Boat Plans Collection

I wrote the story of how I got started in the flats boat world 5 years ago. I did this for two reasons. The first was that my daughters wanted me to tell, explain my side of the story as so much miss information and tales were being told that were not near the truth. Of course I want all of you to know that this is my version of what I incountered. I have kept records of most all the boats that I have built and most all information. In regards to my time at HBBWs I have every fax and piece of correspondence from my time working with Hal and Jamie Chittum along with Flip Pallot. In essence I have documentation of my intire time at HBBWs from before it started through the buyout of my shares of HB. This was before emails.

I have a very extensive photo and paper trail to corroborate my side of the story. Iam publishing this in detail as so many skiff owners would really like to know the true history of their skiff.

The second reason I have put my tale to print is to show the public that a great vison can start and come to fruition with a very simple idea. I want to show you here that that in my career I have done well in my way by working very hard and having good common sense to look at projects with eyes wide open holding no prejudices towards the vision. By this I mean that I love all types of boats and have used this observational and real practical use to help me in thinking and creating outside the box.

This is the story of a high school dropouts journey in the flats boat world up to designing and building the Whipray flats skiff.

I have added photos to this post now as when I first published it I had not been able to get these pictures online.

This story starts in 1982 on the island of Islamorada in the Florida Keys. It was at Bayside Inn Marine where I met Hal Chittum who led me into this interesting niche of the boating market. First, in order to properly understand how this story came to be I must start at the beginning of my life on the sea.

Here I am building the tiki hut at what was Bayside Inn Marina in 1982.

I dont know if World Wide Sportman tore this down when they built Bass World there.

Go back to 1973 and you will find me at age 14. My parents have sold all of their possessions, have purchased a 36’ wooden Gaff Rigged Ketch and have the idea of sailing to Florida from San Diego, California.

Our familys ketch sailing in the San Blas islands in Panama enroute to Florida in 1976

A few years later we arrived in Tarpon Springs. Go to 1976, Stamas Boats hired me to work in Research and Development. I was to be the helper of two old Florida boat builders in building all the plugs, molds and patterns for the line of Stamas Boats. I was 18 at the time and fell into an apprenticeship that would guide me throughout my boatbuilding career.

Kenny Karnu and Richard Stauffer took me under their wings and taught me how to channel my perfectionist nature into honing my skills at being a plug and mold builder. The most important lesson that they taught me was that with a clear vision of the finished product the process of building a mold could become very efficient. In the process of creating a concept it is crucial to keep things simple for if you add in too many designers and idea guys the process can easily become disjointed and go off in too many directions. Thanks to good fortune I have had the opportunity to put this into practice as I worked on many projects for many interesting people.

After a year in service to Stamas Boats, I left on my 18 foot, 10 year old plywood sloop passing through the Keys and then on to the Bahamas. It was 8:00 at night on December 3, 1977 when returning to the Bahamas my little sloop, Bilbo Baggins struck something as I neared the halfway mark in the Gulf Stream. Within minutes my sloop had sunk leaving me swimming, alone, without a dinghy only one fin, and a spear to defend myself. I swam for 20 hours and ended up 45 miles up the coast in Biscayne Bay as the sun set. The only person I knew in Florida to call at the time was living Key Largo which is how I ended up, within a week of losing everything I owned, working at Glander Boats, located in Key Largo. This job led to many others.

My 18 plywood sloop Billbo Baggins sailing off the Berry Islands in the Bahamas

Painting the bottom on the tide in Pipe Creek in the Exumas

By 1982 I was married to Lawanda Lillis and living aboard our own built sloop in “Little Basin” in Islamorada. This area is now owned by the World Wide Sportsman Company. We both worked at Bayside Inn Marina for Ray Dye, lawanda in the office and the yard,with me fixing,painting and repairing all that came through the place. Try to picture Islamorada in the early eighties. The Lorralie Restaurant had two sailboats anchored off it, Little Basin had a small dock and the number of fishing guides could be counted on your fingers.

Building our sloop "Shellan" next to what was then called the Sea Lark building in Islamorada. I built the hull when working for Glander boats after my little sloop sank.

Lawanda at the helm as we sail out to Florida Bay from Lews Marina which was next to Maxs Marina

In Islamorada.

Fitting deck beams to a 32 cutter that I was helping to build as project leader working for Dave Calvert in the Sea Lark Building.

Some statistics;

From 1977 to 1982 I had built for myself and others a total of 17 boats from 16 feet to 60 feet and I had logged 10,400 ocean sea miles under sail on my own boats.

Building a rowing dory in the evenings in what is now the main check out place in World Wide.

I love to sail, cruise, explore and fish. My passion was and is all kinds of boats from sail to power. At that time I knew of Flats Fishing but had no desire to own or build a skiff when I could have a great time sailing off to anchor and go fishing in my dinghy.

The only fishing guide I knew at that time was Tony Lay who kept his side console Hewse Bonefisher without a tower at Bayside Inn.

This all changed when Ray Dye introduced me to Hal Chittum. Hal had a project for me to do. He and Eddie Whiteman had purchased two Mako 18 foot flats boat hulls with bait boxes on the transoms and had tried to get a custom builder in Miami to build the interiors and finish them out. The boats had the 17 Mako sheer cut down to Flats boat height with flush decks and simple drain channels but had ¼ inch copper tubing for the drains. The boat amenities consisted of a forward hatch, main hatch bait well and a sump hatch. Cockpits were self bailing.

Eddie Whitman finished his skiff himself. The hull was solid glass and everything else was glassed over plywood with decks and hatches plywood cored. The finish was raw, the boat was a wreck and it weighed a “ton”. Hal was a busy guide so he gave me the project to finish. My quote to him was within an hour’s time of completion. Ray Dye rigged the boat.

