mmd you there?

[Wild Dingo]

Now tonight I was awandering and saw Jakes posting of "???? on scandinavian 'viking'" which along with Rez mates emails earlier today set me to thinking... hows the thoughts of taking Mr Gilkinsons "Elly" lines going?... let us know mate

I know Ive already said elsewhere on the forum that I would like a set if you can do it.

Take it easy
Shane

[reddog]

Greetings from Nova Land,Shane;
I'm sure mmd will show up sooner or later.Just to tempt you...The Elly is hauled out not 5 minutes from here.She was over at Indian Point,in the water,'Till January when they hauled her because the ice was starting to move around.Unfortunately I'm not set up to post pictures otherwise you could have a good idea of what her underbody looks like and her beam to length ratio.She is really beamy.We were over that way last weekend and they had her topsides painted as well as a coat of anti-fouling on.She'll probably be back in soon.
Hope you are well.
Earl

[Roger Stouff]

Reddog, If you'll email those pics to me, I'll be more than happy to post them for you, just for the joy of seeing them myself! I am serious, of course! smile.gif

I've been in contact with Mr. Mason, and I don't want to speak for him, but I'll pass this topic along to him, maybe he'll drop by.

[reddog]

Roger:
Thanks for the kind offer.Right now the photos are on hard copy,(paper),so I will have to see about having them digitised.My other option is to borrow a digital camera.Give me a bit of time and I'll work on it.
Elly may be back in the water by now but I will check this evening.
Thanks again:
Earl

[mmd]

Hi, all. I'm not far away, just busy. A bit of a rush job to do interior arrangement & sailplan drawings for a local builder (wood, of course!).

To clear things up a bit (I hope) about the drawings for Elly, I had requested direct responses from interested folks here in the Forum to see if it would be reasonable to spend four to six weeks of effort to survey Elly & create a full set of measured drawings of her. To be blunt, doing this kind of stuff is what I make my living at and I can't afford to take a month-and-a-half off without resonable chance of recouping the lost income through sales of the drawings. To date I have been contacted by only two people and have seen interest here on the forum by a couple more; this level of response doesn't bode well for the project. To make it a viable project and keep the price-per-set somewhat reasonable, I would have to sell around 50 sets of the drawings. Bill & I discussed the possibility of getting funding for the project through museums or other such sources, but have not had much encouragement from our admittedly few inquiries. Given this minimal response, I let the idea fade into the background while I concentrated on other design projects that had the admirable quality of putting food on the table right away.

The Elly drawings package is not dead, dear forumites, merely in suspended animation awaiting a Prince Charming - or several dozen Prince Charmings - to ride up on his cash cow. In the meantime, drawings of the lines and sailplan as illustrated in the WB article can be had by contacting me at my e-mail address in my profile at the top of this reply.

[TomRobb]

To satisfy my idle penurious curiosity, How princely is it?

[mmd]

Before I answer you, TomRobb, let me ask our esteemed webmaster if it's OK to discuss on the open forum the cost these drawings that I might produce in the near future. If you don't want to wait for Scott's reply, you could e-mail me direct & I'll reply with an estimate.

Oh, Scott!? Got a minute? ...

[mmd]

I have been given permission by Scot to discuss how a project such as Elly's construction plans would be priced, as long as I keep it in terms of "how & why", and not just "send your dollars to..". So if you'll bear with me, I'll explain how I would cost the Elly plans if there were enough interest to warrant going forward with the project. Please note that all dollar values quoted below are in Canadian dollars.

A small, one-man (most of the time - I do hire contract drafstpeople when the need arises), design office such as mine is suprisingly expensive to operate. Like most professional offices, I have fixed overhead costs (rent, utilities, maintenance; about $17,000 per year), office operating expenses (copying, plotting, office tools, stationery & consumables; about $7500 per year), and every year I have to upgrade my computers and software to stay current with technology (about $6,000 per year). As a professional I have to stay current in my craft by attending seminars, acquiring texts and trade periodicals (about $1,750 per year) and pay for professional insurance and association dues (about $3,500 per year). I have to pay for specialized services such as legal fees, accountants' fees, and a part-time bookkeeper (totalling about $3,000 per year), and I have to spend a bit of money promoting my services through advertising, trade shows, and sponsorships (about $6,000 per year). Add a reasonable wage for me to all of these expenses and it becomes apparent the Mason Marine Designs has to gross around $100,000 per annum to meet it's obligations. As there has to be some time allowance for vacation and the dreaded-but-inevitable "downtime" (time between paying jobs), a percentage has to be added to the gross obligation figure to allow for this, and in my case I presumed that 20% would do - three weeks of vacation per year and two days per month without a paying job. That puts the charge-out time per hour, based on a 40-hour work week, at $55 per hour.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I estimated the Elly survey and drawing package to take about six weeks of work. That translates into $13,200 to do the work, but to this one must add travel expenses from my office to Bill's home at least 3 or 4 times to take measurements and photos, so add $100 for those expenses; then add some money - say, $500 - to the job for advertising this specific product. Add some more for plotting working drafts, a bit more for incidentals, and the project now stands at about $14,000 to produce the first set of construction drawings. Whew!

