Hi Folks! It's Foggy here...

[Foggy]

New member Foggy here, in between boats. I'm one of those ding-dongs that likes building and fixing boats - that's the best part for me. We're on a farm (with space and resources to work on larger projects) between Olympia and Columbia River. We sort of have a choice which direction to go, and we've got access for a semi-truck boat transporter service to get to our place for "on the hard" storage - so that's sort of our home port option for the moment - until we have time to do more cruising. Considering either a new build of a 36' FineLine 1100 or a trawler restoration in the future...and yes I know exactly how much it costs and how long it takes - my accountant is so embarrassed for me whenever I bring it up. And yes I know I could already buy a constructed boat, but been there, done that. Ready for a new passion before the sand completely falls out of my hourglass, and health allows..

 

[Comodave]

Welcome aboard.

 

[Blissboat]

"Hi Folks! It's Foggy here..."

The thread title reeled me in - nicely played. Welcome aboard the TF, Fog.

The 36' Fine Line cruiser looks salty. Did that originate as a Bruce Roberts design? Would you build it in steel, if you decide to go in that direction?

 

[Foggy]

So Salty! We considered building the FineLine in steel - and it's not out of the question at this point. The steel is actually initially faster and cheaper than a one-off cold-molded epoxy / wood glass hull - BUT the problem is once you finish the weld up, then sandblast, then hurry up and get the initial epoxy coating systems applied - your at about the same cost or more than an epoxy / wood / glass hull. There are pros and cons both ways - we've built a W/E boat before (smaller 28') and with my wife and I working together the advent of composite plastic nails helps the strip layup go much faster than the earlier methods - you just leave the nails in and keep laying on your veneer or plywood. One person mixing the next batch of epoxy, the other person getting the epoxy saturation going and air-nailing a strip on. You get a rythm going. The problem with steel is some additional inspection hurdles at the insurance company, but so far - as long as we're full spec engineered plans and stay to the exact specs of the hull layout - AND get some intermediate inspections by a surveyor to witness the construction - AND keep all the receipts and take lots of photos - there is a path to getting insurance on a custom design. You kind of have to think about insurance first on a project like this. Then start doing the cost scheduling and initial quotes.

For those of you who aren't familiar, here's the FineLine design:

Fine Line 1100D Powerboat Plan | Boatbuilding & Designs

This is a full displacement cruiser that has been designed for economical, long distance voyaging and for crossing oceans safely.

www.finelineboatplans.com

As of now, the FineLine 1100 is spec'd as steel hull (Phil doesn't have time right now to develop the complete W/E hull engineering specs) BUT we can take the Coastal Cruiser 40' and shrink the distance between frames slightly to get that LOA to 40' or under, OR we can take the Trawler Yacht 29' and extend it out - now we have options to build a similar hull at around 36' in different materials. We can work with Phil to make final adjustments - so that the boat still floats right side up.

The FineLine 1100 is the general size and cabin layout goal. Because of our boat transport truck situation, whatever we build or restore has to stay under 16' trailered height when her hips are in the truck cradles - and for us a single screw with a keel can be settled down pretty low on the hydraulic marine hauler. There will be other considerations like a super-easy removable roof / flybridge (to allow easier trasnport and easy engine removal) which I'll cover in another general comment.

There are actual two "Bruce Roberts" related companies selling plans. Philip Hogg and Liz Thompson run FineLine Australia, and this FineLine 1100 design is Phil's work.

The story is here: The founding Bruce Roberts International designs and boat plans Australia

Then there is
"Bruce Roberts Boat Plans"

PIRATED BRUCE ROBERTS BOAT PLANS BEWARE OF PHIL HOGG

Pirated boat plans Bruce Roberts Internationl Yacht Designs boat building boat plans boat designs custom boat plans kits steel aluminum fiberglass and wood power boats sailboats trawlers

bruceroberts.com

(He now goes by the name Robert Goodson) is in UK ( or EU now ? he used to have a design office in US, which is now closed - his PayPal account is in Euros these days). I'm not sure of his country of residence, but we've emailed back and forth about finer design details.

Both designers have good designs, both answer emails pretty quickly and both provide not only plans but also completely spec'd certification (CE, USCG safety margins) with details about righting moments, center of gravity calcs, hydrostatics, HP vs Speed graphs and so on. Insurance surveyors want to see the boat hull design was actually engineered properly, and not some half-baked giant canoe that looked like a good idea at the time.

 

[Foggy]

Oh - I see this got moved to General Discussion. OK, here's a question for the group:

Does it make ANY sense to REALLY restore an older trawler to tip-top condition - and have it be even close to a reasonable resale value when we're done playing with it after 5 years? Or just build a new boat on a new hull?? Of course it all depends on the boat and the purchase price of the older trawler, but my gut feeling it's better to just build a new hull at some point.

In General:

We've been looking at older trawlers on the market at various price points in the PNW for a couple years now. Cheap, not so cheap, pricey, etc. What we see a lot of is: Wet, rotten deck issues, water damage from leaking hatches, sliding doors that often leak. The higher sales price doesn't always make it better. The biggest one is the teak windows - sometimes what happens is by the time you see water dribbling from the bottom of the window, that cabin wall is about half filled with freshwater. The leak might not be even coming from the window - it might be running in from the roof. Of course the owners keep the boat in open storage while the water damage continues to rot the boat; they are hoping beyond hope somebody will buy the damned thing before they drop the price again. Some of these have been on market for years - and the water damage just continues to get worse.

Take a pinless wood moisture meter when you go on some of these older boats, and you see what I mean.