Hals mako ready to paint the insides

This project got me talking with Hal about the guiding industry. Being a sailor, getting about on engineless sail boats and having designed and built some small rowing and sailing boats I told Hal in one of which has turned into one long discussion of what if, what about. I told Hal that in the sailing world where races are won by seconds that the state of the art is in building in foam core in construction with better quality materials. I said I could build the same skiff weighing ? less than his present skiff. He then could use a smaller engine, save on fuel, and would be easier to pole. It would float higher of course in shallow water but at that time it did not seem to be such a big deal. Hal asked if I would be interested in doing this.

“yes of course” what a challenge!

Two days later he came back with 3 clients for me to talk to; Charles Causey, Bert Sherb and Dick Negly.

Within the month Lawanda and I had quit our jobs, rented a commercial house next to Campbell’s Marina in Tavernier in Key Largo from Stu Marr and opened shop as BACK BAY BOATS. This was 1982, I was 25 and Hal was 31 years old.

My observations at the time of the skiffs that were about;

Shy Poke:

A grey coloured, deep vee skiff, heavy, no dry lockers but had a good ride. Billy Knowles had one.

Hewes Bonefisher:

Obviously it was a knock off of a lapstrake ski boat. The bottom had a built-in trim tab hook. The boats were built with solid glass hulls and the decks were cored with plywood.They had wooden carpet covered floors and wood glassed over stringers. No dry lockers and were heavy. Tony Lay had one.

Cuda Craft:

A very shallow soft vee at the stern with conventional chines. A simple glass interior. I was told they slid in a turn. A basic, plain skiff with classic looks.

Dolphin Skiff - Dave Exley:

This boat hull developed by Exley was at the time a crude open skiff built in Homestead. It was very heavy with a rough finish, had no dry storage and a deep draft. It was a good camp rough and ready skiff at that time. They ran great but were tippy.They made no noise,but nobody was thinking of that then.Except Steve Huff and Harry Spear.

Fiber Craft:

A long, lean but massively layed-up hull. This very heavy skiff had a rounded bow and a very narrow spray rail at mid point of topsides but not big enough to really work. I kept in mind some of these points to my future designs. Davie Wilson built his own Fiber Craft skiff.

Sidewinder Skiff - Bass Boat Type:

I made a custom deck for Carl Naverrae with a side console. Deep vee.Similar to a Shypoke

Willy Roberts

Willy and I became friends while I had my shop in Tavernier. It was my dream to have a shop equal to his. He was building fiberglass boats at this time molded from his plywood designs.I do not remember if he used foam core at this time or balsa core. At the time they were a classic.

Maverick - Lenny Berg:

The 18 ft was a big deep vee boat with a good conventional flats boat deck and interior. I was told it had a great ride, was wet, poled like a tank and made lots of noise. Hank Brown used to hang a piece of carpet over the bow to stop the noise.

Challenger:

These little skiffs were custom made from existing hulls that were originally little play boats. They had a very flat run that flowed into a rounded bow shape. It was originally designed to sit in and sport around in with a wheel forward.To make the boats work for fishing. The owner’s fitted spray rails low aft, near the water and high in the bow. The boats were heavy and tippy. I think of them like bass lures with metal cheeks wobbling along. They have a loyal following. I learned from this design and incorporated much of what I learned into my future designs. They had an offshoot of this called the WIND RIVER SKIFF.

Action Craft:

It had sloping outboard side decks and a very sharp angular look with a moderate vee bottom. To me it was very ugly.Action Craft started their company in 1983 with this boat using a foam in its deck core.

Mako 18 Experimental:

As explained earlier the 18 was a cut down 17 Mako on the sheer, with bait boxes added. The Mako construction had wood stringers, plywood or balsa cored, foam filled with chop and roving construction. This was a very heavy way to build yet standard practice at the time. The boat slid in a turn.

John Boats:

Well, there is nothing more classic and simple than this flat bottom skiff in wood or aluminum or glass. The boats would still rule if everybody was not in a such a great big fucking rush.

This is my opinion from my perspective at that time. There were a sprinkling of other one off boats as well. Billy Pate had a monster built from the Shypoke hull style. There were little cold mold

Jumat, 26 Februari 2016

My flats boat early history re posted again!

I have no idea how it disappeared from my blog but my early history posting- story just dissapeared from this blog. Several followers emailed me to ask to share it with their friends so I emailed my daughter to assist me in reposting it. So its back in its old time slot in June. Here are some photos to go with this story and time frame.

This is the Sea Witch ketch that I grew up on sailing from California to Florida via the Panama Canal.

We are sailing in the San Blas Islands here. The cost to transit the canal in 1976 was $14.00 !

This boat did not have a winch on her. Every thing was a block and tackle. She really loved the wind in the Carribean sea. Otherwise she was a haystack to sail.

Back then with a wood hull you were always looking to paint your bottom because of ship worms.

The tides in Panama on the Pacific were from 8-24 so this was easy. Iam mixing the paint in the dinghy.

When we were cruising the San Blas islands I talked my dad into letting me sail the islands for 10 days with only a 5 gallon water jug , my spears and some fishing line. I wanted to try and live off the land and sea. I ate a lot of coconuts, lobster, sea urchins, and fish. This little flat bottom Garvey dinghy at 9 long with a loose footed lug sail and a leeboard sailed right along and was very seaworthy with the flair that it had. It rained every night and I would just sleep on the two oars with the sail over me. Iam 17 years old here. The Cuna Indians loved seeing what I was doing.

When we arrived in Florida in 1976 I got a job at Stamas Boats. I worked there for six months and saved enough to buy a nice bycycle and go on a 3,800 mike bike trek through the Pacific Northwest for a summer. This is near the Columbia Ice Fields in Alberta Canada.

On my bike tour I got this Big horn to eat my dried apples out of my hand. I asked him if he would like to have his head on my future house wall and he said not today! Iam 18 years old here. The white things around my ankles are plastic bags that I would wear over my socks to stay warm. It snowed that night. I did this trip averaging 75 miles a day for the trip and living off a $3.00 a day budget. Oh for the good old days!

