some of you know, here on "So It Goes" we're, for want of a better description, Boat Pimps and have a charter brokerage. As a general rule I don't pimp charter boats on Boat Bits but have occasionally mentioned repositioning charters as they give an opportunity for long passages, different venues, or bargains.

One charter fleet we work with in Belize is repositioning some of their cats to the Rio Dulce for the "H" season. They are offering a per-cabin flotilla charter August 21-27 which includes sailing from Belize City to the Rio Dulce in Guatemala

For more information including an itinerary you can check it out on the Paradise Connections blog.

Listening to the Iron Leg Radio Show

So it goes... 

another cool design...

 Regarding the high cost of hamburger, yet another COVID cure you may want to avoid, and in the "Remind me to never eat out in Ohio" department...

I'll go on record and say that I've always liked Dudley Dix designs. Partly because he actually understands boat building (which is surprisingly rare in designers) and partly because, every once in a while he surprises me.

Like this design.

 

 

It's a design that fills a need/niche and it does so incredibly well. What impresses me the most is that it is just the sort of design most designers would avoid like the plague as being just too different.

Face it, designers are seldom rewarded for coming up with boats that do not fall into the same old same vein.

As soon as I came across this design I realized that this was a boat that would work just as well in the day charter business down here in the Caribbean as well as opening up a market that is now mostly cattlemarans and and power boats doing the "three hour tour" two step.

The design could also be used for various pursuits outside the day charter trade as its open form allows it to be just about anything you'd want to do. For example as someone who has been part of the Caribbean film community for longer than I care to admit the first thing I thought of when I saw this design is what a great camera boat it would make with the added advantage of when not working on films or commercials it could still earn it's keep fishing, day charter, or being a dive boat between gigs.

I keep hearing about "working sail" making a comeback but Fast Eddy is the sort of working sail that makes real sense where niche markets and needs are the design brief.

While I've never been a big fan of steel or alloy boat building the lapstrake method used on Fast Eddy makes all kinds of sense and has me rethinking aluminum.

You can find more about Fast Eddy on the Dix website and blog which is well worth checking out.

Listening to Attic Lights

So it goes...

It's that time of year again...

The threat of coastal landfills, a very bad report card, and where COVID is concerned best to stay paranoid...

One of the sailing magazines who sends me email mentioned a slew of Christmas gifts for sailors and, as expected, it pissed me off as their choices were all high-ticket items.

So, to balance out things for the non-consumerist who read my drivel, here's what I'd suggest instead...

The first item on the list was a watch and they suggested two. One cost $1,850 and the other would set you back a measly $100-$250 or so. Way too expensive for my tastes. As an alternative I recommend the Casio F-91W. It is an excellent timepiece often used for celestial navigation (Starpath includes it as part of their GPS Backup Kit) and the watch costs less than 20 bucks.

The second item on their list was a PFD and tether. Which, in my opinion, is a horrible gift. PFDs in general are a very personal item and, if it does not sync with your tastes, it won't get worn. I've given up on inflatables and have come to the conclusion that the best bet for sailing folk are the inexpensive sort designed for kayak folk. As far as tethers go, I'd give the sailor in question some line, a couple of carabiners, and a link on how to make a Brummel splice.

The third item was a satellite communication device which is a lot more money than most of the people I know give as gifts. Nothing wrong with the item in question but how about an extra winch handle?

Seriously, everyone needs an extra winch handle.

The next item on the list was new foul weather gear. I've gone on record before that most of the foul weather gear available is pretty awful and not up to the job. These days the only foulies I recommend is the cheap stuff used by commercial fisherfolk which might not be as hip and fashionable but does allow you to work while wearing it and keep you dry. Since I'm ranting on this particular subject, whose bright idea was it to start doing BLACK foul weather gear?

The last item was a yacht charter. Now, as someone who actually has a charter business, you’d think I’d be all over that in a big way. The current price of bareboat charters down here in the Caribbean could buy someone a pretty nice, classic plastic sailboat. Which would you prefer: a week in paradise or a boat you could use all year?

Just sayin'...

Listening to some Christmas covers

So it goes...

On the subject of cruising and charter design...

A question of note, an interesting charting method, and in the "seriously creepy" department...

So, what do we actually want a cruising boat to be?

Think about that for a minute or two... 

A good cruising boat is a nomadic habitat that can take you pretty much anywhere in the world accessible by water. You want it to be safe, comfortable, and as trouble-free as possible. It should also be easy to maintain and operable within its crew's physical and financial abilities or constraints.

