Thread: GIS Yawl

Originally Posted by Joost

Is MIK aware of any of his designs built by professional boat builders for clients?

Have a look at the thread about the Rowing Skiff built at Duck Flats

Richard

Clint:

Give me a call on my cell. Let's talk. 207.671.9433.

Dana

Good one Richard, that was definitely professionally built. Thinking about Joost's points, the plan is to supply people with kits and I'm juts wondering if there aren't a couple guys walking around the Show in March that would be taken by a highly finished (painted hull, varnish on g'wales type finish, but very smooth) Goat with that beautiful lug up, and a sign that says, "you can build this boat"....then I can tell them how I can help by making spars and oars while they put together their kit. Maybe...

I'd call you now, Dana, but it is 5:30am!

Clint

Originally Posted by Compass Project

Hey gang. Thought I'd drop in and give an update on the GIS Yawl project. A lot is happening to delay the project. The parts are made. But my space is full of paying work right now. I am no longer with Compass Project (laid off). My co-workers are running a few programs, but my programs have no funding. So I am forced to go full time into boatbuilding much sooner than I thought! I have some work, oars, a sail rig, a Beetle Cat restoration. I need more! I will spend some time kitting out my Drake Rowboat () in time for the WoodenBoat Small Boats magazine to come out (hint, hint: I'll leave you in suspense for what might be featured in there!). Plans will be inked and offered up for good. I am building a couple prams for a family. Other than that I plan to make some 7 1/2' oars for Drake, 9' oars like the ones in MIK's GIS plan, and I really hope I can sneak in a GIS build.

But the big competitor for that time now...drum roll....is a newly aqcuired Uffa Fox Flying Fifteen (FF) from '49 in superb condition and in my driveway for a complete restoration (www.flyingfifteenfrolic.blogspot.com). She has original Sitka mast and boom, Egyptian COttom sails in fine condition, and all hardware original. I own her with a relative-in-law who I respect greatly, who is suffering from MS, and who is responsible for getting me into boatbuilding, a life changing event for me. So this is a special project. The plan is to get her looking shiny and new again and to the Wooden Boat Show next June.

But I still hope to sneak in a Goat somehow. Do people think a really nicely built Goat would sell? My concern, honestly, is that most people would build there own rather than pay top dollar for a professionally built boat. Would a Goat fetch 8,9, 10K...would someone pay that for a sailing skiff? If the answer is no, it will be hard taking time to do it when I can be on paying work. Anyway, that is my dilemma, I am broke, needing all the work I can get, but still very much need a way to get on the water in the rare, occasional morning, row out to find some wind, and sail.

Any thoughts on my dilemma would be great. Any body who needs a nice set of oars or spars or a boat or know of anyone that does, please let me know. My website show what I can do: www.clintchaseboatbuilder.com. I am in a tight spot...normally I wouldn't directly self promote like this on any Forum, but I am in need here. It could be worse, I try to remind myself.

Cheers,
Clint

Hi Clint,

Just to give you my thougts if it is of any help. But I am not a professional boatbuilder and live in a quite different area ( Netherlands ) .

Having seen Joost's GIS ( very nice brightwork and paintjob ) it certainly looks great and will have a lot of attention in the market. But as you know: many people love to see wooden boats, few of them want to have one and even fewer want to spend lots of money to buy them.

There is a different market for buyers and builders of GIS. Buyers are looking for something exclusive fitting their "image" and still usefull as a boat. They want to spend some extra money on this, even when there are cheaper ( mass produced ) alternatives available.
Amateur builder are looking for a simpel and relatively low cost design with little risk.

For buyers GIS has the advantage over competition of being light-weight ( you can store it hanging on a garage ceiling ) just big enough to be an adult boat ( lots of affordable wooden dinghies are more kids boats ) and not to big and heavy to become a hand-full ( as many slightly bigger designs are ) You probably could put a relatively low price-tag on it, comparing to smaller lapstrake dinghies. And a much lower price-tag comparing to any f.e. 19ft Oughtred.

For professional building GIS has the advantage of being simpel and quick to build ( much quicker than f.e. an Oughtred lapstrake design ) with very little parts that you need to build ( Spars, foils and oars) or supply to complete ( mainly the sail and a few blocks and ropes ) . I personally would skip the Yawl version and build a nice looking standard version first. Keep it simpel and affordable ( I do not think people want to spend that much more on a Yawl ) and use available and mostly very positive internet "marketing" ( All of them are standard GIS ). Use a lot of nice varnished brightwork and spray-paint the hull in white ( needs to look as glossy as new GRP hulls ) .

For potential amateur builders you could supply prebuild parts ( oars, spars, foils ) or hulls in any stage ( so they could do the labour intensive work of sanding and finishing themselves ). This probably helps some potential builders to get started.

Perhaps you could borrow a nice build GIS for this next show to get some feeling of interest.

And sorry I do not have any work for you I am one of those people who are in a professional builder's bad dream....I always think I can do a better job with less money

But I wish you really good luck! It's great that somebody wants to keep these skills and wooden boats alive.