While working at Stamas boats I bought this French designed and built Corsair sloop for $750.00.

This boat which was built out of plywood I then sailed through out the Exumas and as far south as Long Island in the Bahamas and then out to Conception ,Cat island, Eleuthera,the bight of Abaco, and the east side too coming back to Florida in West palm. My next trip over she hit something at 8:00 at night 18 miles out of Key largo in the Gulf Stream and sank in 10 minutes . Because I had no dinghy I ended up swimming for 20 hours making it back to Biscayne Bay.

All my boats have been very strong since this episode.

Shes sailing in George Town harbor in the Exumas in 1977 with only 12 boats at anchor in the peak of the season. At the time I was 19 years old and was having the time of my life. I have spent the my time since then trying to recapture the simplicity of that era.

After my little sloop sank I got a job at Glander Boat Works in Key Largo and built myself one of his Prudence hulls from the mold he had. Lawanda and I did most of the building in the water at Lews Marina in Islamorada.

This little sloop was a nice sailor. We did several trips to the Bahamas in her before I got into building flats skiffs. We lived aboard in what is called Little Basin in Islamorada right out front of what is now Bass Pro world Extravaganza whatever. Only 4 other sailboats then and maybe 6 guides.

Sailing in the Bahamas with my dad on his Alben Vega catching up to us.

This is a little bit of what was going on before I met Hal Chittum and got into the flats boat world.

Jumat, 19 Februari 2016

What flats skiffs cost to build and sell

This post is not a tell all expose of the behind the scenes scheming of flats boat builders trying to get rich. Its just my way of trying to show you what things cost and how and why some skiffs cost what they do. With my basic information presented here you can go and look at your skiff or any other and add up the numbers to get a good idea of what its original cost was, is and where all your hard earned money is going.

To save you the time of reading the rest of this I will give you in site right now as to why so many skiffs cost what they do, its very simple, "because the market will bear it".

The first thing you have to know is what the materials cost the builder. If you build lots of boats then you can get a slightly better discount on goods bought wholesale from either the manufacturer or the vendors that buy in bulk and resell to you. Most flats skiff builders are building a small amount of boats a year. Less than 200 is the norm. Small shops maybe 30-40 a year. The difference between these two shops will differ in buying power by very little between the two. The smaller shop will have smaller over head verse the big shop with employees and all that goes with size. So if a small time builder is producing 20 skiffs a year with low overhead but is charging the same or more than the big shops the potential for profit by a per skiff basis is way more than the bigger shop. But that profit is limited to 20 skiffs so the bigger shop can be way more profitable in the long run.

I will be describing here a materials list that will fit any of the top end skiffs I built in 2000-2001 from 16-18.The only real difference in cost will be the slight added amount of fiberglass materials for the slightly longer hull and the added length of the rub rail. All the hardware is the same for most all skiffs. The time difference to add this hardware to a 16 skiff verese an 18er is nothing.

The fiberglass labor to build the bigger skiff comes to about 12% more.

All poling towers have the same amount of welds, bends, feet. Thats where the labor comes in. Aluminum sells by the pound so you are only buying as a builder onces more.

Its these little details that save the builder money.

The prices here are from 2001. Sorry but Iam not in the business anymore so you will have to add inflation to these past real costs. Anyone with time to spare can look up these costs today. I leave that up to you. This is easy, but the sad thing you will see Is the increase in skiff prices from then to now but your wages and buying power is not in line with this increase. Thats just my opinion.

I will show a basic break down of one of my skiffs. I was going to print every last part down to the last screw and oz. of resin. Too long a list. But you will have to trust my list and numbers to get an idea of whats up.

PARTS AND HARDWARE

This is all the hardware, rub rails, electric wires connectors, cushions, batterys everything needed to put the skiff together.

$1,627.00

HYDRAULIC STEERING

This is what the whole setup costs including an Edson wheel.

$1,114.00

GELCOAT AND RESIN

- 14 gals. For hull average

- 10 gals. deck , hatches

- 2 gals stringer

- 4 gals. Bulkheads

- 4 gals cockpit floor

- 4 misc, for tabbing in parts

38 gal total but will vary a bit between hull lengths by about 10-12%

$15.00 a gal. For vynelester resin= $570.00

GELCOAT 7 gals. For entire skiff about 5% difference between lengths.

$120.00

FOAM CORE

There are at least 10 excellent core brands out there to choose from. I always used either Dyvinycell, Kledgecell, or to me the best core, Corecell.

You have to add up the sq. ft. This is easy, just draw out the skiff as shown and add up the sq. ft.

- 180 sq. ft. Hull. 3/4"

- 108 deck. 3/4"

- 42 floor 3/4"

- 48 bulkheads. 3/4" and 1/2"

- 12 stern 3/4" And 3/4" hard foam

- 4.5 tower lid. 1/2"

- 3 misc. Deck supports. 1/2"

- 6 rod racks 1" hard foam

403.5 sq. ft. Core in varying thicknesses , densities.

- 7 gals bonding putty

- 3 gals bonding resin used

$ 1,516.00 to bond core in skiff.

FIBERGLASS CLOTH, KEVLAR , CARBON FIBER CLOTH

Following is the layup schedule that I have used on most of the skiffs built during this time period.

There have been variations due to the customer or what was going into the skiff but this Is my standard layup. Its very low tech and simple but becomes very high tech through the enginerring of how its put together. Works very well building by hand layup all the way through resin spray out guns and using a Vacume bag to hold the core In place. But I feel you and I can build a superior boat by hand with a brush, roller, and bucket if thats all thats available. All the rest diffinitly enhances the skiff build but just go for a ride in one of my 32 year old skiffs. Still cooking along.

HULL LAYUP

- gelcoat. Let cure

- 3/4 oz. skin out Matt. Let cure

- 1-1/2 oz Matt.

