[PCW] powercat fuel efficiency long reply, part II

[Candy Chapman and Gary Bell]

A listee named Alan sent a private email responding to my online 
question about the fuel efficiency of power catamarans.  He has given 
his permission for me to repost an edited version of my reply.

Part II

>   The reason is I'm not greedy.

COMMENT:  Neither were the PDQ owners.  Other makers who's models winked 
or studdered in and out of production in the last five or more years 
lost tons of money trying to sell innovative boats to a surprisingly 
tradition bound market.  That's the chief reason they went down. 

> Have you ever noticed how much profit is reported by a company that 
> only produces say 5-10 boats in a year? It's ridiculous!

COMMENT:  Financial information about most boat builders is pretty hard 
to come by.   Virtually all the small builders and most of the medium 
sized builders are privately held companies, and don't release their 
financial data.  The really large builders are mostly publicly held 
corporations, and financial data on them is available, although mostly 
they are just now entering the power catamaran realm.  There isn't much 
historic data to analyse.  

> They charge what the market will pay.

COMMENT:  Isn't that just a restatement of the nature of business.  
Private businesses that continue to loose lots of money and still 
survive are scarce as hen's teeth.  Markets are price sensitive -- 
demand diminishes as prices rise. 

> What they don't realize is there is a whole other market who would buy 
> if the price would allow it.

COMMENT:  Yes, of course.  I don't believe that the manufacturers are 
however putting on huge margins to get a big overall profit.  Everyone 
understands that higher prices mean fewer sales.  They realize that it 
is better, in this case, to take a very modest margin on each sale, and 
accumulate so many more sales that the overall profit is satisfactory.   
According to PDQ's VP of marketing, that worked well for them for the 
almost six years of their production.   I'm sure he would be among the 
first to tell us that the dramatic rise in their pricing brought on by 
weakened US dollar and skyrocketing material costs were the key factors 
in the demise of the company. 

> I think most very small successful companies pay their employees 
> extremely well and they don't over inflate their prices to make up for 
> small quantities sold.

COMMENT:  I disagree.  In my experience, throughout the economy only 
large companies have the resources to pay employees well, let alone 
include a benefits package.   Employees at small companies earn less, 
get fewer raises and rarely have even the most basic benefits, like 
health insurance.  It seems to me that even the owners of/investors in 
small boat building companies rarely make very much money.   Most 
commonly they loose big time, and make it up in satisfaction about their 
boats. 

We all recognize the advantages of scale in production.   A company that 
builds say five boats a year has to spread it's entire operating costs 
(including a modest profit to reward investors) over those five sales.  
A builder who sells a hundred boats a year, while he has a bigger 
operation is still able to assign a smaller cost to each of those 
hundred sales because the increased costs for accounting, factory space, 
total payroll, etc. etc., don't scale up in a directly proportional way 
to the number of boats produced.   In PDQ's example, they produced 102 
completed hulls in the 62 months since I bought hull number 12.  That's 
about one completion every three weeks, and recall that Whitby harbor 
freezes over from November to April, bottling up production. 

> The market is there for a well built small (34-40 foot) cruising power 
> cat at a modest price. I know it can be done.

COMMENT:  I enthusiastically agree about the market, although I am 
unsure about the acceptability of a power catamaran that size, and 
priced near the $150K you mentioned below.   I think that the PDQ is way 
too sophisticated and complex to fit that price range, but perhaps a 
simple and practical power cat in the slender hull catagory ought to be 
possible in the $150K range.  It would probably have heavy hand fitted 
FRP coated plywood plank hull, bulkheads and panels instead of 
ultralight yet ultrastrong CNC cut high tech foam laminated in fancy 
weave glass, carbon or kevlar, vacuum impregnated with the finest 
resins, and the boat would be considerably heavier overall, it would 
feature lots of flat panel surfaces, a few simple curved and darn few 
compound curved surfaces, and it will have a distinctly homebuilt look.  
It might even have to be gas outboard powered, given that the diesel 
motors I saw at the boat show yesterday were going in the $40K to $55K 
and up range, each, crated, FOB their freight dock.  If you have a lot 
of time on your hands, and the cash to front for the materials, you 
could build such a boat yourself -- keeping in mind that it takes a 
special sort of person with deep pockets and making a very concerted 
effort to create such a unique boat, which will be an ordeal to move out 
of the back yard and end up with rather poor resale value. 

> <><snip some more> If I could find a good power cat for around 
> $150,000 I would buy it in a minute! 

FINAL COMMENT:  Yeah, me too.  I'm not sure how long you will have to 
wait for such a thing to come around in the used boat market though, and 
as I said above, we will probably never see a new production boat in 
that price range.   On the theory that you only get what you pay for, 
you might not end up wanting such a boat. 

I surmise from the general nature of your questions and comments that 
you are relatively new to boating.  I have some advice:

The very most important priority about boating is that you do it.  Now.  
Not some day soon, or bye and bye, GO NOW!  Get out on the water, best 
way you can and start enjoying and learning about boating and about your 
own preferences.   Do not let perfect defeat practical.  Get a starter 
boat and go.  Move up later.

The second most important thing about boating is who you do it with, and 
how you get that special somebody to enjoy the experience as much as you 
do.   Issues of comfort, convenience, and such play a big role, but it 
is mostly about your attitude and behavior. 

The third most important thing is that all this is done safely, on a 
budget you can afford and on a realistic schedule.   Competance, 
confidence and your preferences will evolve and grow from your 
experience, and not so much from intellectual exercises or groupchat 
experiences. 

The forth, or (maybe even a higher number) is precisely which boat (or 
which specific boat gadget) is involved.  The customary approach is to 
sneak up on getting the perfect boat through several progressive 
upgrades.  One of my very favorite local boat names is "My Last Boat 
III."   It also helps to remember that this is the land of moving 
targets,  your goals and preferences will doubtless change as your 
experience grows -- likely they will reverse themselves  more than once. 

Another rule is always hire your own competant surveyer for any major 
used boat purchase.   You need expert advice on what you are getting and 
what you are getting into. 

Specifically, the $150K you mentioned will buy a blinding array of 
different used monohull boats, some very well suited to whatever your 
current wants and needs might be.  I would also like to direct your 
attention to the recent crop of used sailing catamarans coming out of 
charter service although the cost may be a little higher than that.  
Yeah, I know, one has to be particularly cautious buying chartered 
boats, and save out enough money and energy to deal with the heavy wear 
and tear involved; but there are some great deals out there.  You could 
have a slender hulled catamaran with a very sophisticated and highly 
evolved, easy to propel hull as well as a useful interior design, with 
small diesel motors, and nice accomodations plus you've got all those 
sail thingamajigs that afford these boats a virtually unlimited range.  
Think about that.  Is your ultimate dream larger than local or coastal 
cruising?  If you are patient you can go anywhere by sail.  My sailboat 
experience also testifies to the fact that sailboats use the petrol wind 
about 90% of the time anyway, so running around in power mode is nothing 
new or shameful.  Many of us daydream about cruising to exotic distant 
places and hanging out there forever.  My PDQ will only cross oceans on 
the cargo deck of a ship, while in a sailing catamaran you could take 
off whenever you like to anywhere that's  wet enough to allow 
navigation.  For practical reasons of scale, world cruising power 
catamarans nowadays are limited to the 50 foot or larger size, and if 
you are the sort of average bloke who must ask how much they cost to 
buy, maintain or refuel, you can't afford it. 

Gotta get to work,

Best regards,
Gary Bell, AKA that old know-it-all Mister Science