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Fiberglass vs plastic
John Fereira ) writes:
Both CLC and Pygmy offer a line of designs that one can build either from computer cut panels or from a set of plans and cut the panels according to I didn't claim either company sold custom plans or kits. I only wrote that it's possible to do cheaply becuase all that has to be done is to change a few numbers in the design program and the computer cuts out the new boat panels or station mould patterns. Plywood and stripper kayaks could be custom made just like you buy a custom tailored business suit, but at minimal extra cost. Even for the standard models, while the plans + materials or a kit costs less than a similarly designed composite boat, when one adds in the cost of tools necessary to build it, extras like varnish, and the cost of labor, I'm not sure that in the end one will save "a lot of money". you save approx 1/3 off the cost of a stripper boat by building yourself. that's why so many people do it. that's why Ted Moores is so popular. For many, the most efficient hull for flat out forward speed performance might not be desirable. please show me where I claimed speed vs horsepower was the sole reason for choosing a kayak. I do think speed is the principle reason people choose kayaks over other boats like canoes and punts and for that reason I think buyers should be presented with the information on how fast their kayak is designed to go with different levels of effort. If paddlers were only concerned about paddling at a high speed for long distances you might have a point, but paddling is much more than that. the point of this discussion about hull resistance and horsepower requirement is how much more effort a person has to exert to keep up with a group of paddlers. I don't know about paddling at high speed, just the speed the gropup is paddling at. If you don't want to be exhausted at the end of a day of paddling in a group then the power you have to put out to maintain the group speed is the most important factor. While there are some that will buy a kayak based on the stats or brochure (and the appearance of the boat), pretty much every paddler with experience will recommend that one actually sit in a paddle a boat before buying it. It doesn't take a brochure to tell me that a boat is too small if the cockpit is so tight that it cuts off circulation to my legs. sadly, yes, that's how it is done now. but it doesn't have to be done that way. last summer I was told by a couple of kayak fanatics in this very newsgroup that it was wrong to choose a kayak based on how it felt and that after one or two seasons such people are eager to buy the kayak they should have bought in the first place. if sellers provided the design range for paddler weight and dimensions potential buyers could quickly narrow down the kayaks to the ones most suitable and they could choose from among those kayaks. you may be aware of how igorant kayak sales staff are. they are happy just to sell the kayak and cannot provide much in the way of help to the buyer. buyers would be better off with relevant design information. That question is typically asked by people that have very little experience in kayaks, and is often accompanied with little addtional data that would help answer the question. I've answered the question many times, and usually recommended several models with the suggestion to try as many as possible and decide for themselves what kayak is right for them. how many kayak buyers do you think are people with "very little experience in kayks"? 80%? 90%? 95% people do generally know what they weigh and how tall they are. people can take their own body measurements just like people who buy skis and bicycles do. there are people who lurk in this newsgroup who will say that telling people who have very littel expericne to try kayaks for themselves in not good adivce. I tend to agree compared to what they could do with more design information. Kayaks and canoes cost more than bikes, skis, and skateboards. I don't know what a skateboard costs but it's certainly possible to spend more a bicycle or snow skis than on a kayak. if its possible it's out at the exteme end of the price range. compare averages instead. Here's an analogy. I chose my last two new automobiles by doing reasearch at the public library and then went out and bought them. I've been driving the most recent one for 15 years hope to keep driving it for years to come. I understand that people buying automobiles today have even more information available off the Interent than I had. However buying a new automobile by going a dealership for a test drive is the worst possible way of buyiung a new automobile that I can think of. Kayaks don't have the volume and interest of automobiles but a better job can be done at no extra cost providing relevant information for kayak buyers, information which is paddler-oriented rather than boat oriented. Kayak sellers would better serve their customers by concentrating more on the paddler and less on the boat. that's why I suggest making power requriements, body weight, and body size design information available to buyers. I'd certainly provide horsepower rather than total hull resistance. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
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Fiberglass vs plastic
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Fiberglass vs plastic
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Fiberglass vs plastic
martins wrote: Hi Brian you forgot about the seat thing. After the sales talk ends, the final purchase many times is determined (for the first time buyer) by the way the seat fits. I see tons of boats bought and sold , not so much by the way they handle, as by the way the seat fits. Seems like only a small amount of people will plunk down their money, take the boat home, rip out an uncomfortable seat and replace it with something that works for them (then drill a hole for the bilge water exit fitting/ mount a foot pump or a C50 or an electric of some sort such as a waterbuster) best wishes Roy Sad but true. Even sadder is the fact that many people buy boats based on the PERCEPTION of comfort of the seat. The more it looks and feels like an easy chair, the better they like it, not knowing that it's going to be uncomfortable when paddling. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
Michael Daly wrote: On 1-Jun-2004, (William R. Watt) wrote: wait just a darned minute, are you saying the data you presented is not test data but is calculated from dimensions using Winter's KAPER model? that's not data. sorry, it doesn't count as data. No one does tank testing of kayaks. Too expensive. All data published in Sea Kayaker is based on both KAPER and Taylor. Both produce similar results. These calculations have been calibrated with real test data. If you want better data, you'll look long and hard. Better yet, do it yourself if you think it's so important. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt wrote: Brian Nystrom ) writes: It would cost no more to custom design a plywood kayak built with computer cut panels than to design a mass produced plywood kayak built with computer cut panels. How do you figure that? companies like Chesapeke(?) Light Craft and Pygmy Boats sell plywood boats and kits make from computer cut panels. people buy the boats or they can assemble the kits themselves and save a lot of money. Compared to what? When you factor in all the tools and other supplies, plus the time involved, there is no savings at all. Building boats is a labor of love, not an economic expedient. More importantly, what percentage of kayakers build their own boats? For that matter, what percentage is even capable of it or has a place to do it? You seem to forget that we live in a country where most people can't even change the oil in their cars, let alone build kayaks. While it's certainly possible to custom design and cut panels for stitch and glue boats, no one does so. The closest thing to it is Newfound Woodworks will take a customer's design and make the panels for them, but there are even fewer people who can design a boat than there are than can build them. ... The most efficient hulls (least wetted surface for a given displacement) are rounded in shape, which cannot be built from flat panels. The cost to produce a mold for a one-off design is prohibitive. One could have a boat custom designed and strip built, but how many people are going to pay in excess of $5000 for a kayak? yes, avoiding moulds for building resin boats one off was my point. you can custom design and build a plywood or a "stripper" boat cheaper. No kidding, but it's even more complex and time consuming to build one than it is to do a S&G. BTW, I do build skin-on-frame boats, so I have an idea what's involved. as for the preformance of flat panel (hard chine) hulls its actually the turbulence at the chines which creates more drag at higher speeds compared to smooth chined hulls. the wetted surface vs wave-making again. While turbulence is certainly a possibility with a poor design, it's not a given. The wetted surface area is what makes the difference. Why do you think that EVERY racing boat made has a rounded hull? Read the manufacturer's literatue and read basic information on boat design and they all say the same thing: round hulls have less surface area for a given displacement than hard chine hulls. A spherical hull would have the absolute least wetted area, but obviously, it would no longer be a kayak or canoe. some places you read about wetted surface vs wave-making. other places its wetted surface vs residual resistance, where residual resistance is any kind of drag that's not surface friction and includes drag due to wave-making, poor tracking, hard chines, etc. That's not the point, you can have two boats with the same wavemaking resistance and one with a rounded hull will have less drag than one with a hard chine hull, due strictly to the difference in wetted surface area. Such an approach to designing would answer the buyer's perrenial question "which kayak is right for me?". Not if they don't understand the information. Most won't and they're not going to be willing to learn about hydrodynamics in order to do so. all part of the education of the paddling public. I agree with everything you wrote below about the motivation to buy a kayak but when it comes to the actual purchase people do ask about which kayak is best for them, likely because they will be spending so much money on the boat and accessories. I think people can relate to how much power it should take a person of a given weight to get the boat to go a certain speed than to how many pounds of resitance the boat should have at a that speed, especially when you tell them how much power an average person can sustain paddling. I also think people could relate better to how tall they should be or how much they should weigh for a given kayak than just to say "for light people" as the brochures usually do. The data could be on a website rather than print a more costly booklet to replace the brochure. All of thse numbers should be avialable from desingers now, just restate and pass along to buyers. It's very obvious that you've never worked in retail. I have extensively, including owning a retail business. Your perceptions about the buying public couldn't be farther off the mark. Most people, especially first time buyers of a product, are CLUELESS. Most simply