- 10 oz. layer Kevlar cloth

- 1-1/2 oz. Matt. Above three all at once, let cure

- fill in strakes with putty, let cure , agitate hull skin for core bonding

- bond core. Let cure

- fair core , fill voids

- 3/4 oz. Matt.

- 7 oz. layer eglass cloth laid up with Matt all at once.

DECK, HATCHES, COCKPIT LAYUP

- gelcoat Let cure

- 1-1/2 oz. Matt. Let cure

- bond core. Let cure

- fair , fill voids

- 3/4 oz. Matt

- 7 oz. eglass cloth, all at onces with Matt.

BULKHEADS

- one layer 7 oz. eglass cloth on bare core.

STRINGERS

Depending on floor size, stringers vary a bit. Described here is a simple hat stringer. Some I use are shaped like an H. The core is doing all the work, the stringer is just to support the floor. If the deck and the entire skiff is bonded as a whole then you do not need lots of thickness. In skiffs that have their decks riveted on or screwed on then its a whole other story.

- 2 - layers 1-1/2 oz. Matt with a 12" strip of Carbon unidirectional laid down the middle all at once.

- 40 yds 3/4 oz. Matt.

- 40 yds 1-1/2 oz Matt.

- 14 yds 10 oz. Kevlar cloth

- 32 yds 7 oz. eglass cloth

- 12 Carbon unidirectional cloth

Material Costs total $ 615.00

TRAILERS

Trailers vary in cost but have a very high markup from whole sale.

- $750.00 standard trailer

- $ 1,300.00 top of the line

ENGINES

All boat builders that have boat dealers can buy their engines from the manufactures if they can afford to be affiliated with them. That means you have to be able to have enough boats going out the door to be able to sell to dealers at a discount so that they can resell at a profit.

If you can buy $100,000.00 dollars worth of engines up front then you get them for a great price. The deal is they go on the boat and boat dealer sells the boat and only he gets to do the warranty work or future maintence on it. As a builder once out the door its out of your hands. Now as a boat dealer engine sales shop you can buy engines from the manufacturer but at not as great a savings. What the manufacturers do is give them rebates for every engine sold. Sell a lot of engines and you make your profit from this.

What does all this BS mean, if you are a small shop what you do is find a motor dealer and get him to sell to you at just above his cost with him getting the rebate and you maybe passing the savings onto the customer. What you are really after is the boat sale with lots of options to install.

A Big foot Mercury 60 hp cost whole sale $ 3,544.00 with the prop costing $210.00 more.

Ok we now have some numbers to add up;

- $1,627.00 parts

- $ 1,114.00 steering

- $ 570.00 resin

- $ 120.00 gelcoat

- $ 1,516.00 core and bonding putty

- $ 615.00 fiberglass cloths

- $ 750.00 trailer

- $ 3,754.00 60 hp Merc

Total... $ 10,066.00 for the total boat cost in materials wholesale to get it out the door in 2000-2001.

Today if you mark it up by inflation standards my guess is that most every thing has gone up quite a lot.

I would mark this up 30% today. I still do boat projects so I see the costs rising.

The thing you need to look at, ask yourself at this stage is, why is that boat that has no hatches, very little hardware, weighs so very little with a tiller steering cost so much?

You can see what the materials I have used. These same ones you can use today to build your own skiff.

I will try and sess out this dilemma next.

You have all the materials you need to build a skiff in a pile on the shop floor. Now you need to build the dream skiff. Skiffs need a shop to be built in, people to do the building and all the stuff that goes with trying to sell your skiffs to the public some where out there.

This takes start up money. You will need cash to get your shop and build your plugs and molds and then your first hull. If you can do all the design work yourshelf, all the plug and mold work on your own and then build the skiffs on your own you will save a ton of cash. But you will only build a few skiffs a year. This I did in my early years making a living but could always see that if I could just build five times the amount I could then make a good profit. Thus in come the employees the added costs and so on.

By the time I sold out my share of Hells Bay Boatworks to my partners we were a well oiled machine with many boat models, a very low overhead as we owned everything built to date and only had the mortgage to pay and the standard cost of having employees. But as Ive already explained I wanted to go sailing with my family so I sold out. Best thing I did for lots of reasons.

The break downs of the rest of the skiffs costs are based on that time. Today they could be the same , way more or very little. Depends on how much your start up costs were-are and your current overhead. Buying a company and pouring tons of advertising money at it with all the start up costs can be earned back in the long run if done well and you have deep pockets or investors that have them to.

Everybody that I have ever worked for wanted a good return on their investment so have always been under pressure to get it right the first time.

Once you have your skiff built and know its costs you can then set its price. With lots of similar skiffs about all claiming to be the greatest thing invented in the last few years you will have to decide where you will fit in this market. Having very high priced skiffs can make it very easy to get more for your skiff as the others have set the bar. Theres nothing better than having a very well built, designed and known skiff that really performs with a great reputation to keep the hype flowing and the market value up. Its called marketing. But some might say its also profiteering too. Well weer talking about skiffs here not oil or food.

LABOR , EMPLOYEES, ugh

This is a break down of what I think your average hired fiberglass workers, riggers should take to build a skiff. I always think of the skiffs built to my designs and engineering at HBBWs as low tech - high tech. By this I mean that the employees building the skiffs were mostly people that wanted steady employment but had no knowledge of boats or boating or could care either. Just a job. But with the proper training and motivation you can get a great crew together to build a high tech boat. The high tech part of the building comes from the engineering of putting it all together. Today my guess is there are a bunch of younger people out there that want to be part of this industry so theres a better chance of getting people to move to the next level and be more well rounded so as to be able to do it all.

In rigging you have to get the crew to care for the boats so they will treat them like a favorite posseion.

Once you get them to see it your way and understand the value of what they are working on then your screw ups go away.