I have to catch myself thinking: Get the boat back to our shop and start cutting out the rotten. OK, John, lets cut off everything from the main deck UP - cabin/ flybridge - just remove it all. That old stuff becomes the patterns for the new walls - with new insulated glass windows & real watertight frames (no teak frames). Add sea doors instead of the sliding doors. OK< we keep the teak rails becuase the curly carved ends are super cool... Rest of new deck gets synth teak.

Well, then the next thing will be: OK since that cabin is all out of the way, let's get the engine and genset out, and rebuild or replace those. OH, the tanks are rotten - let's get some new tanks installed. As a matter of fact just strip the hull out, steam clean it, bead blast and add a new epoxy coating system to the interior. Might as well flip the hull and grind off the old junk and add new glass and bottom coatings.

Now put the whole thing back together, new systems, wiring, plumbing, electronics, new softgoods in cabin and all woodwork refinished.

And now we have a WAY over-upgraded trawler that's a great boat, but she's still a 40 year old hull. She feels like the Nordhavn she knew she always wanted to be - and her survey says she's even better than any production boat.

The question is - does that ever make a trawler have more resale value down the line? Or did we jest spend $250k + on a $125k, 40yr old boat hull. The Hull ID still says it's an old boat, and I'm not sure if a great set of upgrades really changes the value much. Or maybe value does go up somewhat?

I suspect, being a boat, that it just magically makes moey disappear, but I might be missing something?

 

[Portage_Bay]

I'll give you my $0.02, just an opinion, but based on the experience of "fixing up" old boats. Do it because it's the boat you want, because you like to do it. Don't expect to get your $$$ back out. You sound like you're capable to handle all of it so labor and profit to a yard won't come into the picture. But you'll still spend a lot on materials, supplies and equipment. Then there's the time commitment. Do you want to fix up an old boat? Or do you want to cruise?

When the time comes a completely restored old boat will sell easier than one that needs a lot of work. That can save some $$$.

 

[Foggy]

Oh yes for sure - I've never seen any boat "make" money.

Yes, we want to cruise - on a boat we built (or restored). We have fun doing projects and seeing the payoff at the end. We've owned other boats, we've chartered boats, and generally messed around enough to know what we want - and what we don't need.

I just wasn't sure if it makes any sense to "Upgrade" an older trawler to far more than it's typical comparable market value - comparing to other boats in the same age / model length class. Is that a bad idea? Or do we see at least -some- increased market value?

I guess it mostly depends on who buys the boat, and what they want to pay extra for (or not) as well ?

I think we do have an advantage here - we can do this project at our own place, at our own pace...and it's sort of golden not having some danged shipyard telling us what we can and can't do. That helps keep it fun.

 

[Portage_Bay]

If I had your skill, gumption, a willing partner and a good place to work I'd go for it. Mostly for the joy in the process and satisfaction in pulling it off. If I could make it work I'd build new.

 

[Blissboat]

Oh - I see this got moved to General Discussion. OK, here's a question for the group:

Does it make ANY sense to REALLY restore an older trawler to tip-top condition - and have it be even close to a reasonable resale value when we're done playing with it after 5 years?

No, it makes zero financial sense. Maybe less than zero.

Or just build a new boat on a new hull??

Might as well, for all the money and effort that will go into that beautiful 40 year old boat.

The question is - does that ever make a trawler have more resale value down the line?

No, no and no.

Or did we jest spend $250k + on a $125k, 40yr old boat hull. The Hull ID still says it's an old boat, and I'm not sure if a great set of upgrades really changes the value much.

Yes, you just spent $250K on a $125K boat. Please let me know when all the upgrades and restoration are finished - you're just the sort of dream seller I want to buy my next boat from!

 

[Foggy]

<Laughing> Yup. We've reached the same conclusion. You can only polish the poop so much. New hull it is.

At first glance it seemed like starting with an already built hull might be a shortcut - but it's not, really. You have to buy the un-insurable project boat for more than salvage value, then strip it down, get rid of all the soggy junk, realize the cabinetry is more water damaged and moldy than could be seen before, then get rid of that. Then the hull will still carry that old HIN. Even Progressive is starting to cut off older boats now at a certain age limit.

And by that time the work on the new hull is progressing, and will be done faster at less expense. The hull isn't the most expensive component. We can build an excellent new hull for what a lot of older wet trawlers sell for.

There are several older trawlers for sale in the PNW that all have the similar wet core problems in deck and cabin - and usually the problem starts with them becoming a "liverbord" in uncovered moorage (the ones that never maintain the boat at all) - or just plain being ignored at the dock. Some yacht brokers really don't help by keeping the boat on the market for years trying to play the Dutch Auction game - the boat just detriorates more while the value keeps dropping - and whatever value the boat had is lost to moorage rent anyway. At least that's what we've seen. Oh well.

On occasion we've seen a positive outcome on a restoration project trawler - No news to anyone here on the forum I'm sure: This couple found a $100 salvage trawler ('78 DeFever, 43') in SF Bay that still had life left, they spent 8 months repairing and restoring the boat, then took her up the coast to Desolation Sound and had some great fun. then put it on the market for 89k - and it sold very quickly. Did they make any money? No, absoluetly not - it's still a boat, and boats make money vanish. But the fun they had aloing the way is priceless. It's really neat to see people have the passion to give an older boat more life - and make a restoration project work with joy on their faces.

Ah...to be young again. Whomever got that boat I'm sure is having a great time with her too.

Thanks for the good thoughts!

PS - My wife says, the way things work out - about the time we have the keel cut and ready, and the delivery truck shows up with several barrels of West 105 epoxy - that will be the exact time when we find a great $100 resto project of our own. <BIG Laugh>. She says great boat deals are like finding true love - you'll find it when you stop looking.