want someone to guide them to a suitable product quickly and not screw them over. It really IS that simple! If you were to start talking about horsepower and other technicalities, their eyes would quickly glaze over and they'll find a reason to leave, after which they'll go buy elsewhere from someone who doesn't bore or intimidate them. I know this because I've worked in businesses where technical data was widely available and we always took the approach of educating people as much as possible and helping them make the right decision for themselves (consultative selling). In doing so, you learn that there is a VERY fine line between enough information and "information overload" and that it's different for every customer. If someone comes in looking for "a yellow kayak", they're not going to hang around while you explain advanced hydrodynamics to them. You set them up the best you can, offer as much information as they'll tolerate, take their money and let them be on their way. I didn't like the way I was forced to do business in some cases, but I figured that they were better off if they came to me and I at least had the opportunity to offer them useful information, than if they went and bought at one of the "Marts" from some bored high school kid who couldn't care less. While you and I and some others here may care about performance data, it's pretty obvious that most kayak owners don't and never will. I've actually seen a lot of queries about "what kayak is right for me" and I suspect its because of the high cost of the boats which makes people stop and think. Kayaks and canoes cost more than bikes, skis, and skateboards. No, it's because most people have no clue what they need and they're looking for someone to hold their hand through the buying process. It's also because most are either too lazy or too disinterested to do any research for themselves. Many simply aren't capable of understanding technical data (or at least they're convinced that they're not). You may not like it, but those are the hard facts of retail. People like you and I and some others here are but a tiny minority of the buying public. Only the niche market companies will bother to cater to us, because that's what separates them from the mainstream. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
Brian Nystrom ) writes:
Michael Daly wrote: On 1-Jun-2004, (William R. Watt) wrote: wait just a darned minute, are you saying the data you presented is not test data but is calculated from dimensions using Winter's KAPER model? that's not data. sorry, it doesn't count as data. No one does tank testing of kayaks. Too expensive. All data published in Sea Kayaker is based on both KAPER and Taylor. Both produce similar results. These calculations have been calibrated with real test data. If you want better data, you'll look long and hard. Better yet, do it yourself if you think it's so important. Do you think I could get a research grant from the Defence Department? Don't commandos, or whatever they are calling them now, use kayaks? Half a knot could mean the difference between victory and defeat for an enire invasion force. How do military policy makers measure the cost of kayak research in body bags? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
Brian Nystrom ) writes:
William R. Watt wrote: companies like Chesapeke(?) Light Craft and Pygmy Boats sell plywood boats and kits make from computer cut panels. people buy the boats or they can assemble the kits themselves and save a lot of money. Compared to what? When you factor in all the tools and other supplies, plus the time involved, there is no savings at all. Building boats is a labor of love, not an economic expedient. I've already mentioned the 1/3 cost savig nin building "stripper" boats from a kit. That includes all the materials and assumes you have a few basic tools on hand. Buildign boats is not a labour of love, it is mostly a way of being able to afford the cost of the boat. I don't know where you get this "labour of love" business. The same place you got the 2% hull scratches friction, somewhere in the deep dark obscure recesses of your imagination? More importantly, what percentage of kayakers build their own boats? For that matter, what percentage is even capable of it or has a place to do it? You seem to forget that we live in a country where most people can't even change the oil in their cars, let alone build kayaks. enough people build their own canoeos and kayaks to make the selling of plans and kits profitable. belive it or not there are even people out there building birch bark canoes and teaching the building of birch bark canoes, and canoe camping in the birch bark canoes they built. building a small boat is not rocket science. I've lost count of the number of webistes full of photos of novices building their own canoes and kayaks every one starting with a comment to the effect, "Before starting to build my own canoe (or kayak) I'd never so much as changed a light bulb. I was a complet kutz with two left thumbs." and so on ad infinitum. I've read somewhere some Brian Nystrom guy built his own first boat at one time. While it's certainly possible to custom design and cut panels for stitch and glue boats, no one does so. The closest thing to it is Newfound Woodworks will take a customer's design and make the panels for them, but there are even fewer people who can design a boat than there are than can build them. that doesn't mean it can't be done. I wrote that it could be done. I did nto write taht it was beign done. There are a lot of things in this world that could be done, or could be done better, that aren't. that was my point. No kidding, but it's even more complex and time consuming to build one than it is to do a S&G. BTW, I do build skin-on-frame boats, so I have an idea what's involved. I don't see your point. The major savings in building one's own boat is in labour. You build it yourself to save the cost or paying someone esle to build ti for you. YOu also save other costs such as "shop" costs by building it in your garage, attic, or living room. as for the preformance of flat panel (hard chine) hulls its actually the turbulence at the chines which creates more drag at higher speeds compared to smooth chined hulls. the wetted surface vs wave-making again. While turbulence is certainly a possibility with a poor design, it's not a given. The wetted surface area is what makes the difference. Why do you think that EVERY racing boat made has a rounded hull? Read the manufacturer's literatue and read basic information on boat design and they all say the same thing: round hulls have less surface area for a given displacement than hard chine hulls. A spherical hull would have the absolute least wetted area, but obviously, it would no longer be a kayak or canoe. I think you'd better take another look at what I wrote. Hard chined boats do have a bit more wetted surface but the turbulence at the hard chine has a bigger effect, moreso as speed increases. (Lapped strake boats have the same increase in resistance.) Interestingly, and contrary to what yoru write above, a spherical hull does nto have the minimum wetted surface. That's because only part of the shpere is immersed, ie. a chord of the circle. John Winters (www.greenvall.com/winters.html) has some diagrams to illustrate this. I thought as you did until I saw his examples. some places you read about wetted surface vs wave-making. other places its wetted surface vs residual resistance, where residual resistance is any kind of drag that's not surface friction and includes drag due to wave-making, poor tracking, hard chines, etc. That's not the point, you can have two boats with the same wavemaking resistance and one with a rounded hull will have less drag than one with a hard chine hull, due strictly to the difference in wetted surface area. nope, the drag of the hard chine hull includes the turbulence about the chine which is greater than the difference in friction resistance. but don't forget you can have a V-bottom hard chined boat which tracks better than a round bottom hull with the same length and wetted surface and the hard chined hull will have less residual resistance because it spends less time slewing around, and more time going straight. as we have all seen, the boat with the rounded bottom cross section will often have "deadwood" added at the bow and stern or a skeg (or rudder) or both to help it track, and these add wetted surface to the rounded hull. It's very obvious that you've never worked in retail. I have extensively, including owning a retail business. Your perceptions about the buying public couldn't be farther off the mark. Most people, especially first time buyers of a product, are CLUELESS. Most simply want someone to guide them to a suitable product quickly and not screw them over. It really IS that simple! If you were to start talking about horsepower and other technicalities, their eyes would quickly glaze over and they'll find a reason to leave, after which they'll go buy elsewhere from someone who doesn't bore or intimidate them. I know this because I've worked in businesses where technical data was widely available and we always took the approach of educating people as much as possible and helping them make the right decision for themselves (consultative selling). In doing so, you learn that there is a VERY fine line between enough information and "information overload" and that it's different for every customer. If someone comes in looking for "a yellow kayak", they're not going to hang around while you explain advanced hydrodynamics to them. You set them up the best you can, offer as much information as they'll tolerate, take their money and let them be on their way. I didn't like the way I was forced to do business in some cases, but I figured that they were better off if they came to me and I at least had the opportunity to offer them useful information, than if they went and bought at one of the "Marts" from some bored high school kid who couldn't care less. I agree when a person walks in off the street do not want to be "overloaded" with information that has no meaning to them, however they can understand information realted to their strength, weight, and body size. They might not know anything about boats but they certainly do know a lot about themselves. That's my point. The information should be provided in a way that relates to the buyer, not the boat. It makes nto sense to graph boat speed vs total resistance when it can just as easily be plotted against horsepower with reference lines drawn for average (1/20 hp), athletic (1/4 hp), and absolute maximum sprinting (1/5 hp) power output of humans. People will consult and use meaningful, relevant information. My areas of expertise in my former life was not selling boat but in numerical computer systems and statistics. One my areas of research and application was the graphical analysis and display of numerical information. So I just might possibly also know of that which I write. No, it's because most people have no clue what they need and they're looking for someone to hold their hand through the buying process. It's also because most are either too lazy or too disinterested to do any research for themselves. Many simply aren't capable of understanding technical data (or at least they're convinced that they're not). You may not like it, but those are the hard facts of retail. People like you and I and some others here are but a tiny minority of the buying public. Only the niche market companies will bother to cater to us, because that's what separates them from the mainstream. I have to disagree. Blaming the buyer for the seller's failure to provide important information in a form the buyer can use is a cop out. Sellers who blame customers for their own failings are at risk of having someone take their customers away from them. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