I have worked at every level of building boats hands on so Iam very familiar with all aspects of building from the drawings through sea trials. This has helped me tremendously in my career. The hours I show here can vary a bit but not widely unless you have very new, or very slow workers. If you are infusioning a skiff with high tech epoxy resin the labor is about the same or less with a crew that understands the process. The rise in cost is in resin only. But you want to put in all these new fancy cloth weaves that sound so great on paper. Not for me ! Waste of money. I feel all the hybrid Biaxells take up more resin, and are prone to high impact shattering because of the way they lay. An infused epoxy hull with these cloths having to be pulled and compressed over many tight lifting strake angles is a pain in the butt. As soon as your hull has been lifted out of the mold go and look at it to see all the little air bubbles and resin pockets in the cloth and Chines. But oh ! When we go to paint over all this you can fix it then. Not for me.

Ask your builder why a hull that is so light with so little resin used and so little cloth needed costs so much. Do the math, a 375 lb skiff cant have too many gallons of resin and cloth. The cores the same pretty much for all skiffs.

TO BUILD A SKIFF - THE HOURS

- sell skiff. ? Lots

- wax molds. 2 days

- spray gelcoat all parts. 1 day

- skin all parts, layup all parts 2-3 days

- core boat - by hand , Vacume bagging, or infusion. 3-5 days

-finish glass all parts. 2-3 days

- remove parts, cut , trim parts. 2-3 days

- assemble boats from all parts. 7-10 days

- rig skiff, carpet, tower all hardware. 3-4 days

- rig skiff electrical. 2-4 days

- install motor, steering 2-3 days

- finish details, fix dings etc. 1 day

27 days x 8 hours a day = 216 hours to build, rig an average skiff as described without options.

39 days max worst case scenario. If this is happening you need to see whats up to get the hours down.

Lets split the difference on the two and end up with 280 hours to finish.

280 hrs. X $ 20.00 US average wage cost back then = $5,600.00

Workers costs back then were from $11.00 an hour to $ 18.00 with most in the $ 13.00 an hour area.

The two shop foremans wages were more. The wages of the owners are included in my estimate. We had a health plan for all employees. We gave out bonuses every year to all employees.

Now take the two costs ;

$ 10,066.00 materials

$ 5,600.00 labor

= $ 15,666.00

Now we have to add in the mortgage, building insurances, advertizing, extra employees like the secretary, alarm company, electric, waste disposal of acetone, lawyers, company trucks, inventory,

Future plug and mold building, tools needed, dinning out smoozing clients,and so much more.

Yikes ! Iam so glad to be anchored here in the Leewards remembering why Iam here.

This is where in todays Internet world you can do very well advertizing through facebook, instagrame, and other venues for very little. You still will have to get someone to deal with this though. You wont have time as youll be building and selling. Starting with a small shop building a very good designed and built skiff with a well controlled overhead with good employees should keep the costs of your skiff low. But with more models you need more room and more people.

To wrap this thought process up the average cost for a top end skiff out the door in 2000-2001 cost about $18,900.00 to $20,000.00.

For the simple bottom line skiffs they cost about $12,000.00 + -

When I started HBBWs with Hal and Flip the overhead was low, not many employees, very little advertizing costs, wages were low. As we got bigger so did the costs.

Now some of you will say " wow I paid way less". Yes but what Iam showing is for a wheel steered skiff with a rigged bait well. Tiller boats were less, side consoles a bit less than a center console and so on.

The place where real profit lay was in the options list. This is stuff you dont want to give away with a standard boat so you put this stuff on the options list. The markup here is mostly profit. To builders this is where you get ahead in sales profit. This is where you hear all the crazy prices coming from.

I had many clients that wanted to see the sales ticket for the most expensive skiff built to date so they could figure out what else to order. These were always the worst skiffs as too much going on. But yes there was good profit there.

Simple open skiffs today with no floors and hatches that drain into the cockpit and tiller steered are very cost effective to build. Less parts and labor. Not much in materials for the hull and deck.

Building a one off top line skiff on your own today will take an amature about 600-700 hours to build and rig. A simple tiller skiff 250 hours less.

The material costs will be about $9,000.00 more or less without an engine for a top line skiff.

To build an all epoxy skiff one off will cost about $2,800.00 more in resin costs.

A 17 tiller home built skiff will cost in materials about $4,500.00

Iam now back to what I said in the beginning of this , people buy these skiffs because they can afford them, because they have no time or skill to build their own or they make to much to stop and build their own. Because they like the idea of a well crafted product and the process of having their own boat built. They buy them because they can be way better at getting near fish than in the wrong skiff.

Lots of reasons.

I have worked all over the place on many different projects for a days wages. The only times I made any real money were when I owned my own business, made a profit and then sold that business or land.

Yes these skiffs can cost and some do a lot and can be worth it. Others are riding on the others backs and picking up sales by being a bit less in price. So look at what you are buying or lusting after.

I think for lots of guys out there its time to clean out the garage and save a pile of dough and build your own skiff.

I would love to own a Finnish built Swan 42 sloop but the price tag is way out of my range, so I built my own boat and have been using it now pretty much non stop since 1999.

Hope this helps

Senin, 01 Februari 2016

A new flats boat design commission from Tom Gordon and Islamorada Marine

Here I will explain why my current design on the surface looks very similar to a lot of the latest skiff designs out there, OR why they look so similar to some of my past designs.

I have not been living in the U.S.much since selling out of HBBWs having been off sailing the Atlantic, building our small place in the Bahamas and generally trying to avoid traffic lights, rules and regulations of which the U.S. Is full of. About 3 years total since 2002 in the U.S. I have moved on from the flats boat world , with my only encounters being the skiffs I have come across in the Bahamas and on the decks of yachts with these being mostly HBBWS skiffs. I have seen them as far south as Grenada. I did work as a guide at Flamingo Cay in Andros for 3 months poling around a HB Guide.

From time to time I look at the pictures of my old skiffs in magazines and have observed the emergence of the new skiff companys taking form. But all from a distance. Hal Chittum and I exchange emails every now then mostly talking about one of his projects and from him I get a short run down on old employees, and whats up.

