{"id":47980,"date":"2019-10-15T14:09:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T19:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=47980"},"modified":"2019-10-17T11:07:22","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T16:07:22","slug":"doing-it-right-creating-the-best-possible-cruising-yacht-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/doing-it-right-creating-the-best-possible-cruising-yacht-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing It Right – Creating the Best Possible Cruising Yacht"},"content":{"rendered":"
How do you create the best possible cruising yacht? Read on and we’ll share our formula. <\/p>\n
We have retired from the business now, have a bit of time and are happy to share a few pointers about what has worked for us. This is the third and final post in this series. Part one, covering the early days through our last sailing yacht, the 78′ ketch Beowulf<\/em>, is here<\/a>. Part two on the FPB series is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n We want to start by emphasizing that the comments which follow are personal, based on our experience in boat yards around the world and many thousand miles at sea. While the approach we have used has worked for us you should evaluate this in the context of your own experience, your own goals, and the skills of your build team. A large part of what drives us is a compulsion to minimize issues which impact our safety as well as the frustration that\u00a0 accompanies sub-optimal outcomes, and an extreme dislike for maintenance headaches and lack of reliability. The majority of what we do is based on lessons learned in the real world, most the hard way.<\/p>\n It is in our nature to set the bar high and to push the design envelope. This is a Hobson’s choice: shooting for the best possible outcome forces us into a more difficult modes of execution. There is less room for error than would be the case if we backed off a bit. We do not recommend this all consuming approach to anyone. It is hard on family, coworkers, and on our bodies and psyches. If you leave a bit of performance on the table, and back off a notch on quality the process will be much easier. You may also have a better overall product as well.<\/p>\n Whether you are on the build or ownership side of this game the very best thing you can do to prepare yourself is go cruising, cross a couple of oceans, live aboard for six months or a year. We guarantee this will change your outlook in ways you cannot imagine.<\/p>\n Before we get into the nitty gritty we need to tell you that it is almost always better to buy an existing yacht than to go through the expense, frustration, quality problems, and late delivery that is the norm of building new.\u00a0If you are among those who simply have no choice and are compelled to involve yourself with the process of creating yachts lets start with a few comments about how the yachting design and construction industry normally works:<\/p>\n The preceding list is by no means complete.<\/p>\n For those of you wanting to get into the design or construction side of the business we suggest taking your skills elsewhere. If you are on the acquisition side of the equation we reiterate purchase a good used yacht. But if you have the fever, and there is no other way to slake your thirst, we offer a few suggestions about the methodology we have developed to mitigate the previously mentioned industry shortcomings.<\/p>\n We will divide this into four sections: design cycle, working drawings, construction, and business. Starting with the design cycle:<\/p>\n Working drawings take the design and make it buildable. These include structure, engine room, interior, electrical, plumbing, air conditioning and plumbing, deck details, and speciality items. In the ideal world all, or most of the working drawings are completed prior to the start of construction. In reality this often does not happen. The more of this that is done in advance the better the final outcome. Although not mandatory the integration of 3D modeling with this process can be very beneficial.<\/p>\n Depending on the overall goals and the quantity of yachts to be built, the cost of detailed working drawings may be seen as an unnecessary expense and delay.We feel strongly that properly integrated working drawings will save the builder time and money, and result in a much better organized product, with which the owner will have an easier time maintaining.<\/p>\n A few specifics:<\/p>\n The complexity of modern yachts, even “simple” ones, makes the construction process difficult to predict, manage, evaluate, and control cost. This is applies to experienced yacht builders, and even more so to those trying to rationalize and manage the process, be they highly successful in other industries, or having grown up in the yachting business. Negotiating this complex situation requires sufficient experience, including many lessons learned the hard way, so you can walk through a project and know on a gut level what its status is. This skill set is rare. Over the years we have worked with just two builders who had this down.<\/p>\n The comments below for the owner and builder may (or may not) help you towards the goal of building a yacht that does not drive you crazy nor break the bank during the build phase.<\/p>\n The business side of this needs to be handled in a business like fashion. That statement sounds sophomoric on the face but typically builders are not good at the administration side of things.. A brief check list follows of items worth considering :<\/p>\n As hard as all of this is, we also have to say that once the project is completed, the bugs sorted, and the yacht is off cruising there can be a wonderful sense of accomplishment and pride in the outcome. It is what kept us coming back again and again.<\/p>\n We would like to leave you with this thought. Above all else try and maintain a holistic approach to design and construction. Think through how each decision works or interferes with everything else. If it does work well thats usually a sign to try a different approach.<\/p>\n We look forward to sharing an anchorage one day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How do you create the best possible cruising yacht? Read on and we’ll share our formula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4,124,130,49,129,117,248,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-talk","category-dashew-blog","category-dashew-offshore","category-design-objectives","category-fpb64-notes","category-intro-to-fpb-program","category-most-popular","category-logs","category-the-right-boat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47980"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48015,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47980\/revisions\/48015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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