"Michael Daly" ) writes:
The difference between hard and rounded chine in practice is negligible - at least for kayaks. You'd have a hard time finding two kayaks that have a difference that you could attribute to the chines and could also feel the difference. TF Jones disagrees with you. So do I based on what you wrote earlier about the effect of hull scratches and gouges. You'll have to be more specific. I looked at all the pages and figures and can't see anything that specifies the characteristics of a spherical hull. He has circular cross sections, but not spherical hulls. If the spherical hull does not have the least surface to volume ratio, please tell us what shape does. Could you explain the significance of "spherical" hulls, because only the arc of the circle below the waterline gets wetted? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt wrote:
Brian Nystrom ) writes: William R. Watt wrote: companies like Chesapeke(?) Light Craft and Pygmy Boats sell plywood boats and kits make from computer cut panels. people buy the boats or they can assemble the kits themselves and save a lot of money. Compared to what? When you factor in all the tools and other supplies, plus the time involved, there is no savings at all. Building boats is a labor of love, not an economic expedient. I've already mentioned the 1/3 cost savig nin building "stripper" boats from a kit. That includes all the materials and assumes you have a few basic tools on hand. Buildign boats is not a labour of love, it is mostly a way of being able to afford the cost of the boat. I don't know where you get this "labour of love" business. The same place you got the 2% hull scratches friction, somewhere in the deep dark obscure recesses of your imagination? It's real simple Bill, so perhaps even you can understand it. The price of a stripper kayak kit that includes seat parts, footpegs, deck rigging and finishing supplies is $1200-$1400 (based on the prices from Newfound Woodworks) plus shipping, which isn't cheap since they must be shipped by truck. Unless one is already a woodworker, you can figure on adding several hundred dollars for the cost of tools and the materials to build a strongback, sawhorses, etc., to the cost of the kit an supplies. That brings your your total hardware and supplies cost up to $1500~$2000. When you factor in the 200-300 hours of labor involved in building a stripper (typical numbers derived from what hobbyist builders report on kayak building sites), even if you only value your time at $10/hour (slave wages), you're looking at a real cost of $3500-$5000 for your first boat. Subsequent boats will be somewhat cheaper since you now have the tools and strongback, but that's assuming that you build more than one. Considering that you can buy a new 'glass boat for ~$2500 or a used one for as little ~$1000 (I've bought several at that price), where is your savings, Bill? You accuse me of imaginative, yet it's quite obvious that your "1/3 savings" figure is wishful thinking at best. I enjoy building boats, but I'm under no illusion that it saves me any money. The main reason for building a boat (other than the recreational aspects of woodworking) is that I get exactly what I want. More importantly, what percentage of kayakers build their own boats? For that matter, what percentage is even capable of it or has a place to do it? You seem to forget that we live in a country where most people can't even change the oil in their cars, let alone build kayaks. enough people build their own canoeos and kayaks to make the selling of plans and kits profitable. What does that prove? It doesn't cost much to design a boat and sell plans. Both plans and kits are much more profitable than selling commercial kayaks. belive it or not there are even people out there building birch bark canoes and teaching the building of birch bark canoes, and canoe camping in the birch bark canoes they built. Gee, Bill, REALLY???? Wow, that's INCREDIBLE!!!! I've never heard of anyone actually BUILDING a boat or TEACHING people to build boats!!!! You must be the smartest, most informed person ON THE ENTIRE PLANET!!!! building a small boat is not rocket science. You have a truly amazing grasp of the obvious. I've lost count of the number of webistes full of photos of novices building their own canoes and kayaks every one starting with a comment to the effect, "Before starting to build my own canoe (or kayak) I'd never so much as changed a light bulb. I was a complet kutz with two left thumbs." and so on ad infinitum. Yet boat builders are still a MINUSCULE percentage of the total number of kayakers. You really need to get a grip on the reality of the market. To put some perspective on it, I belong to a club with over 400 members in it. Out of those, I know of 9 (2.25%) who have built boats. That's among paddlers who are dedicated enough to join a club. We represent only a small fraction of the total kayaking population, the majority of whom paddle plastic recreational boats. Based on that, I think it's safe to say kayak builders represent well under 1% of the kayaking population. Is that specific enough for you??? I've read somewhere some Brian Nystrom guy built his own first boat at one time. You read wrong. I built my third boat. My first two were commercial boats. While it's certainly possible to custom design and cut panels for stitch and glue boats, no one does so. The closest thing to it is Newfound Woodworks will take a customer's design and make the panels for them, but there are even fewer people who can design a boat than there are than can build them. that doesn't mean it can't be done. I wrote that it could be done. I did nto write taht it was beign done. There are a lot of things in this world that could be done, or could be done better, that aren't. that was my point. Whether it CAN be done or not is irrelevant if it's NOT being done. If you think it's such a good idea and has profit potential, go ahead and do it. The people who already possess the equipment and the expertise aren't doing it, so I suspect that they don't believe that it's a commercially viable proposition. No kidding, but it's even more complex and time consuming to build one than it is to do a S&G. BTW, I do build skin-on-frame boats, so I have an idea what's involved. I don't see your point. The major savings in building one's own boat is in labour. You build it yourself to save the cost or paying someone esle to build ti for you. YOu also save other costs such as "shop" costs by building it in your garage, attic, or living room. I've already addressed this fallacy above. Either it's a "labor of love" and you don't count the labor cost, or you're not saving anything. You can't have it both ways, Bill. as for the preformance of flat panel (hard chine) hulls its actually the turbulence at the chines which creates more drag at higher speeds compared to smooth chined hulls. the wetted surface vs wave-making again. While turbulence is certainly a possibility with a poor design, it's not a given. The wetted surface area is what makes the difference. Why do you think that EVERY racing boat made has a rounded hull? Read the manufacturer's literatue and read basic information on boat design and they all say the same thing: round hulls have less surface area for a given displacement than hard chine hulls. A spherical hull would have the absolute least wetted area, but obviously, it would no longer be a kayak or canoe. I think you'd better take another look at what I wrote. Hard chined boats do have a bit more wetted surface but the turbulence at the hard chine has a bigger effect, moreso as speed increases. (Lapped strake boats have the same increase in resistance.) Where does this come from? I don't see any reason why a chine has to cause turbulence. Lapstrake boats are not comparable with single chine kayaks, whose chines are typically fully immersed and which have smoother entries and exits. You're comparing apples and oranges. Interestingly, and contrary to what yoru write above, a spherical hull does nto have the minimum wetted surface. That's because only part of the shpere is immersed, ie. a chord of the circle. John Winters (www.greenvall.com/winters.html) has some diagrams to illustrate this. I thought as you did until I saw his examples. That link doesn't work. The correct link is: www.greenval.com/jwinters.html I realize that only a chord of the sphere is in the water. If you look at the diagram at http://www.greenval.com/fig1_3.gif ....it shows exactly what I was talking about. For a given beam width, the spherical hull has the least wetted surface. If you ignore the beam width and look only at equal displacement, a spherical hull still has the least wetted surface. Although shape E is not perfectly spherical, it's pretty obvious that a spherical shape with slightly increased depth would have as little or perhaps slightly less surface area. This explains why racing boat hulls are narrow and round. It's too bad he chose not to include such a sample in the diagram. some places you read about wetted surface vs wave-making. other places its wetted surface vs residual resistance, where residual resistance is any kind of drag that's not surface friction and includes drag due to wave-making, poor tracking, hard chines, etc. That's not the point, you can have two boats with the same wavemaking resistance and one with a rounded hull will have less drag than one with a hard chine hull, due strictly to the difference in wetted surface area. nope, the drag of the hard chine hull includes the turbulence about the chine which is greater than the difference in friction resistance. Again, where is the reference? I don't believe that a single hard chine is going to cause turbulence in an of itself in a well designed kayak. but don't forget you can have a V-bottom hard chined boat which tracks better than a round bottom hull with the same length and wetted surface and the hard chined hull will have less residual resistance because it spends less time slewing around, and more time going straight. as we have all seen, the boat with the rounded bottom cross section will often have "deadwood" added at the bow and stern or a skeg (or rudder) or both to help it track, and these add wetted surface to the rounded hull. You're drawing a lot of invalid conclusions here. A long, narrow, rounded hull with straight keel line (typical racing hull configuration) tracks VERY strongly. One reason why most of them have rudders is to enable the paddler to turn the boat, not because it won't track. The main reason for rudders is to get maximum efficiency from the powerplant (the paddler). It's more efficient to have a small rudder to control the direction of the boat than it is to use leans and sweep strokes, which reduce the biomechanical efficiency of the stoke. By "deadwood" are you referring to bow and stern overhangs? If so, they do nothing to aid tracking, as they're not in the water most of the time. It's very obvious that you've never worked in retail. I have extensively, including owning a retail business. Your