Since I sat myself down and posted my flats boat history on this blog I have had a nice small amount of responses to it with old customers and friends saying hi. Its been very nice. One of these emails was from a past customer Ron Anno who emailed to tell me that Tom Gordon was just recovering from a Heart Attack . I had no clue . The last time I had seen Tom Gordon was about 8 years ago when he owned Gordon Boats and I was buying some gelcoat and resin from him for a project I was doing.

After reconnecting we got around to talking skiffs, his current projects with me peppering him with questions about the industry, the new skiffs, just basic catching up from someones opinion whom I valued. Tom and I worked together for 3 plus very intensive years building the HB skiffs under my direction so I know Tom quite well.

Tom asked if I would be interested in designing a new flats skiff for his company as he wanted to get back into the small technical skiff maket. I feel I can say " technical " here as Tom and I perfected the word technical skiff while building up the HBBWs reputation for quality control and build while lots of the other companys except Egret were scrambling to figure out what all the fuss was about.

Tom also said that Scott Empson was doing the rigging in his shop. Oh boy! Nice .

What Tom was looking for was a design that could, would compete with my old 17.8 Professional from HB, the HPXs, Chittum skiff, East Cape Skiffs and the rest. The boat should fit a 60-90 hp outboard, float well with two guys but in no more than 6" of water fully loaded. The design was to run well but speed was not paramount, dryness and comfort first. Also he did not want a design with sponsons on the stern.I said " yes I would love to".

What I explained to Tom and I will now try and show you is that a skiff can look very similar to another Very successful design but it can be two totally different boats. It comes down to ITS ALL IN THE DETAILS that separates all skiff designs and companys. In this new design I will show you in detail my past ideas, how they came about , what I think Ive learned in the meantime and how I hope to improve on these DETAILS to make a better skiff.

The deal we struck is I would give him a set of lines drawings that he would then give to a real designer to put the offsets into the computer, look at the numbers, and then I could give opinions and we would work together on the final hull shape. I would advise, etc on the interior construction and details but would take a back seat to Tom as this was going to be his skiff with his name and reputation on it. Tom has been in the game for a long time now so has way more experience than me in seeing what works and what the latest building system works for him and his crew. This is huge in finding a boat to be built to your design.

I will be showing you lots of examples of what details and ideas I think really work and dont using past designs of mine, and others. I will be critiuqing lots of current skiffs and mean no disservice , I am just giving my observations and opinions on what looks to be working and how " I " would do it. I hope this discourse will be giving food for thought. I must say here that I have not ridden in most all the New skiffs nor have an idea of how they are built other than what I can see on the Internet. I can see a lot in the details of shop photos from the gloss of too much resin, using the wrong cores, how they are laying in the cloth etc. , but remember Iam a total control detail freak when it comes to claiming its the lightest and best ever. Maybe... But the details do make the difference.

I have to go way back and start with how I came to the Whipray hull shape. This skiff I and others believe started the whole "lets rethink what weer doing here" movement. 28 years ago i redesigned a skiff for the Spanish Wells Fishing Industry that I have written about here earlier. This boat had a nice deep vee that rounded into a good full length chine. This was a good sea boat as it was not cranky because it did not have a conventional shaped hard chine giving it that little bit extra stability at rest and under way. Good sea boat but not as fast as a conventional chined boat . This detail I logged in my back brain. During the time of building these skiffs I took a good sailing dinghy I owned and added a full length chine to a conventional round sailing rowing shape to get the boat to plane under power, be dryer, give more inside volume and make it more stable at rest.

Here you can see my take apart version that is 22 years old. Its 11 10" long and weighs 120 lbs put together. With this added chine designed in to be just above the waterline when sailing so as to cause no drag the skiff became very dry when sailing , was super stiff when climbing over the side from diving and would plane out with a 4 hp outboard at 12 knots with one man. With a 15 hp outboard and my family we could explore for miles away from our " mothership".

This skiff I redesigned when I started up HBBWs giving it more beam, filling out the stern adding my Whipray chine detail to get it to be more stable when on plane , adding more freeboard and fairing out the bottom.

The HBBWs " Ultimate Skiff" . We built and sold 7. I built 6-7 for myself and friends.

This is how I get my latest one on the deck of the HOGFISH.

With these two skiffs with long low full Chines I could see the benefits of a soft curved hull shape. Very easy going when rowing, towing and at rest at sea. All the other conventional hard chined skiffs and dinghys when towing , rowing, were a huge drag unless specifically for each purpose. But could not do all three... Row - sail- power well. This kind of hull shape does all well equally well. It can be stretched and be a great all round skiff. BUT because the long upper chine is low to catch the spray and give lift aft when planning it is TOO NOISEY to be a flats skiff.

Back in my early flats building redesigning designing days in the early 1980s I could see a bunch of skiffs that were retrofitted into flats skiffs. Back then very few people thought of noise. Like Ive said before the only two people that I knew that were onto this was Steve Huff and Harry Spears . They both had Super Skiffs that they had put together themshelfs. Harry since that time has been tinkering and building all kinds of one off skiffs trying out his ideas. Today he has a nich market with his personal family approach to skiff building. I can see a bunch of ideas he has refined from other skiffs and given it his twist- input. I like seeing this. Always trying to improve on an idea.

Your basic Super Skiff

Two skiffs caught my eye - thought process back then were the Challanger one off skiffs and the Fibercraft that had a long low upper chine and a soft vee forward. By this i mean a slightly rounded bow.

A real nice example of the " Challanger Skiff" one offs that were built way back in the day. See the nice rounded bow. Nice and quiet when at rest but that upper chine spray rail had to go there or you were going to get soaked. The stern under water chine aft is giving this very tippy round bottom boat stability when on plane. Look at the hull shape right where the water is coming out from under the hull. That could use my reverse under water spray strake like I introduced in the Whipray. Also see the slight sharpness of the hull shape just above where the spray is coming out. I belive is a very important transitioning point in current hull designs. I feel a lot of the new skiffs as this one here are too sharp here. The spray needs to be told- led to where you want it to go. Too sharp and it will fly out and the last place to catch it is the sheer. I can see this happening in my HBBWs Guide design, the HPXs, some of the Spear boats and lots of others as an after realization. On my Guide I feel we made the plug too full from what was drawn. I have the drawings which I will show later.