Now comes the scary part - how many of these drawing packages can I reasonably expect to sell? How many "study plans" can I sell? What is a reasonable price to ask for plans for a boat that is of an old (nay, antique!) design, not particularly spacious or flexible in interior arrangement, not of a common or popular type; in essence, a "character" boat? How long do I want to wait to get a return on my investment of time & money? A year? Two?

At this point I have to make as educated a guess as I can to evaluate the cost per set. Let's say I want to get my money back inside of a year, and that any sales after that are profit. I tested the waters of the biggest pool of traditional boat nuts that I have easy access to - the WoodenBoat Forumites. I received three positive responses. Maybe with a bit of marketing and a product to show off, I can double or even triple that number - that puts me at (conservatively) nine sales; hell, let's round it up to ten. Maybe in that time I can sell double that number in "study plans" consisting of the lines & sail plans, for $25 each. So now I do the math to arrive at a price. Let's see ...

20 sets study plans @ $25 = $500
cost of plotting & packaging study plans @ $12.50 each = -$250

Cost of producing plans less profit from study plans = $14,000 - $250 = $13,750

Cost per set of complete drawing package for break-even at ten sets sold = 13,750 divided by 10 = $1,375.00

Plus cost of plotting and packaging @ $65 per set creates a selling price of $1,440.00 per set. I don't think they'll sell like hotcakes at that price.

What about looking at what the market will bear in pricing? A quick look at available plans of this type (good ol' WoodenBoat catalogue!) indicates that plans for boats of this size & type (Grey Seal, Blue Moon, Capt. Blackburn, Rosinante) sell for around US$150 to US$325 per set. In Canadian dollars this is an average of about $350. If I sell the plans for CDN$350, then I'll break even at ($13,750 divided by ($350 less $65 expenses)) 48 sets of plans sold.

Can I sell four dozen sets of plans in a year of a boat that is decidedly not mainstream, is not particularly easy to build, requires large timbers of wood species (white oak and hard pine, mostly) that are difficult at best to acquire, is somewhat limited by it's draft, and is very heavy for it's length? Sadly, I think not. Maybe the response from this forum and from word-of-mouth might create a groundswell of interst that will allow me to change my mind, but for now I must be fiscally responsible to myself and my business and place this project on the back shelf in the "maybe someday" pile.

I wish I had the luxury of looking at this project as a not-for-profit exercise; I would like to preserve her constructions details for nothing else other than the historical record. I doubt that there are many boats of her type and especially in as original a condition as Elly, and it would give me a great feeling of accomplishment to be able to preserve her on paper for that not-to-distant time when she and her ilk are no longer present in our world. Unfortunately, I am not in the financial position to donate such sums and efforts freely, so I must look at such opportunities pragmatically, and in this case, the boat loses.

Sad.

Best regards to all,

Michael

[ 04-11-2002, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: mmd ]

[htom]

Thank you, Michael. A set of study plans, maybe, but not the real thing, either in wood or on paper, in the foreseeable future. Could you maybe get a grant from one of the Canadian fisheries museums to do this work for them, as a historical preservation project?

[Roger Stouff]

Thanks, Mr. Mason. I was afraid that would be the case, but nobody here will begrudge you the hard work and effort it will take to tackle such a job with suitable recoup of expenses and living!

For now, those of us interested in the old girl will have to make due with the lines plans you offered, which was exceedingly generous.

Again, thank you tremendously for all your careful considerations,

Best,
R

[mmd]

The problem with approaching local marine-related museums is that the vessel in question, historic though it may be, is part of another region's history, not this area. It doesn't fit their mission statement to preserve local history.

[Wild Dingo]

Another thought Micheal is to maybe approach... and here again email could come into the fore... the museums in Sweden and other Nordic countries where she originated to see if they would themselves sponsor such a project?... must admit that Id sort of think that would be doubtfull considering the responses to emails I sent awhile back to the museums over there for information on these designs of theirs which grab me so well... which amounted to more than 0 but less than 1...

It is a shame but as you say you must be pragmatic when it comes to the fiscal side of things particularily with a design such as Elly... beautiful as she is.

Ohhhh well just as long as someone keeps shooting in these pics of her showing her lovely rounded form we will have to love her from a distance... ;)

Okay now back to drooling over Etain, Silver Heels, Definace and Fritha!! :D :D

Take it easy
Shane