perceptions about the buying public couldn't be farther off the mark. Most people, especially first time buyers of a product, are CLUELESS. Most simply want someone to guide them to a suitable product quickly and not screw them over. It really IS that simple! If you were to start talking about horsepower and other technicalities, their eyes would quickly glaze over and they'll find a reason to leave, after which they'll go buy elsewhere from someone who doesn't bore or intimidate them. I know this because I've worked in businesses where technical data was widely available and we always took the approach of educating people as much as possible and helping them make the right decision for themselves (consultative selling). In doing so, you learn that there is a VERY fine line between enough information and "information overload" and that it's different for every customer. If someone comes in looking for "a yellow kayak", they're not going to hang around while you explain advanced hydrodynamics to them. You set them up the best you can, offer as much information as they'll tolerate, take their money and let them be on their way. I didn't like the way I was forced to do business in some cases, but I figured that they were better off if they came to me and I at least had the opportunity to offer them useful information, than if they went and bought at one of the "Marts" from some bored high school kid who couldn't care less. I agree when a person walks in off the street do not want to be "overloaded" with information that has no meaning to them, however they can understand information realted to their strength, weight, and body size. They might not know anything about boats but they certainly do know a lot about themselves. That's my point. The information should be provided in a way that relates to the buyer, not the boat. It makes nto sense to graph boat speed vs total resistance when it can just as easily be plotted against horsepower with reference lines drawn for average (1/20 hp), athletic (1/4 hp), and absolute maximum sprinting (1/5 hp) power output of humans. People will consult and use meaningful, relevant information. I'll guarantee you that if you stick a graph in the faces of customers, the overwhelming majority of them will have no idea what they're looking at, nor will they care. On the other hand, if a dealer simply told them that a particular boat was well suited to someone their size, that same percentage would accept that. The few that would understand the graph might ask "why", in which case you can offer a more detailed explanation. My areas of expertise in my former life was not selling boat but in numerical computer systems and statistics. One my areas of research and application was the graphical analysis and display of numerical information. So I just might possibly also know of that which I write. That confirms something I had suspected. While I certainly wouldn't question your data analysis capability, it has nothing to do with the way people react to information in real world. What makes perfect sense to you would be nothing more than "technical gibberish" to most people. I've dealt with people in the real world (as a retailer and as a technical trainer) and I can tell you unequivocally that's a FACT. No, it's because most people have no clue what they need and they're looking for someone to hold their hand through the buying process. It's also because most are either too lazy or too disinterested to do any research for themselves. Many simply aren't capable of understanding technical data (or at least they're convinced that they're not). You may not like it, but those are the hard facts of retail. People like you and I and some others here are but a tiny minority of the buying public. Only the niche market companies will bother to cater to us, because that's what separates them from the mainstream. I have to disagree. Blaming the buyer for the seller's failure to provide important information in a form the buyer can use is a cop out. Sellers who blame customers for their own failings are at risk of having someone take their customers away from them. Sorry Bill, but whether you like it or not, that's the way it works in the real world. While I agree that that manufacturers should make technical information available, doing so would be largely a wasted effort as the overwhelming majority of customers would neither understand it or care. Given that, I can't fault them for not wasting their resources to distribute this information widely. Selling the boat is the dealer's job; the manufacturer should provide them with the information to do so, but they're not responsible for getting it to the customer. If they want to put it on a web site where interested customers can find it, fine, but including it in marketing literature would be an unnecessary expense and waste of paper. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt wrote:
Brian Nystrom ) writes: Michael Daly wrote: On 1-Jun-2004, (William R. Watt) wrote: wait just a darned minute, are you saying the data you presented is not test data but is calculated from dimensions using Winter's KAPER model? that's not data. sorry, it doesn't count as data. No one does tank testing of kayaks. Too expensive. All data published in Sea Kayaker is based on both KAPER and Taylor. Both produce similar results. These calculations have been calibrated with real test data. If you want better data, you'll look long and hard. Better yet, do it yourself if you think it's so important. Do you think I could get a research grant from the Defence Department? Don't commandos, or whatever they are calling them now, use kayaks? Half a knot could mean the difference between victory and defeat for an enire invasion force. How do military policy makers measure the cost of kayak research in body bags? Considering that they use short, wide folding boats, obviously there are other considerations that are deemed more important than hull efficiency by the military. |
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Brian Nystrom ) writes:
It's real simple Bill, so perhaps even you can understand it. The price of a stripper kayak kit that includes seat parts, footpegs, deck rigging and finishing supplies is $1200-$1400 (based on the prices from Newfound Woodworks) plus shipping, which isn't cheap since they must be shipped by truck. Unless one is already a woodworker, you can figure on adding several hundred dollars for the cost of tools and the materials to build a strongback, sawhorses, etc., to the cost of the kit an supplies. That brings your your total hardware and supplies cost up to $1500~$2000. You are overstating the cost here. You don't have to be a "woodworker", merely a homeowner, to have an electric drill (with sanding disk) and an electric jigsaw or circular saw (either will do for cutting curves on thin plywood. You can cut your own strips as well if you want with a tabel saw. And you don't even need a table saw. All you have to do is cut a slot in a piece of plywood and mount a circular saw upside down in it. It's common practice among beginner boatbuilders. I've done that twice. I don't own a table saw. I have not bought any extra tools for boatbulding. Nor would most others. In fact I saved money buying the few tools that I have by doing odd jobs around the house myself instead of paying someone else to do them, which leads us to the next item, labour. When you factor in the 200-300 hours of labor involved in building a stripper (typical numbers derived from what hobbyist builders report on kayak building sites), even if you only value your time at $10/hour (slave wages), you're looking at a real cost of $3500-$5000 for your first boat. Subsequent boats will be somewhat cheaper since you now have the tools and strongback, but that's assuming that you build more than one. Oh sure, I guess you pay yourself $10 an hour for labour. How do you do that? Take $10 out of your left hand pocket and put it in your right hand pocket? No, you save yourself the cost of paying someone else to build your boat. Its a savings not an expense. First you write boatbuilding is an act of love, now your write you want to pay yourself for it, which makes you some kind of boatbuidling whore. Maybe you should rethink your motivation. I build my boats to save money, as do other amateur boatbuilders. Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". So don't try and add "self payment" to the cost of anyone's building his or her own boat. You save the cost of labour, period. Considering that you can buy a new 'glass boat for ~$2500 or a used one for as little ~$1000 (I've bought several at that price), where is your buying a used boat has noting to do with comparing the cost of buying a new boat or bulding it yourself. it still cost 1/3 less to build a stripper canoe or kayak compared to buying it off the shelf. savings, Bill? You accuse me of imaginative, yet it's quite obvious that your "1/3 savings" figure is wishful thinking at best. I enjoy building boats, but I'm under no illusion that it saves me any money. The main reason for building a boat (other than the recreational aspects of woodworking) is that I get exactly what I want. you have not shown that buying a boat costs less than 50% more than building it yourself. I'm actually quite amazed at the strange ideas about money expressed above. Do really beleive what you wrote? Yet boat builders are still a MINUSCULE percentage of the total number of kayakers. You really need to get a grip on the reality of the market. To put some perspective on it, I belong to a club with over 400 members in it. Out of those, I know of 9 (2.25%) who have built boats. That's among paddlers who are dedicated enough to join a club. We represent only a small fraction of the total kayaking population, the majority of whom paddle plastic recreational boats. Based on that, I think it's safe to say kayak builders represent well under 1% of the kayaking population. Is that specific enough for you??? how did you get off on this rant? what we are discussing is the possibility of custom designing a plywood or stipper kayak, and that it cost no more to custom design one of these than to build from one set plan. try to stay with the tour. I've read somewhere some Brian Nystrom guy built his own first boat at one time. You read wrong. I built my third boat. My first two were commercial boats. the first boat you built was the first boat your built, not the first boat you owned. I've already addressed this fallacy above. Either it's a "labor of love" and you don't count the labor cost, or you're not saving anything. You can't have it both ways, Bill. your fallacy. your imaginary cash flow. Where does this come from? I don't see any reason why a chine has to cause turbulence. Lapstrake boats are not comparable with single chine kayaks, whose chines are typically fully immersed and which have smoother entries and exits. You're comparing apples and oranges. water passes smoothly over a smooth surface. water passing over a hard chine becomes turbulant when the angle of the surface changes abruptly. why is this so difficlut to grasp? ...it shows exactly what I was talking about. For a given beam width, the spherical hull has the least wetted surface. If you ignore the beam width and look only at equal displacement, a spherical hull still has the least wetted surface. Although shape E is not perfectly spherical, it's pretty obvious that a spherical shape with slightly increased