Thanks for the thoughts, Watermaat. I think you are right on all points. And I agree I'd market the boat as what the designer intended. The yawl is my thing. Though I think others will find it appealing eventually, especially for Raid type use.

Here is the standard Goat.

I am shure GIS yawl version will be a nice "option" for potential customers. But first I would invest in building your standard version as "show" model.
Joost and I have also discussed the opportunity of a stretched GIS ( 15%longer not wider or higher ) with 2 rowing seats, using same rig and foils as standard version.
This will probably be a potential dualhanded Raid winner !

And the best thing of the stretched design is (if you already have a standard GIS) that you only need to build the hull!

The next Raid Caledonia is planned for 2011, so we have some time to think out the details.

Joost

I think the stretched Goat would be a worthwhile thing to do.

If I build the Goat I am making it a Yawl. To not do so would be a waste of my time. Remember, the only thing that would look different is the extra mast partners. The boat will still be STANDARD with the option of adding the mizzen. I would SHOW it as a standard.

Clint, for what it's worth here is my experience of selling wooden boats. It's tough. As already said, people love them but are afraid to own them. They do not know about how effective epoxy sealed hulls are or the modern two part paints and varnishes.

I have sold a Coot, a Gannet, and a MacGregor. All took ages to sell, all reduced considerably to sell and all not far off material cost, two well below. Oughtred designs have the highest value. Even so a beautiful example of an Acorn with trailer and canvas cover only sold for £1700 recently, which could only have been material cost if that.

On the other hand, Lymington River Scows which are very low maintenance, GRP hulls with oiled teak fit out sell really well at £7500 all in. Hugely popular around here. http://www.johnclaridgeboats.com/lymingtonscow.htm

So, very tough with all wooden boat, but somehow an low maintenace version of an old design with strong heritage sells well.

Somehow though the wooden boat builders survive. Here is an impressive list of UK wooden boat builders. Have a look at their sites and see what they are up to. http://www.wbta.co.uk/members/default.asp?v=2&s=1

It does seem to me that building a boat which is purpose designed for new builders like the Goat seems a risky choice. Don't you have to build something they just cannot believe they could build themselves?

Drake looks a beauty to me. Never mind selling plans and trying to compete with Mr Oughtred, how about setting up to build 4 at a time as efficiently as possible and supplying complete boats or completed hulls only? Make her exclusive and desirable. People have the money! Take a mould off the hull and copy John Claridge? Swallow Boats in the UK produce both wooden, in kit or built and grp versions of the same designs and it seems to work for them.

http://www.swallowboats.co.uk/

As a rider I should add I know nothing and am currently experiencing complete failure in my life!!

Brian

Hello,

If I were to make the courageous step that Clint is making, I would first carefully study the market for wooden boats in the area I am living in: what are popular wooden boat classes in the area, what kind of boats seem to sell well, is there a market for restoring old boats, what kind of money are people prepared to spend and on what type of boat, etc.

An important thing that Brian has pointed out is the following: “It does seem to me that building a boat which is purpose designed for new builders like the Goat seems a risky choice. Don't you have to build something they just cannot believe they could build themselves?”

As phrased by Ralph: “Buyers are looking for something exclusive fitting their "image" and still useful as a boat. They want to spend some extra money on this, even when there are cheaper ( mass produced ) alternatives available. Amateur builders are looking for a simple and relatively low cost design with little risk.”

I think that the success of a professional boat builder is largely determined by the type of public you are targeting, the type and complexity of the boat, the price tag of the boat (i.e. price difference compared to home building), performance of the boat, looks of the boat, building time (of professional build against a home build), materials used, workmanship, design, ability to race the boat, etc. (I believe that these parameters are often interconnected). In other words: you need to know your customer and the boat that he/she wants to make a sound business plan and informed decisions to target the small boat building market successfully.

I think that Clint has 2 very good (and different) boats that show his workmanship: the Shellback dinghy and Drake. These boats target different ends of the small boat building market, but in both money can be earned (at least that is what I think) to make a living. It is just a matter of making your design and workmanship known to the public.

Lastly, I am of the opinion that it would probably be difficult to sell with a profit small wooden boats that are not purposely built on request of a particular customer: aren’t people inclined to pay greater sums of money for something particularly made/designed to meet their needs?

Having only very minor understanding of the small wooden boat building market and (professional) boatbuilding, I might however have it completely wrong (better keep day dreaming and work my desk job!).

Best wishes, Joost

P.S. 1 - It might be worthwhile checking what the success stories have going for them (a good US example is perhaps the Crawford Melonseed which might in more than one way be a similar to the Lymington River Scows sailed in the South of England).

P.S. 2 - I would still finish building the GIS if I were you (if only for your own use). It's just a great boat to be out in!

One thing to remember with setting up for boatbuilding is that building whole boats may only be part of the whole bunch of business processes and potentially the most risky of them.

