Just found this website:
http://www.surfcitycatamarans.com/GeltekFlyer2.html
The CURRENT Gel-Tek Flyer Two, as used by Glenn Ashby there selling sail-away for 25,999.

My history is in OTB monohulls and keelboats, and my interest in prices is i'm looking to move onto something faster. A dual purpose boat that I can sail by myself or with a crew really suits me.

I also work in the marine industry mainly retail but I regular consult with clients about fit outs and upgrades so I’d like to think I know what products are out there pretty well. I also echo what Wouter has to say, I don't think there’s a perfect brand. I really like harken they have some cool stuff like the tie-lite blocks, but ronstans catching up. Harken is by far the most expensive the cheapest way for me to buy it is from the US. Believe it or not this is actually cheaper than the Australian wholesale. But there are cheaper ways that work just as well they just might not be black and cool looking! I love the ronstan series 19 traveller systems there so cheap! if you want a compact ball bearing block for purchase systems and control line then riley have some great small BB blocks and there lighter and much cheaper than the harken 16mm blocks. We have a local manufacture of spectra lines in Australia (Whitam Ropes) there 3mm and 4mm Spectra with a polyester casing is cheap, strong and really low stretch. We sell the 3mm for $1 per meter and the 4mm $1.8. The ronstan distributed FSE is only slightly more expensive and has a UV stable core so it can be tapered. For out hauls, purchase systems, halyard things that won't be cleated directly I love the Liros Dyneema Pro. Its $1.8 for 3mm, has a breaking load around 600kg, and 3% stretch. It’s really easy to splice eyes in, the 4mm is only slightly more expensive.

To add another rumor to the mill, I heard that AHPC were trying to move away from the Taipans. I heard that only a few years ago they destroyed there 5.9 mould. If I was them and I wanted to sell my new F18 capricorns it would make sense to offer the taipan at an increased price.

That would be AMERICAN DOLLARS, mate.

Still converts into 30859 Aud (= AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS) as Gary said.

(Current day exchange rate converted using google.com)

Wouter

Hi Chris

You aren't adding anything to the rumour mill. The 5.7 mould was destroyed a couple of years ago. The 4.9 still has a strong following in OZ, I don't believe the same fate will come of their moulds when the Viper is in production, two different markets, two different boats.

Regards

To add some facts to the rumour mill:

There are 2 Taipan moulds. The old 3 piece and the newer 2 piece. Don't know where the 2 piece is, but the 3 piece is at the same factory where the Capricorn is being made at Batam, Indonesia. No Taipans have been made in this factory.

I recently bought an A class at the end of '06 and what I paid was less than the amounts you guys are mentioning here (Geltek Flyer 2). A$24k without a trailer is the ballpark figure.

As far for the price of carbon, I have a research report on my desk specifically about this. Prices have steadied, if not fallen off a bit in the past 6 to 12 months. If manufacturers still quote prices going up then either they are getting screwed when they buy it, or we are as consumer of these products.

Hope this info helps.

So are carbon prices significantly higher then 3 years ago or not.

Afterall, prices "can steady" at a higher level, can't they ?

Wouter

Hi all,

Taipan sailors at recent regatta where talking about new boats being available out of Thailand before this coming OZ season. Won't add to the rumour mill about pricing, but they haven't moved production off shore to pay a higher price <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

The commodity price of carbon is around US$45,000/ton, about the same price as 2 to 3 years ago give or take a couple of US$1000 above what it was.

Record highs for carbon were in late 80s and then again in mid-90s at close to US$60,000/ton so we are not paying top dollar now compared to the past!

Carbon had its big run up from low 30,000 to current levels in '02.

Production capacity is above demand. What will effect the price will be of some of the other materials that gone into the production of carbon. Despite production getting more efficient, these could potential push up the price.

Could keep going on about the different types and where the new demand for carbon is coming from (windmills!) but that would be boring. So back to sailing.

I have it from different beach cat sources (as in actual builders) that the kind of carbon cloths used for our boats have become significantly more expensive over the last 3 years due to shortages in production. Aircraft builders and the sort (windmills) are buying enormous batches up front. There is coming more production capacity on-line but it isn't here yet.

last year it got to the point where whole specific grades and weaves of carbon weren't even available to private parties.

I don't know how to square these reports with your statements, but I would love to find out how they are compatible.

Wouter

I had a bit of sticker shock also after reading the production Blade F16 was $24k. After rechecking my Mozzie building spreadsheet which comes out at $16500 using commercial built hulls at $8k and spending an additional $8.5k purchasing everything else including spinnaker it looks reasonable. I haven't taken the labour cost into account to put the Mozzy together and building the trailer as I was doing it myself.
If you take into account the cost of labour and the fact the Blade is a latest technology cat so almost every part will cost more then a Mozzy $24k looks alright particularly if that was an optimistic preproduction price.
The A looks to be overpriced and poor resale price of an A makes a new one a very expensive purchase, a bargain secondhand cat though.

Darryn
Mozzie 1782

That's an interesting comparison (and have been waiting a while for someone to go to the trouble of working out how much a Mozzie "really" costs), but now I think about it, the mast is a lot more expensive for an F16 than a Mozzie, but apart from that I can't see where there would really be much difference in cost.