depth would have as little or perhaps slightly less surface area. This explains why racing boat hulls are narrow and round. It's too bad he chose not to include such a sample in the diagram. I think you need to define what you mean by "spherical hull". A sphere is not a circle. Do you mean by "spherical" that the immersed section is a semi-circle. I agree about the minimal girth, but can you name any non-racing kayaks whose immersed section is a semi-circle? How do they deal with the instability? Sponsons? nope, the drag of the hard chine hull includes the turbulence about the chine which is greater than the difference in friction resistance. Again, where is the reference? I don't believe that a single hard chine is going to cause turbulence in an of itself in a well designed kayak. it occurs toward the top of the speed range when residual drag overtakes surface drag. at low speeds its not important. but don't forget you can have a V-bottom hard chined boat which tracks better than a round bottom hull with the same length and wetted surface and the hard chined hull will have less residual resistance because it spends less time slewing around, and more time going straight. as we have all seen, the boat with the rounded bottom cross section will often have "deadwood" added at the bow and stern or a skeg (or rudder) or both to help it track, and these add wetted surface to the rounded hull. You're drawing a lot of invalid conclusions here. A long, narrow, rounded hull with straight keel line (typical racing hull configuration) tracks VERY strongly. there you go dragging in racing boats again. do you intend to limit your part of the discussion to racing boats so you can prove some obsacure point? ... One reason why most of them have rudders is to enable the paddler to turn the boat, not because it won't track. The now you're really showing how little you actually know about kayaks. the rudder is there for tracking, for the most part in cross winds. it's not there for turning. however skegs and rudders are added to round bottom kayaks to provide decent tracking which they can't get otherwise. I agree that as the lenght of the boat increases tracking increases. Someboduy who shal remain nameless mentioned in this newsgroup some time ago that too many people buy kayaks which are too long for what they need. perhaps they do it to get decent traking from a round bottom hull? main reason for rudders is to get maximum efficiency from the powerplant (the paddler). It's more efficient to have a small rudder to control the direction of the boat than it is to use leans and sweep strokes, which reduce the biomechanical efficiency of the stoke. which means they can't get it from the hull shape they are using. they have to stick on a skeg or rudder. either the hull slews around creating By "deadwood" are you referring to bow and stern overhangs? If so, they do nothing to aid tracking, as they're not in the water most of the time. deadwood is extra hull under the bow or stern (or both) which improves tracking by making the hull harder to turn. think of those long thin entries on some knife blade bows. same at the stern. I'll guarantee you that if you stick a graph in the faces of customers, the overwhelming majority of them will have no idea what they're looking at, nor will they care. On the other hand, if a dealer simply told them that a particular boat was well suited to someone their size, that same percentage would accept that. The few that would understand the graph might ask "why", in which case you can offer a more detailed explanation. but you just finished writing that most kayak salespeople don't know squat about the boats they are selling. what I imagien is teh designer supplied teh retialer with a DC with all the infor on it, including a program which will graph power vs speed for different body weights. the reatiler has an old $30 486 PC system in the store so peopel can find out which boats are suited to them. as for your comment about graphs, that's all they do in schools now. every subject is full of graphs. they came in with th enew math in the 60's. everybody with a high school diploma has been saturated with graphs. While I certainly wouldn't question your data analysis capability, it has nothing to do with the way people react to information in real world. What makes perfect sense to you would be nothing more than "technical gibberish" to most people. I've dealt with people in the real world (as a retailer and as a technical trainer) and I can tell you unequivocally that's a FACT. thanks but what I did is just what you are saying, the display and interpertation of graphical data. did you know pie charts are the worst way to present data? peopel don't see vertical pie shaped sections teh same way they see horizonatl pie shaped sections. there are lots of other perceptual problem with graphs. however everybody uses them, everybody expect them, and they are a good way of presenting numerical relations if done properly. Sorry Bill, but whether you like it or not, that's the way it works in the real world. While I agree that that manufacturers should make technical information available, doing so would be largely a wasted effort as the overwhelming majority of customers would neither understand it or care. Given that, I can't fault them for not wasting their resources to distribute this information widely. Selling the boat is the dealer's job; the manufacturer should provide them with the information to do so, but they're not responsible for getting it to the customer. If they want to put it on a web site where interested customers can find it, fine, but including it in marketing literature would be an unnecessary expense and waste of paper. Its not techincal information when it's personal. It's personal information. That's the real world. People's questions can be answered with the right information. As I wrote earlier, it's the seller who provides the right information for the buyer who will take sales away from the seller who doesn't. As you wrote ealier, and as I have seen too, kayak salespersons don't know much about the boats they sell and are not very helpfull to buyers. Retail wages are low and aren't likely to improve. We aren't likely to see knowlegeable people selling kayaks for low wages. That's where computers can make a difference at the retail level for a minimal outlay, a difference to both the buyer who will be more satisfied with the boat he or she buys, and a difference to the retailer who attracts business away from competitors. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
I'm looking at last season's "Boats and Paddles" booklet put out by Mountain Co-op. They give the list price for every boat. That's useful information for the buyer to have. They give the weigth for every boat. That's uselful to know becaue all these boats will be picked up and carried, some portaged. They give the capacity for about half of the boats (weight and volume) which might be useful to a buyer. It would be better to have it for all the boats but it looks like the the manufacture (designer) didn't provide it. They also give the length, beam, depth, and cockpit dimensions, none of which is very useful to the buyer. Here is where the personal information would be useful, ie the power vs speed graph for different body weights, the body size, and perhaps the draft so the buyer knows if it is a shallow water hull for his or her body weight. Since Mountain Co-op is going to the expense of printing the booklets they could use the same amount of money to provide more relevant and meanignful information for the buyer. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
"William R. Watt" wrote in message ... Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". It can also be used as a derogatory to describe someone lacking knowledge or skill. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
in article , William R. Watt at
wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM: Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love". |
Fiberglass vs plastic
"Michael Daly" ) writes:
On 6-Jun-2004, (William R. Watt) wrote: So do I based on what you wrote earlier about the effect of hull scratches and gouges. ??? When did I ever write that gouges and scratches have a significant effect on drag? sorry? you claimed the opposite. that was the difference on which this discussion is founded. If the spherical hull does not have the least surface to volume ratio, please tell us what shape does. Could you explain the significance of "spherical" hulls, because only the arc of the circle below the waterline gets wetted? They are a starting point in looking at the effects of hull shape on resistance. I see. I thought you were writing about an actual hull shape. I don't see how anyone can disagree that the circumference of a cirle encloses the largest area for the least perimeter, but actual kayak hulls aren't built that way due to other considerations such as stability, draft, and tracking. I build a perfectly circular hull once out of 55 gal plastic drums cut in half. Photos on my website. I was informed of someone in Mayalsia who built a boat out of large diameter plastic pipe. I had to put sponsons on the boat to keep it from rolling over. Log drivers used to have the same problem. The carried a long pole. My boat was 2 feet across and 1 foot deep. Because of the perfectly round shpe it sat deep in the water, 6" of draft. I guess it could be agruged that kayaks are traditionally ocean-going craft and given the average depths of the oceans, kayak draft is not important as it is in canoes. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
"Dave Van" ) writes:
"William R. Watt" wrote in message ... Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". It can also be used as a derogatory to describe someone lacking knowledge or skill. yes, that's usually a "novice" or "beginner". in my experience being paid does not mean doing better work. amateurs building their own boats often do a better job. many overbuild. the word "professional" has lost all it's meaning, as has "executive" when applied to real estate. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
Dave Van ) writes:
in article , William R. Watt at wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM: Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love". which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt ) writes:
I see. I thought you were writing about an actual hull shape. I don't see how anyone can disagree that the circumference of a cirle encloses the largest area for the least perimeter, but actual kayak hulls aren't built that way due to other considerations such as stability, draft, and tracking. Sorry, that was not clearly worded. If the waterline is the circumference of the circle then the circular hull has the least girth for the area enclosed (equvalent to the least wetted surface for the largest voume of water displaced, or displacement). However, as is shown on Winters' website, if the waterline is shorter than the diameter of the circle, ie an arc of a the circular section, then flattening the sides reduces the girth and wetted surface, an intersting and counterintuitive phenomenum. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
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Fiberglass vs plastic
