Wouter,
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<br>I have read through your post and yes, I feel there is a lot of wishful thinking in it. If people ask for prices, we should tell them about the current situation, not about what we hope.
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<br>Warning for all: I am a dealer for AHPC.
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<br>1. While you seem to be good with your hands, most of the sailors are not and also don't care too much. From the relation home builders to standard boat buyers I would estimate that maybe 1 out of 100 does a major home building job, the rest just wants to buy and sail a standard production boat. When thinking/talking about prices for the F16HP, we should consider this and therefore see the home built F16HP and its cost saving potential as a rare bird. Let's talk about the standard situation, not the exception.
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<br>2. A BIM A Class is 9300 Euro incl. tax in Germany. Please let's not argue about the longevity of the BIM A Classes, but quality has its price, and Italy is not Poland. What I mean is BIM is at the lower end of the range of A Class prices. I can imagine that all of the other types are around 25.000 DM. (although I have little proof for this assumption).
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<br>3. Yes, anyone can make a gennaker tang with a string and ring, but how is the majority of sailors going to build their own rudder housings?
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<br>4. I am very certain that none of the potential F16HP manufacturers or their dealers will be able to sell a sloop with gennaker for below 10000 Euros. I assume that even a BIM F16 sloop with gennaker will be above 10000 EUros (albeit not much).
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<br>5. There is no reason why an F16HP boat could be produced substantially cheaper than an F18. SAvings with repsect to material (boat size) will be eaten up by add. labour cost to build the hulls close to the minimum weight allowed.
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<br>6. In order to give stable, longterm service, you need dealers, this cannot be done by the manufacturer himself nor by a network of volunteers. Volunteers come and go and will not take personal repsonsibility for their work. There is a lot of effort and financial risk for dealers (as I can tell from my own experience) and you have little chance to get rich. But sorry, this adds to the cost of a production boat.
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<br>7. If you hope to be able to build a class with home builders, I assume this will stay a small class. You will need to focus on the manufacturers and how to involve them. AS I see it, John Pierce currently is the only manufacturer interested in the F16Hp. If you continue to advertise the F16HP for below 10.000 Euros, this will stay so. I wouldn't be interested as a manufacturer either because that is not a good advertisement ("F16HP = the class of cheap home built rare birds").
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<br>So, let's put it this way:
<br>If you love boat building, have all the tools, like the only boat there is which can be home built, have plenty (and I mean plenty) of time to chase up parts and build the boat, if you don't need support and service from a dealer, do it. It can be done for around half of the price of a new boat. Btw, just not having enough money to buy a new boat will not help much (IMO, that is), because you actually have to love boat building, other wise one will hardly be able to finish this project. And don't forget how bad chances are if you want to/have to sell a home built boat.
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<br>If you are the average guy, have a job and a family which both need attention, have some other hobbies too, your fiddling skills are not on a high level,the money is there (at least for a used boat): buy a new or used production boat.
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<br>Waiting for those interesting comments,
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<br>Regards,
<br>Gebhard.<br><br>unreal sailor