Surely every fitting is the same, the foils will cost the same, the sails and tramp are very slightly bigger. The hulls are the same construction method - just a bit more of it. There's a bit of gear for the self tacking jib. These are all small increments. I know you need to add fitting out labour but I can't see $8000.

How well does this track need to aligned to the mainsheet load? It can be aligned for mid-travel sheeting, but am concerned it would be significantly out-of-line when travelled out when reaching. What does your experience reveal?

I need to replace ancient battered IYE X-track on my vintage Tornado, and was planning on using Harken BB cars, though this Ronstan might be able to take the Tornado loads:
http://www.ronstan.com.au/marine/product.asp?ProdNo=RC61917

Thanks,
--Glenn

Are you sure 1100lb is enough working load ?

So $1k extra for the mast? $500 for the self tacker, $500 more for the sails, beams will be a fair bit more, another $500? Say $3k more for the components then a Mozzie leaving $5k unaccounted for.

$16500 for the Mozzy was generous too, thats paying full price for everything, many ways to save money on that price, I think I could do it for about $15k.

Darryn
1782
Mozzy

Glenn,



Before I toolk the plunge I worried about that as well, so I initially tried to get the X-track system of RWo but they really didn't want to go through the trouble of shipping me one. I hate the RC tracks and cars and so I was left with only one option, the 19 mm I-track of Ronstan. I took the risk feeling that it would be hard pressed to be as bad as the RC system.

I'm so happy I took that risk, because I have never found a single issue with the 19 mm I-track (as long as you use a 6 wheeled car or larger), this includes angling the mainsheet loads. The car just keeps operating smoothly and with low friction even when run out to the ends.

The car takes these skewed loads by pressing one side of the car (wheels) to the bottom flange of the I-track (that is why it is an I shaped track) while pulling the other side to the top flange. Like this it can withstand very high skewed loads and remain alligned. The flanged themselfs and the wheels are slightly angled relative to eachother so the car aligns itself along the track and doesn'r rub against the wall in the middle. From looking at the pictures it doesn't appear that it will do so but it really does.

I warmly recommend these I-track systems of Ronstan. Phill Brander first tried them with the simple 4 wheeled car but these can break when loaded up fully on a F16 and since then we are using the 6 wheeled cars on the mainsheet system (4 wheel cars on the selftacking jib), these have held up beautifully ever since.

http://www.ronstan.com.au/marine/product.asp?ProdNo=RC61912

I'm sure the 4 wheeled car will hold up to the loads on any beach cat designed. Which to get will be your choice. On the F16's it appears we are settling on 8:1 mainsheet purchases.

I seem to remember that Booth measured some 450 kg load on a Tornado mainsheet when fully cranked on. (= 993 lbs)


Good luck,

Wouter

How about 50 to 100 hours of labour at 50 bucks an hour (pension, health care, college found kids, etc) ?

Then of course the investment in the moulds, tooling and premisses need to be recouperated.

Not too mention that some profit has to be made, so slap on an additional 10% to 15% for that.

I think you will find your missing 5000 right there.

But I think we must also hear Marcus when he says this quote was an initial and conservative one.

Wouter

There's a huge, huge difference between building and or modifying a boat that has already been designed and proven by someone else, for youreself, and doing it from scratch for the open market. You really have no idea at all just what it entails unless you've actually done it. None whatsoever.

Wouter, my main reason for suprise with this "rough" price was that in an earlier post you said:

"My homebuild was only some 20 % cheaper then the commercially offered F16's"

Doing the number I can't see a home built boat really exceeding about 13,000. This was also echoed by Phill.

So I was expecting a production boat to cost about $16000, which is inline with the UK and US Blade's.

I understand.

But as I'm unaware of the cost breakdown of the Aussie Blade I feel inclined to wait a little longer before passing any judgement.

With respect to my own homebuild F16, I've spend some 13.000 Euro's on it (20.635 aus$) incl taxes/shipping of parts etc. That is already more then your quoted $13.000 (US or Aus)

I don't think we'll see any commerically build F16 in Australia for much less then 20.000 Aus$. I think AHPC will be hard pressed to it down at the intended 19.500 Aus$ as well.

Wouter

That's a tough situation for Aussie sailors. Having lived in both Aust. and the US, given relative disposable incomes in each country I would say that it's a lot easier to find USD13k (say) in the US than AUD20k in Aust (though my perception may be biased by my own circumstances which may not be exactly typical). Even based purely on the current exchange rate, an American sailor is well ahead.

Wouter, how much of your 13,000 Euros would you say was (or was not) spent on the hulls? Or to put the question differently, if you start with just a set of hulls, what does it cost beyond that to equip an F16?

Mark.

I doubt whether I could homebuild a F16 cheaper then a commercially offered F16 when I need to buy the hulls of the same commercial builder.

Reason, the cost savings of homebuilding are easily offset by the retail prices a private builder needs to pay for all the gear and fittings.

Commercial builders get large discounts on these items and that is where they get their profit from. The hulls themselfs are labour intensive items and therefor relatively expensive in cost resulting in almost no profit margin on top of them.

Fittings and sails that is where companies can make a profit of beach catamarans. That and replacement parts. The latter because the bill for these is most often taken up by insureance companies, so high retail prices are not a problem.

Wouter