"William R. Watt" wrote in message ... Dave Van ) writes: in article , William R. Watt at wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM: Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love". which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself Or supports his notion that it's a labor of love. I'm self employed. I don't know if Brian is or not. Being self employed and having more clients and work than I "really" have time for, every minute I spend doing something else is time I could spend earning my living. For many nine to fivers, this is not the case but for me, and I suppose many others, the cost of time spent is definately a factor to consider if I choose to make a project out of building a kayak. Brian's point about tools should be taken to heart. In woodworking, set up is 90% of the work. If you are skimping on tools, you are likely compromising the quality of the outcome or you are making up for it with additional labor, increasing the time spent and adding to the "cost". DV |
Fiberglass vs plastic
"Michael Daly" ) writes:
Most recreational hulls are built for stability, but advanced hulls are made with rounded, or nearly rounded, bottoms. Yes, I'm going to have to backtrack on the subject of circular cross sections for kayaks. Yesterday at the river I saw a short cheap bright yellow plastic kayak with a very round cross section, tapering toward the ends. I was ignoring how low is the centre of gravity when a paddler sits on the bottom of a round hull with its deeper draft. Although it's not easy to get into such a boat, once the paddler's butt is firmly planted on the bottom the boat is more stable. Also, the manner of paddling a kayak, compared to paddling a canoe or using a small sail, keeps the weight centred so the lack of reserve bouyancy is not much of a problem. It was unstable getting into my plastic barrel canoe, and it needed sponsons to carry sail. In addition, rolling a kayak over is not supposed to be a problem. It's a feature. :) When sailing my narrow sail-and-paddle boats I have to lie on the bottom of the boat to lower the center of gravity and counter the heeling force of the sail, even though both boats have a flat bottom and reserve bouyancy. The smallest one has to have sponsons to carry sail. I've had to make backrests for both of them to lie back on when sailing. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt wrote: Brian Nystrom ) writes: It's real simple Bill, so perhaps even you can understand it. The price of a stripper kayak kit that includes seat parts, footpegs, deck rigging and finishing supplies is $1200-$1400 (based on the prices from Newfound Woodworks) plus shipping, which isn't cheap since they must be shipped by truck. Unless one is already a woodworker, you can figure on adding several hundred dollars for the cost of tools and the materials to build a strongback, sawhorses, etc., to the cost of the kit an supplies. That brings your your total hardware and supplies cost up to $1500~$2000. You are overstating the cost here. You don't have to be a "woodworker", merely a homeowner, to have an electric drill (with sanding disk) and an electric jigsaw or circular saw (either will do for cutting curves on thin plywood. Excuse me, but were we not talking about kits for building strippers? The idea of using a sanding disk on an electric drill is laughable and you know it. It's the fastest way to destroy your work. You can cut your own strips as well if you want with a tabel saw. So what happened to the kit idea? Is that out the window now? And you don't even need a table saw. All you have to do is cut a slot in a piece of plywood and mount a circular saw upside down in it. It's common practice among beginner boatbuilders. I've done that twice. I don't own a table saw. I have not bought any extra tools for boatbulding. Nor would most others. That's really funny, considering what boatbuilders actually do rather than your hypothetical scenario. How many clamps do you figure the average homeowner has lying about? A block plane? Japanese pull saw? Chisels? Yes, it's possible to build a boat on a shoestring, but that's not what most builders do. Again, you know this. In fact I saved money buying the few tools that I have by doing odd jobs around the house myself instead of paying someone else to do them I do too, but you and I are not typical of the American public. Most people can barely do more than change a lightbulb. It's sad, but true. which leads us to the next item, labour. When you factor in the 200-300 hours of labor involved in building a stripper (typical numbers derived from what hobbyist builders report on kayak building sites), even if you only value your time at $10/hour (slave wages), you're looking at a real cost of $3500-$5000 for your first boat. Subsequent boats will be somewhat cheaper since you now have the tools and strongback, but that's assuming that you build more than one. Oh sure, I guess you pay yourself $10 an hour for labour. How do you do that? Take $10 out of your left hand pocket and put it in your right hand pocket? No, you save yourself the cost of paying someone else to build your boat. Its a savings not an expense. First you write boatbuilding is an act of love, now your write you want to pay yourself for it, which makes you some kind of boatbuidling whore. Maybe you should rethink your motivation. I build my boats to save money, as do other amateur boatbuilders. Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". So don't try and add "self payment" to the cost of anyone's building his or her own boat. You save the cost of labour, period. As usual, you've come up with somthing totally absurd to try to cloud the issue. The point is that a person's time is worth something. The time required for building a strip boat is not inconsequential. If you consider it recreation (a labor of love), fine. If it takes time that could be used to earn a living, that's a whole different story. Considering that you can buy a new 'glass boat for ~$2500 or a used one for as little ~$1000 (I've bought several at that price), where is your buying a used boat has noting to do with comparing the cost of buying a new boat or bulding it yourself. it still cost 1/3 less to build a stripper canoe or kayak compared to buying it off the shelf. How many people would be willing to shell out $5000 for a strip built boat in the first place? by your rationale, one might be able to save tens of thousands of dollars by building their own yacht. But if you can't afford one in the first place, what's the point? One minute you're talking about building in the cheapest manner possible, then you're talking about the most expensive boats available. This discussion started out being about saving money by building vs. buying a COMMERCIAL boat. You keep taking that discussion off on unrelated tangents. savings, Bill? You accuse me of imaginative, yet it's quite obvious that your "1/3 savings" figure is wishful thinking at best. I enjoy building boats, but I'm under no illusion that it saves me any money. The main reason for building a boat (other than the recreational aspects of woodworking) is that I get exactly what I want. you have not shown that buying a boat costs less than 50% more than building it yourself. I'm actually quite amazed at the strange ideas about money expressed above. Do really beleive what you wrote? What I believe is that you've got very little grasp of reality. You keep changing the subject in an attempt to avoid admitting that you're wrong. You can buy commercial boats for less than the cost of a kit plus the tools and materials necessary to build it. Building takes time, which is a valuable commodity for most people. You've offered means of "saving money" which are simply a trade off for increased building time and difficulty, which makes building even less of a possibility for most people. Hell, Greenlanders built their boats for centuries using driftwood and tools made from stone and bone. That was about as cheap as you can get, but it took a LONG time to build a boat. Perhaps you're retired and don't consider your time to be worth anything, but most people value their time. Yet boat builders are still a MINUSCULE percentage of the total number of kayakers. You really need to get a grip on the reality of the market. To put some perspective on it, I belong to a club with over 400 members in it. Out of those, I know of 9 (2.25%) who have built boats. That's among paddlers who are dedicated enough to join a club. We represent only a small fraction of the total kayaking population, the majority of whom paddle plastic recreational boats. Based on that, I think it's safe to say kayak builders represent well under 1% of the kayaking population. Is that specific enough for you??? how did you get off on this rant? what we are discussing is the possibility of custom designing a plywood or stipper kayak, and that it cost no more to custom design one of these than to build from one set plan. try to stay with the tour. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You go off on a tangent whenever it suits you. What a hypocrite! The point is that the market for plans and kits is small. People who produce them apparently don't think that your idea of custom plans and kits at bargain basement prices is economically feasible. Since they're in the business and you're not, I'll defer to their wisdom. I've read somewhere some Brian Nystrom guy built his own first boat at one time. You read wrong. I built my third boat. My first two were commercial boats. the first boat you built was the first boat your built, not the first boat you owned. So your first comment was pointless. I built a boat, then another and another. I plan to build a few more, because I enjoy it and I can build what I want. So what? I've already stated that I don't do it under the illusion of saving money. I've already addressed this fallacy above. Either it's a "labor of love" and you don't count the labor cost, or you're not saving anything. You can't have it both ways, Bill. your fallacy. your imaginary cash flow. You need to get a grip on reality, Bill. Where does this come from? I don't see any reason why a chine has to cause turbulence. Lapstrake boats are not comparable with single chine kayaks, whose chines are typically fully immersed and which have smoother entries and exits. You're comparing apples and oranges. water passes smoothly over a smooth surface. water passing over a hard chine becomes turbulant when the angle of the surface changes abruptly. why is this so difficlut to grasp? When does water pass across the chine? The major flow is along the axis of the boat, not across it. The water flows around the boat and underneath it. ...it shows exactly what I was talking about. For a given beam width, the spherical hull has the least wetted surface. If you ignore the beam width and look only at equal displacement, a spherical hull still has the least wetted surface. Although shape E is not perfectly spherical, it's pretty obvious that a spherical shape with slightly increased depth would have as little or perhaps slightly less surface area. This explains why racing boat hulls are narrow and round. It's too bad he chose not to include such a sample in the diagram. I think you need to define what you mean by "spherical hull". A sphere is not a circle. Do you mean by "spherical" that the immersed section is a semi-circle. OK. For a given displacement a true spherical shape has the least surface area. However, that's not a practical shape for a boat. For a real boat shape, a semicircular cross section will have the least surface area. I agree