If you think about what a boatbuilding business does a lot of other options can start appearing
Collecting Materials
Collecting information
Creating links with other businesses and vendors
Repairing
Making replacement parts
Building boats on order
Transporting stuff and even boats

These tend to be either things that can be exploited in some way to produce income. The trick is usually that they also have the potential to be a huge time suck if not thought through properly - so the potential income has to be balanced against the time required to achieve it.

Clever systems to direct less profitable activity away and do the more profitable in the most efficient way become the reason the business will succeed.

Looking at it this way, spec building becomes something that happens in the back corner of the shed when there is not much else to do ... though there may be other business models than this. I can think of one that might also work to make the boat easier to sell at the end by using the building process almost as a free online course in boatbuilding - a more structured version of one of our building threads on this forum. It then becomes a sales tool for plans and materials all the time building the notoriety of the builder and boat.

I think just thinking narrowly in terms of building boats and expecting customers to walk through the door at the end is really buying into Brian's discussed scenario. The world has changed so thoroughly with the net and to exploit that ability to make links with customers BEFORE you are ready to sell makes huge sense.

For example if Brian was going to become a second hand wooden boat dealer he could buy into the fact that people just want to know more about the boats and that Brian is just the guy who can use, analyse, photograph and blog all of this while having a whale of a time himself. Over time it becomes a body of work for people to visit and see on the net. Ten or 15 boats later it all looks very exciting and most of the reason is that he is so qualified to do just this. Weave it in with boat show stories and cruising events etc.

Both Brian and Clint are both perfectly qualified to build this orientation into their lifestyles should they wish too ... but it is only one idea.

MIK

I love bouncing ideas off you guys, and I guess it is OK to hijack my own thread. I've been thinking this all through seriously for the past year and have spoken with a few people and received great advice. The above adds to that advice. You guys make such great points, ones I have thought of perhaps loosely or heard from folks once or twice. But to get it so consistently here drives a few key points home.

Finding my niche is a big one. I am more and more inclined to figure out how to get more boats into composites. I am lucky to be receiving world class training from literally THE world experts in vacuum infusion (just finished another training today). I need to figure out how to apply it to small craft to make them ultra-light and very low maintenance for those folks who think "wooden" = too much maintenance. So, developing a line of molds on excellent boats and being able to produce them in infused composite has more promise than typical wood boat building. The other promising area and second part of the niche is related, kitted plywood boats. Both composite and plywood boats can be readily kitted making production so much more efficient. With more experience, I can infuse a 15 foot rowboat in two days, one day with a helper. I can be fitting it out with wood on day 3! So, this all holds a lot of promise. Interestingly enough, more Swallowboats kits are done in plywood than composite. I doubt they are infusing their composite boats. The downside to going composite is the prototyping/plug and mold making/ and development of the kits is VERY, VERY time consuming. When I need to make a living now, this is all hard to pull off. The potential is certainly there...I just have to figure out the path to realize it. The other part of the niche I'll be making headway on this winter, kitting plywood boats. Drake will be completely kitted out and available and at Shows starting in March next year. I like the Swallowboats approach...making the boats somewhat exclusive and available only as kits. In the meantime, the third part of my niche I am seeing materialize is the oar-making. With lots to show off next year at shows and getting set up with a lathe and systematizing the infusion of the blades, I think I may be able to do something good. For me, the web will be an important marketing tool, but showing off my boats will be the most important. I hope it will be worthwhile, these shows are a capital expenditure!

If funding comes back, I may end up teaching more again -- which was the original plan-- to have teaching be my stream of income that makes all the rest possible. Being independent is all very exciting, very challenging and over whelming at times. I have a small driveway, so depending on paying boat storage customers simply is not possible!

Joost is right, I should still get the Goat put together and get out on the water! If I manage to put one together it'd still be useful way to show off my work and the accessory stuff like spars and oars. I also have to find the time to develop my designs...still needing lofting and construction plan drawing. I've embedded my Calendar Islands Yawl. You'll see the lug rig is very much inspired by MIK. I hope it is OK to post this here. There is a lot to do on this design....loft the lines, model the hull, and begin construction planning, the most time consuming part of a new design.

I welcome ideas and comments on my business ideas.

Cheers,
Clint

PS I'll try to get the thread back on track with some Goat assembly hopefully in time for MIK's visit.

Howdy Clint,

There are two other strands you need to get a bit of hang of if you have not already.

CAD - you don't need one of the big expensive packages, but you do need something that has been around for a long time and will be forever. I think if I was starting now I would kick off with Turbocad and later Rhino.

WEB skills - to be able to write webpages. You really don't have to be the world's best (haha - look at mine) - as much of the leading edge stuff is actually pretty useless for what really counts ... getting words and information on a website. The words are what gets people there via google and the info is what keeps them there and revisiting and telling their friends. You have to be able to do it yourself otherwise the costs get out of hand or you lose the person who might do it for free or low cost and you are stuck.

Best wishes
MIK

Right on, MIK. I just signed up for a 4 week Rhino/CAD course. Very excited about that. Web skills...I have some folks I need to pick the brains of. You sure got it down...your web has almost 1 million hits! ANd that was the other day.

We are off to China, looks certain for a Sunday departure!

Cheers,
Clint