You can see the two wooden Chines here in the water. This boat is so classic but has so many flaws in it other than being a cool boat to be out in. I could see at the time how I could use the upper-lower chine idea in the future with a completely new hull shape. The Fibercraft hull had too small of an upper chine to be of any use but I kept that in my mind for future use. This I did in the before mentioned skiffs and dinghys.

I was sailing in the Exumas when I drew up the design for the proposed all round skiff to go with a catamaran mother ship to fish all the remote paces in the Bahamas. At the time my wife and daughters were visiting her family in Canada for six weeks so I was out exploring the islands. Charley Causey said he would pay me to explore and scout out a bunch of flats just out of reach of the George Town fishing guides. I had just spent a few weeks all down south of Exuma catching bones, taking photos and diving in the channels to see if there were Permit about. You can see a lot by whats in the channels before they come up on the flats.l have had the good fortune of fishing and exploring 95% of the creeks and flats of the Bahamas since 1977. At one time or another I have been most every where over here. What I did for Charley and others is outline on charts every thing to expect and what to look for. I can still do this today so let me know where you want to explore. This Ive been able to do as Ive always been dept free and live a very simple thrifty life.

Here I show again the skiff I built for Charley. You can see the waterline on the stern. I put in a small pocket . Not a fan of these now. Too much drag when polling. The upper chine was a bit too high and not wide enough. I changed this a few years later to good results. I added my reverse spray strake on this hull after the skin was on so thats why you dont see it here now. When I went to my next design it was to become the Whipray. It was to have a 25 hp to start with and lower freeboard. What I wanted was more speed ,a better hole shot, dryer boat, too pole well in a strait line and turn easily.

The Causey boat is to the left. The Whipray is to the right. Here you can see the differences. The Causey skiffs upper chine was desined to be high as we were going to be using the skiff in good sized seas crossing channels and covering long distances. This works good as an all round detail but to redo I lowered it 7" at the bow and tapered it in aft.

The departure I did on the Whipray was filling in the displacement curve into the lower stern chine. My idea was that I could use the extra displacement, it would plane off better and that inboard chine edge could act as a mini keel when poling. I also belive that when the water parts from the hull bottom it sweeps up and is then quickly caught by this upper chine that nocks it down in a slightly more inboard and lower angle than a conventional chine. This has been copied by lots of boats now and I will go into this in a bit. Also the Whipray was supposed to float in "John "boats depths. Every ounce mattered in weight and hence displacement. When I say displacement I mean what the boat will weigh all up with every thing and the fisherman too.

A cubic foot will displace 1728 cubic inches. It will float 64 lbs of sea water. If your skiff weighs all up 700 lbs and you have 2 sports that weigh 220 lbs each and you want this design to float in 4" of water then it will displace 1140 lbs of sea water. In order to get your design to float properly when launched you will need to know within ounces of what every thing will weigh in adavnce including the finished hull weight. To do this you have to get a square foot measurement of the entire hull skin and then calculate the weight from this. From here you can then figure out how to add and subtract your hull lines, construction engineering and what type of hardware will be used. At 1140 lbs this skiff would displace 17.8125 cubic feet. For all you guys out there that have just been winging it and making a facsimile of some current designs you can figure out your exact displacement- weight by filling your mold up to its floating waterline. I cubic ft. Of fresh water weighs 62.4 lbs and will hold 7.5 gallons. To get a cubic ft. Multiply 12x12"=144"X12"= 1728 cubic inches , all very simple. Just keep track of how many gallons it took to get to "Your "designed waterline.

Heres a Whipray showing the reverse spray strake and the stern chine cove. Done right this works very well. I will be using it on my new design but with refinements. Lots of the new batch of skiffs have adopted this detail. Some I believe because it was already on the skiff they were trying improve ? Or just getting on a past skiffs known performance .

Heres a new skiff idea ? Kinda looks like the skiff above but they lost their nerve with the upper spray chine. Also the lower chine cove. This looks like a wet boat to me.

Heres another but they must have filled in the stern . The stern lower chine edges need to be sharp or the water will peel up. Those three bows sure look alike ! Sheesh guys be a little original here.

I dont want to sound like Iam harping but to not put in a good attempt at an upper spray rail is a waste of plug building time. This skiff looks like it will be a wet one. See the water peeling out from the hull ? Thats where a good reverse spray strake should go. I dont know if this boat has one.

This skiff has put the reverse spray strake to good use. It also has done a nice job of imitating the HBBWs Marquesa bow upper chine detail. It looks nice and if wide enough and the bow hull lines flow into it well then its a quite nice look. What I would change in this hull is the sharpness in how the lower chine transitions to the bow. Too sharp for me as I think it will throw the spray out and away and over onto you.

Heres the Marquesa in a nice shot. Today I would be way more aggressive in the upper bow spray chine as to its width, also change the lower chine and would add a reverse spray strake just where the bow is clearing the water. Why not? The difference in these two skiffs most likely will be in how they are finished out inside and the final cost.

By knowing in advance how your design will float you might not end up with this bow down look. Fishing alone at 220 lbs that bow will be down I suspect.

Looks better here though. I feel this skiffs lower aft chine is being carried too far forward and then it transitions too sharpe into the bow which does not have enough bouancy in its forward sections. This could have been see in advance by drawing up the skiff and calculating its forward load waterlines. The problem is at this static at rest attitude even with a guy at each end the bow is lacking in displacement.

I would love to take a ride in this skiff. Looks pretty interesting.

A Whipray at rest.

The Maverick HPX designs work. Looks to me like they have been tweeking that hull bottom for almost 29 years. I have no idea what is going on down there.