about the minimal girth, but can you name any non-racing kayaks whose immersed section is a semi-circle? How do they deal with the instability? Sponsons? You evidently don't understand stability, either. In the Winters diagram you reference, the semicircular cross section at the top will be quite stable, due to the amount of flare above the waterline. Here's a link that explains this in more depth: http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/Desi...tyArticle.html nope, the drag of the hard chine hull includes the turbulence about the chine which is greater than the difference in friction resistance. Again, where is the reference? I don't believe that a single hard chine is going to cause turbulence in an of itself in a well designed kayak. it occurs toward the top of the speed range when residual drag overtakes surface drag. at low speeds its not important. Why? You have yet to explain why there would be more drag on a hard chine boat. You make vague references to turbulence, but have offered no proof of this. Why would this only be an issue at higher speeds? Water flows over the hull at all speeds, doesn't it? If the chine caused turbulence, it would create drag at all speeds, wouldn't it? You're not making any sense. but don't forget you can have a V-bottom hard chined boat which tracks better than a round bottom hull with the same length and wetted surface and the hard chined hull will have less residual resistance because it spends less time slewing around, and more time going straight. as we have all seen, the boat with the rounded bottom cross section will often have "deadwood" added at the bow and stern or a skeg (or rudder) or both to help it track, and these add wetted surface to the rounded hull. You're drawing a lot of invalid conclusions here. A long, narrow, rounded hull with straight keel line (typical racing hull configuration) tracks VERY strongly. there you go dragging in racing boats again. do you intend to limit your part of the discussion to racing boats so you can prove some obsacure point? The point I'm making is that your sweeping generalities about hull shapes are simply wrong. A rounded hull can track strongly. A rounded hull can be quite stable. The fact that you don't understand how doesn't change these facts. ... One reason why most of them have rudders is to enable the paddler to turn the boat, not because it won't track. The now you're really showing how little you actually know about kayaks. the rudder is there for tracking, for the most part in cross winds. it's not there for turning. It depends on the type of boat. On a touring boat, a rudder should be used only to control the boat's heading, though most paddlers use them to turn the boat. I agree that this is incorrect, but that's what most people do. In the case of racing boats, the rudder is used to turn in lieu of turning stroke. however skegs and rudders are added to round bottom kayaks to provide decent tracking which they can't get otherwise. Utter nonsense! I used to own Nigel Foster Silhouette, which has a rounded bottom. That was a very stong tracking boat. I also owned a Norkapp HM, which was an extremely strong tracking boat. Tracking has very little to do with the cross sectional shape of the hull. I agree that as the lenght of the boat increases tracking increases. Someboduy who shal remain nameless mentioned in this newsgroup some time ago that too many people buy kayaks which are too long for what they need. perhaps they do it to get decent traking from a round bottom hull? No, that's not the case. There really aren't that many round bottomed kayaks on the market. The majority have shallow V hulls. main reason for rudders is to get maximum efficiency from the powerplant (the paddler). It's more efficient to have a small rudder to control the direction of the boat than it is to use leans and sweep strokes, which reduce the biomechanical efficiency of the stoke. which means they can't get it from the hull shape they are using. they have to stick on a skeg or rudder. either the hull slews around creating No, it has nothing to do with the hull slewing around. The boats in question are VERY difficult to turn because they track extremely stongly. You've completely missed the point again. Either that or you're trying to reinterpret what I said and confuse the issue again. By "deadwood" are you referring to bow and stern overhangs? If so, they do nothing to aid tracking, as they're not in the water most of the time. deadwood is extra hull under the bow or stern (or both) which improves tracking by making the hull harder to turn. think of those long thin entries on some knife blade bows. same at the stern. I don't know how you can consider that "deadwood", as it contributes to increasing the boat's maximum hull speed. Every high performance boat, from kayaks to aircraft carriers have relatively plumb bows and sterns with fine entries. It's certainly not done for aesthetics. I'll guarantee you that if you stick a graph in the faces of customers, the overwhelming majority of them will have no idea what they're looking at, nor will they care. On the other hand, if a dealer simply told them that a particular boat was well suited to someone their size, that same percentage would accept that. The few that would understand the graph might ask "why", in which case you can offer a more detailed explanation. but you just finished writing that most kayak salespeople don't know squat about the boats they are selling. What's your point? what I imagien is teh designer supplied teh retialer with a DC with all the infor on it, including a program which will graph power vs speed for different body weights. the reatiler has an old $30 486 PC system in the store so peopel can find out which boats are suited to them. Did your spell checker die or something? You can imagine all you want, but that doesn't mean that anyone will actually use it. As a former retailer, I can tell you from experience that few people show more than a passing interest in such aids. as for your comment about graphs, that's all they do in schools now. every subject is full of graphs. they came in with th enew math in the 60's. everybody with a high school diploma has been saturated with graphs. That doesn't mean that they have any interest in seeing graphs outside the artificial confines of the classroom. You're the data guy, so how about conducting a poll and asking people when the last time they created a graph, or even looked for one was? You're assuming that the general population is like you, which isn't the case. While I certainly wouldn't question your data analysis capability, it has nothing to do with the way people react to information in real world. What makes perfect sense to you would be nothing more than "technical gibberish" to most people. I've dealt with people in the real world (as a retailer and as a technical trainer) and I can tell you unequivocally that's a FACT. thanks but what I did is just what you are saying, the display and interpertation of graphical data. did you know pie charts are the worst way to present data? peopel don't see vertical pie shaped sections teh same way they see horizonatl pie shaped sections. there are lots of other perceptual problem with graphs. however everybody uses them, everybody expect them, and they are a good way of presenting numerical relations if done properly. That's fascinating, Bill, but what does it have to do with this discussion? Sorry Bill, but whether you like it or not, that's the way it works in the real world. While I agree that that manufacturers should make technical information available, doing so would be largely a wasted effort as the overwhelming majority of customers would neither understand it or care. Given that, I can't fault them for not wasting their resources to distribute this information widely. Selling the boat is the dealer's job; the manufacturer should provide them with the information to do so, but they're not responsible for getting it to the customer. If they want to put it on a web site where interested customers can find it, fine, but including it in marketing literature would be an unnecessary expense and waste of paper. Its not techincal information when it's personal. It's personal information. That's the real world. People's questions can be answered with the right information. As I wrote earlier, it's the seller who provides the right information for the buyer who will take sales away from the seller who doesn't. As you wrote ealier, and as I have seen too, kayak salespersons don't know much about the boats they sell and are not very helpfull to buyers. Retail wages are low and aren't likely to improve. We aren't likely to see knowlegeable people selling kayaks for low wages. That's where computers can make a difference at the retail level for a minimal outlay, a difference to both the buyer who will be more satisfied with the boat he or she buys, and a difference to the retailer who attracts business away from competitors. You're still operating under the mistaken assumption that most people will do the research or that they even care about such things. While true enthusiasts or students of the sport may, the average paddler doesn't. Like it or not, most people are sheep. They're perfectly content to be led around and let others make decisions for them. This seems to be especially true when it comes to recreation. They want to recreate, not analyze data relating to their recreational pursuits. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt wrote: I'm looking at last season's "Boats and Paddles" booklet put out by Mountain Co-op. They give the list price for every boat. That's useful information for the buyer to have. They give the weigth for every boat. That's uselful to know becaue all these boats will be picked up and carried, some portaged. They give the capacity for about half of the boats (weight and volume) which might be useful to a buyer. It would be better to have it for all the boats but it looks like the the manufacture (designer) didn't provide it. They also give the length, beam, depth, and cockpit dimensions, none of which is very useful to the buyer. Here is where the personal information would be useful, ie the power vs speed graph for different body weights, the body size, and perhaps the draft so the buyer knows if it is a shallow water hull for his or her body weight. Since Mountain Co-op is going to the expense of printing the booklets they could use the same amount of money to provide more relevant and meanignful information for the buyer. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt wrote: I'm looking at last season's "Boats and Paddles" booklet put out by Mountain Co-op. They give the list price for every boat. That's useful information for the buyer to have. No kidding. They give the weigth for every boat. That's uselful to know becaue all these boats will be picked up and carried, some portaged. Obviously. They give the capacity for about half of the boats (weight and volume) which might be useful to a buyer. It would be better to have it for all the boats but it looks like the the manufacture (designer) didn't provide it. Right. Are you going to get to the point eventually? They also give the length, beam, depth, and cockpit dimensions, none of which is very useful to the buyer. This statement shows how little you know about kayaks and kayak buyers. For many people, length is critical due to storage and transportation issues. It's also a good general indicator of a boat's suitability for various types of paddling. For example, you wouldn't buy a 18' kayak for poking around tidal estuaries with their narrow winding creeks. A 12' boat is not going to be ideal for taking out on long open water crossings. Length is also a decent indicator of maneuverability, at least in gross terms. Likewise beam width is a good basic indicator of stability. A 28" boat is going to be more stable than a 22" boat. Beam width is also a reasonable indicator of performance potential. Using the same example, the boat with the 28" beam is going to be significantly slower than the boat with the 22" beam, all else being equal. When you combine length and beam, it tells you a fair amount about the general nature of a kayak and whether it's likely to be suitable for a specific application. The depth and cockpit dimensions tell quite a bit about how a boat will fit the paddler. Here is where the personal information would be useful, ie the power vs speed graph for different body weights, the body size, and perhaps the draft so the buyer knows if it is a shallow water hull for his or her body weight. Since Mountain Co-op is going to the expense of printing the booklets they could use the same amount of money to provide more relevant and meanignful information for the buyer. While providing such information would certainly do no harm, it's actually much less useful (and understandable) to most people than the information you so easily dismissed. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