A good charter boat, on the other hand, is designed to generate income and that's the bottom line. Which, I'll be the first to admit, is no bad thing but making money creates a completely different design brief than you'd want for a cruising boat.

One of the things that still surprises me is that 90% of our crewed charter clients don't sail, they're not into boats, and, if anything, the whole idea of a sailing vacation does not quite track with them. What does track however is they like the idea of a movable luxury hotel room that moves from location to location with their own personal Chef and crew to take care of them. The newer the boat, ensuite heads, lots of toys, all creature comforts, and a killer menu is more often than not why people choose the boats they do.  Sure, they want the boat to look great but to most clients anything that's expensive and floats right side up is considered a great looking boat.

Charter cats are all built to a cost point as most charter boats are only built with a five year lifespan factored into the mix. Term charter (crewed boats) tend to last longer as they don't get the abuse that bareboats do but a seven-year old crewed charter boat is considered too long in the tooth to get top dollar. The point being that longevity is not a high priority on the design brief.

Most catamarans are sold to the various charter companies and, as such, most cats for sale are designed for charter. That equals a lot of catamarans. So many in fact, that you'll find very few manufacturers willing to start building a non-charter oriented multihull. Sure there are a few exceptions coming from small or boutique builders (Gemini comes to mind). 

How to tell the difference between a cat designed for cruising or a cat designed for charter? If the boat sleeps ten and has four heads it's a charter design.

Like I said before, I like term charter boats and have a business that is part of that industry so I understand why they're designed the way they are. The downside where cruising is concerned is that there are just not enough people buying new cruising multihulls for the boat building companies to design and tool up for, in their view, what they consider a minuscule market.

Since we're on a roll we'll talk about what I'd like a cruising cat to be in 2021 in the next post.

Listening to Margo Timmins

So it goes...

Some more on the multihull subject...

An interesting ongoing story, a TED talk about coffee, and the word of the day is A-N-O-C-R-A-C-Y...

Back in the early 80s when I was building a Wharram Tiki 31 in Port Marly France, magazines like Cruising World were running editorials proclaiming that catamarans were both unfit and unsafe as cruising boats. Just about everyone I knew counseled me on the dangers that catamarans represented and pointed out that cruising a cat would end in tears or death which made for some very short conversations on boatbuilding and design.

Not to toot my own horn but I knew better. A decade before, as a starving art student living on a boat in Sausalito and working part time putting interiors in ferrocement boats, I'd seen a couple of Piver trimarans sailing in all kinds of weather and showing their transoms to many of the "HOT" Bay racing boats. They were light, easy to build, cheap, and could get by with less sail area and still sustain higher speeds. To put it mildly they caught my attention.

Of course, at the same time over in the UK, catamarans were already an established part of the sailing scene with the Prouts, Lacks, Pat Patterson, Wharram, and MacAlpine-Downie building a multihull niche for normal folks. As a result there was ample information that multihulls were actually safe and sane as opposed to the entrenched opinion in the US of A that multihulls were a death trap and a possible killer of profits for US boat builders.

How the US sailing industry came to make a 180 degree shift to embrace multihulls is based more on the fact that the various companies selling bareboat and term charters realized that cats were a pretty optimum craft for chartering and, as they could sell a lot more charters with them, it was time to jump on the multihull bandwagon. Confronted with huge wads of advertising cash from the charter companies it seemed like an excellent time for the yachting whores press to do an about face.

The downside of all this is that what makes a good boat for chartering doesn't necessarily make a good cruising boat. As someone who has a charter company (by the way, even in these times of Covid, people can still charter in the Caribbean), and a couple of decades of experience within the charter business there is some basis to my opinion. Which is not to say that multihulls can't be great cruising boats but the design brief for a good cruising multihull is a whole lot different than for a charter multihull.

Next up we'll talk about those differences.

Listening to Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds

So it goes...

Just a quick note...

Every once in a while a few of the charter boats we work with will have a repositioning charter which combines a blue water passage where sailors can focus on honing the skills covered during the trip.

SEA WITCH, a 53-foot Pearson ketch cutter, is offering a downwind offshore passage from St.Thomas to West Palm Beach, Florida, April 27-May 4, 2020. The passage is estimated as 6 days/5 nights. If you're interested you can find all the needful information here.

Definitely not the same old same Caribbean charter experience which you might want to check out.

Something you might want to check out...

Electric canal boats, not quite 5th grade, and some bad news for folks with outboard motors in the US of A...

Every once in awhile, one of the charter boats we work with will do a repositioning cruise outside the norms of the same old same crewed charter thing that offer interesting opportunities at a better than the normal rate.