Hal out showing what too big an engine will look like under way. I dont know how that little boat could rate for that size engine. Lots of my past clients always said they needed more hp because they could not take the extra 15 minutes to get to where they where going. I always said just leave 15 minutes earlier. To me theres no sense in this size engine on such a nice light skiff. You can see all his chine details here. I dont understand the bow chine detail. Although it will catch the spray well and I guess he was thinking it would be practical in the bow pressure wave detail dept. I have been out with Hal in this skiff and it does what he claims. Too complicated for me to build though.

This is the HBBWs Bicayne . The lower lifting strake shows why I do not design these in so far forward. Here you can see it sending the spray right on up barely being caught by the upper chine. A little light weight skiff like this does not need a lifting strake there. Put them aft for the lift and the little air pockets they provide that will reduce friction and hence will give a bit more speed.

The Guide is to the left and the Marquesa to the right. The 17.8 is above the Marquesa. Above the Guide Ive drawn in a dotted line that will show how I would change the bow now to catch the spray better. You can also see the thinking in the three skiffs hull shapes. Look at how much smaller the 17.8 is . I have not given away any secrets of HBs skiffs as these are all what is known as common knowledge . Anyone can go out and take the lines off of these skiffs . Here Iam just giving you a rough representation of these past designs. With out the scale , the profile dimensions you really just have food for thought here.

From these pictures I will now explain what and why my new design is different in several ways from the current crop of skiffs and my past skiffs. Basically its the same thing but with I think some new details that will set it apart , plus Tom Gordons building it.

THE DETAILS;

- I drew on the original Whipray design a very rounded stern. You can see this in the HBBWs video of the red half modle that Chris Petterson has on the table when talking to Flip in his HBBWs video .At the time a flat stern seemed simpler . This new design will have that very curved stern . I have drawn a stern that is like a great big tire inner tube that will not make any noise with the seas aft. Hal put a bit of crown in his Chittum skiff design with a nice radiused transom corner but this will be like no other skiff. Everything is going to be curved and have a good radius in it to be quiet. For the trim tab problem I have drawn in a flat bottom stern edge that will be strait across . Instead of making recessed pockets like on the Chittum skiff these will be the opposite so as to have a strait transom bottom and not have any pockets to cause any noise at any trim angle. The boat hull will have to be pulled from the mold like taking off a shoe. Sounds complicated but its not. This will take care of all the purists that complain about stern noise.

This is the sketch that I sent to Tom explaining how the stern would work . You can see how much curve and crown it will have.

- In this skiff I used the lines from the old 17.8 as a guide in displacement and shape. Because of the bigger engines I have drawn in more vee to the bottom and have sucked in the above the waterline hull to give and make the spray flow in the best possible directions. At the full 6" draft worse case load is what you are looking at. This skiff is the same beam as the 17.8. Without stern sponsons and with the curved stern it will spin better when poling.

- Because of the added vee to the stern the bow has more vee. Should be a very nice ride. I feel this skiff will run head to head with the bigger vee skiffs like the Marquesa, HPX , Spear skiffs and other vee bottom skiffs. Its way more boat than the 17.8 in vee and bottom so that skiff and its offshoots will be a bit shallower if light but not have the ride of this skiff. Its going to look similar in size but when you put the hull numbers together they are two different boats.

- I have drawn in a detailed lower chine pocket. This I feel will be an improvement on my past ideas.

- On the bottom aft there will be a center flat pad with a lifting strake on each side. This I feel will add speed .

- On each stern quarter I have drawn in a mini keelson that can be added after the hull is built. These can be added to the current 17.8 s and Guides if wanted. Just glue on with epoxy. This will cure the sliding but will be an option. Tom and I both wanted a hull that will lean in a turn instead of the G- force feeling you get with a conventional chined bottom.

- This skiff has two sets of reverse spray strakes to divert the spray away as a first line of defense.

- The upper spray chine has been drawn in to the current thinking of catching all that can be caught with the hulls lines drawn in specifically to catch the spray.

- I have drawn in a very clean waterline to make to boat easy to pole and for the spray to flow in a uniform way.

This is how it all starts. I do a drawing to scale which was drawn over the old 17.8 hull lines as a reference. Its nice to have these drawings to use as a reference .I then glue up a block of wood and start shaping.

By continually drawing in the half sections I can see it take shape. The drawing is on the table for reference. Its very full forward now. You can see the stern curve. It will have a crown from top to bottom too so as to have no flat surface on it.

Here I can see the vee in the bottom. I have also drawn in the spray and liting stakes in.

Comparing it to the Causey skiff. Wish I hadnt given away all my old half hull designs. But I do have all the drawings.

Finished hull. The waterline is just below the darkish plank. See how nice and fair it is with no hard sharp transitions above the waterline or else where. The process to carve this out takes 4-5 hours.

I can see the boat in the wood block just like the fish I carve.

Again the under water part is the white wood. See how clean and fair the waterline is. Also note the size of the upper spray chine and how the half sections flow into this. I feel if it was high up and part of the sheer like on the HPXs, and Spear boats the wind could catch it and throw it over the side. This boat at speed will be planning on just the stern area and will only have to trim the bow down when going into a good chop. It has similar vee aft as the HPX, and Chittum skiff but way more forward from admidships onward. My guess is the East Cape skiffs are a lot wider at the waterline.

This is a fun process for me . To do this well you need all the requirements up front. It takes time to make out the list . Then its just good to sit back and have a rum and dream about the project starting at the bow and working aft. Think about the list. Get it in your head. Then start drawing and get going.

Now its up to Tom Gordon to get back to me on what he thinks and his designer to spit out the numbers. Ill keep you up to date on what happens. Read More..

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Sabtu, 05 Maret 2016

More flats boat photos from 1982 86

Senin, 29 Februari 2016

My flats boatbuilding story from 1982 through how Hells Bay Boatworks started