William R. Watt wrote: Dave Van ) writes: in article , William R. Watt at wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM: Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love". which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself No, it proves that you're simply being an ass. You obviously have little comprehension of reality and you've spent most of this discussion twisting and misinterpreting what I've said in a vain attempt to prove your incorrect assumptions. My time is worth something to me and I've wasted too much of it on your stupidity, pointless circular arguments and issue-clouding tangents. Go live in your dream world where everyone reads statistics and builds boats on a shoestring. I've got better things to do than argue with an idiot. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
Dave Van wrote: "William R. Watt" wrote in message ... Dave Van ) writes: in article , William R. Watt at wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM: Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love". which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself Or supports his notion that it's a labor of love. I'm self employed. I don't know if Brian is or not. Being self employed and having more clients and work than I "really" have time for, every minute I spend doing something else is time I could spend earning my living. For many nine to fivers, this is not the case but for me, and I suppose many others, the cost of time spent is definately a factor to consider if I choose to make a project out of building a kayak. Brian's point about tools should be taken to heart. In woodworking, set up is 90% of the work. If you are skimping on tools, you are likely compromising the quality of the outcome or you are making up for it with additional labor, increasing the time spent and adding to the "cost". Your points are well taken and eloquently presented, Dave. Hopefully, if there's anyone else still reading this thread, they're more open minded than Bill and can see the wisdom in your words. |
Fiberglass vs plastic
Brian Nystrom ) writes: William R. Watt wrote: You are overstating the cost here. You don't have to be a "woodworker", merely a homeowner, to have an electric drill (with sanding disk) and an electric jigsaw or circular saw (either will do for cutting curves on thin plywood. Excuse me, but were we not talking about kits for building strippers? I am discussing custom designed plywood and "stripper" canoes and kayaks, and that they cost no more to build than off the shelf plywood and stripper models. When built at home by an amateur there is a 1/3 savings in cost of the "stripper" model. The idea of using a sanding disk on an electric drill is laughable and you know it. It's the fastest way to destroy your work. It's the only power sander I use. If someoen esle does not want to use one then they likely have a difference kind fo power sander in their home. It's nto the kind of saner but whether you have to buy a new one to build a boat that affects the cost. Either you hav a sander and don't have to buy one, or you buy one and use it on all sorts of other projects making the cost for boatbuilding not worth considering. As I wrote before, all myu power toos have saved me more money on home repairs than I paid for them. They are not a net cost item in the home, they are a savings item. You can cut your own strips as well if you want with a tabel saw. So what happened to the kit idea? Is that out the window now? If you want to save more of the labour cost you can cut your own strips. I think you are out teh window. I can't understand how anyone familiar with boatbuilding can write what you've been posting in this thread. That's really funny, considering what boatbuilders actually do rather than your hypothetical scenario. How many clamps do you figure the average homeowner has lying about? A block plane? Japanese pull saw? Chisels? Yes, it's possible to build a boat on a shoestring, but that's not what most builders do. Again, you know this. I don't know where you are getting your information about amateur builders but if you look at the construction photos they put in Interent websites, and if you read books on matuer boatbuilding, you'll see they build teh boats as I've described. There is no evidence that they spend a lot of money on tools. If they build a lot of boats they'll buy some extra tools but then the cost is spread over a lot of boats, not just one. As for clamps. That's a myth. You don't need clamps. There are lots of inexpensive alternatives - screws, wedges, rope, spit rings. Over the years I've picked up about 10 small clamps of different kinds at second hand sales for up to $1 each and one or two once in a while. I do too, but you and I are not typical of the American public. Most people can barely do more than change a lightbulb. It's sad, but true. well we aren't disussing the American public, are we? We are discussing boatbuilding which is not typical of the American public, only of people who want to build a boat. As usual, you've come up with somthing totally absurd to try to cloud the issue. The point is that a person's time is worth something. The time required for building a strip boat is not inconsequential. If you consider it recreation (a labor of love), fine. If it takes time that could be used to earn a living, that's a whole different story. all recreational boating is recreational. however I wouldn't label all recreational activity "a labour of love". One minute you're talking about building in the cheapest manner possible, then you're talking about the most expensive boats available. This discussion started out being about saving money by building vs. buying a COMMERCIAL boat. You keep taking that discussion off on unrelated tangents. the home builder gets to use the "cheapest manner possible". that's where the greatest savings come from. you can build the most expensive "stripper" boat for 1/3 less than store bought. the more expensive the store bought boat the more the amateur saves. What I believe is that you've got very little grasp of reality. You keep changing the subject in an attempt to avoid admitting that you're wrong. You can buy commercial boats for less than the cost of a kit plus the tools and materials necessary to build it. Amateurs regularly build "stripper" boats for 1/3 less than they can buy the completed boat off the shelf. Building takes time, which is a valuable commodity for most people. You've offered means of "saving money" which are simply a trade off for increased building time and difficulty, which makes building even less of a possibility for most people. "most people" do not build their own boats. "most people" buy theri boats built by someone else. they pay more for the other people to build the boats for them. those who do build theri own "stripper" boats do so for 1/3 less cost that they can buy the bot already built. Hell, Greenlanders built their boats for centuries using driftwood and tools made from stone and bone. That was about as cheap as you can get, but it took a LONG time to build a boat. Perhaps you're retired and don't consider your time to be worth anything, but most people value their time. it took a 2 native people 2 weeks to build a bark canoe, about the same as it takes someone to build one today. I would assume seal skin kayaks are similar. amaterus do not pay themselves to build a boat. nobody pays them. no money cahnges hands. it costs an amteur 1/3 less to build a "stripper" boat than to buy the completed boat build by someone else. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You go off on a tangent whenever it suits you. What a hypocrite! The point is that the market for plans and kits is small. People who produce them apparently don't think that your idea of custom plans and kits at bargain basement prices is economically feasible. Since they're in the business and you're not, I'll defer to their wisdom. I can get the plans for a canoe or kayak for free out of a book at the public library or off the Internet. You don't need to buy a kit although you can if you wnat. However, an amateur typically saves 1/3 off the cost of a "stripper" canoe of kayak buy bulding it himself or herself. (am I staying on topic here or what? It's not I who have the wandering mind.) So your first comment was pointless. I built a boat, then another and another. I plan to build a few more, because I enjoy it and I can build what I want. So what? I've already stated that I don't do it under the illusion of saving money. each time you build a boat you save the money you would have to pay someone else to build the boat for you. that's no illusion. When does water pass across the chine? The major flow is along the axis of the boat, not across it. The water flows around the boat and underneath it. the boat pushes water down and out and then sucks it bak in and up. the greatest resistance comes from pusing the water down and sucking it back up. as it does so the water crosses the chine, twice. I don't know how you can consider that "deadwood", as it contributes to increasing the boat's maximum hull speed. Every high performance boat, from kayaks to aircraft carriers have relatively plumb bows and sterns with fine entries. It's certainly not done for aesthetics. look up "deadwood" in a marine glossary. it's not derogetory. it's a technical term. Nystrom, you must have driven several shoolteachers into early retirement. :) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned |
While I certainly do not doubt your data analysis capabilities, it nothing to do with people's response to the information in real the world. It is nothing more than what will make you feel good "Technical nonsense, "the majority of people. Consideration of their use of short and wide folding boat, obviously there are more important that other factors, the efficiency of the hull by the army.
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