Guiding Light has just such a deal and will be sailing from Grenada to Puerto Rico in mid-November and is offering a two-week "cruising experience" charter from November 9-23, 2018. As it is just the sort of charter that readers of Boat Bits complain does not exist these days, you might want to check it out.

Listening to a far too timely song

So it goes...

Diversity issues...

Some very needful reading, a good piece about mountain biking that could just as easily be about sailing, and in the "is Congressman Mo Brooks dumber than a bag of hammers" department...

Having a charter business is not all fun, frolic, and doing the happy dance.  Sometimes it gets downright depressing.

For instance, over the last couple of decades we've watched a large portion of our clients suffer from the ongoing stagnant economy and resulting hardships entailed.

Then there's the boats who have been caught between a rock and a hard place by rising prices and a client base that has less and less money to spend each year.

That said, there are some good things as well...

When we started Paradise Connections there were a lot of diversity issues within the fleet. It was pretty much an established fact that some boats did not play well with all groups of people who might charter a boat. In those dark days it was considered OK to say gays were not welcome aboard. Fact of the matter was that on every boat's spec sheet there was a place where they could say yes or no to gay charters. That really bothered us and we would not book boats that said "NO". We also would not book boats that had issues of a racist nature either and while those questions were not on the specs sheets, some crews made it quite clear that not all races were welcome.

We didn't book those boats.

As time passed we noticed a lot of the anti-gay element seemed to have left the charter fleet and seemed to be replaced by folks who were more understanding of the diverse nature of people who charter. In other words things were getting better.

Well, at least we thought so...

Now we're noticing some boats are saying "inquire" regarding gay charters and that's all kinds of wrong.

First of all: It's none of my business what sexual orientation our clients follow and I'm not about to ask them. As it happens, it's not my business whether our clients are Hispanic, Jewish, African-American, Muslim, Asian, or whatever either.

Not my business.

Not the boats' business.

But now we have a new President and all of a sudden we're supposed to ask those questions and somehow it's now ok...

Not going to. Nope not in the land of the free and the home of the brave where everyone is equal.

Which means that folks who feel we need to "inquire" regarding our gay clientele are not going to be listed in our charter brokerage. We'll remove them from our website and they won't get charters from us because we're not going to empower their problematic attitudes that have no place in an industry based on hospitality.

Not on our watch.

Listening to Buffalo Tom

So it goes...

a chance to cross an ocean...

Something worth watching, on the current cost of higher education, and Donkey Mountain does make a good point...

It's not always easy to get some bluewater experience and in fact it can be damned hard. So, when the crew of Emily Morgan (a boat we charter here in the Caribbean) let us know they were heading to England and had room for a couple of people who want or need the experience of a serious transoceanic passage under their belt, I thought it was worth sharing...

Emily Morgan will be departing Antigua on 7th May 2015 bound for the UK via the Azores. The complete passage of about 3850 miles is expected to take between 23-27 days. Guests will be expected to be involved fully with sailing the boat including watch keeping, steering, sail changes, cooking and some general maintenance.

Sounds like just what the doctor ordered...

You can find more information and costs over on our Paradise Connections Blog

Listening to the Alan Lomax recordings of the 1966 Newport Folk Festival

So it goes...

the better days/good old times conundrum...

Just another responsible gun owner, Krugman making a lot of sense, and an open carry movement I could actually support...

This morning, listening to a food program on the BBC, I heard that the largest employer in Mexico happens to be WalMart and it got me thinking about how the world is changing. More importantly how those changes are going to impact the whole sailing and cruising gig.

Now, admittedly, being able to provision and buy stuff at an American super store does have its advantages but at a cost we don't often think through or even notice till it's too late to change.

As many of you know we have a charter business but unlike most of the people who do what we do we don't offer bareboats because, in our view, the bareboat industry is bad for the economies and ecology's they're selling. Having been in the Caribbean long enough to have met some of the folks who actually invented the concept of the bareboat industry and listening to their opinions of the current state of affairs is a lot like listening to a loving parent trying to sort out why the child they raised and nurtured is currently doing 15-20 in prison for robbing banks...

Which brings me to a book I've meant to read for a long time which has zero to do with chartering or big box stores in third world nations but a lot to do with how stuff happens and gets out of control because we don't pay attention to what's going on or think things through. World War Z has a lot to say and it really is a riveting read. While not horrible, the recent film of the book did not do it justice at all though it was entertaining.

Well actually when you come to think of it, bareboaters and zombies do seem to have a lot in common...

Listening to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

So it goes..