Woodenboat Construction Fixed Cost Per Pound

[Buzz73]

I'd like to know if someone could corroberate a recent finding of mine. I've been asking builders of various designs what the total cost of construction was for them. Most of the designs used marine-quality hardware and a mix of marine-grade plywood for the hull and AC Exterior Plywood on non-critical parts. All of the designs were sailboats with plywood hulls built by various methods. Some were flat-panel ply, some glued lapstrake, ranging from 90 lbs. prams to 3100 lbs. cruising sloops. Basically I've found that plywood sailboat construction cost is approximately $3.00 US per lb. of hull weight. The extremes were a boat costing $2.77 per lb. and a sloop costing $3.19 per lb. But most of the designs were very close to the $3.00 per lb. As many designers are hesitant to give cost estimates for their designs, I've found this formula quite helpful in figuring a VERY GENERAL estimate for costs of future projects. Can anyone corroborate this???

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

A real life example:

My skiff was started the first of December. For all intents and purposes it was done the end of May for a total of six full months. (Yes, believe it or not folks - six months for a skiff !)

Using your formula of $3.00 per pound and multiplying by it's weight of 130 pounds I see that it cost $390.00. Not even close. Try about four times that amount!

My wife (ever the numbers person - hey, one of us has to be!) made the observation that she reckoned I had spent 400 hours on it in total. Now, that works out to about a penny per hour. Hmmm.... maybe I won't be a boat builder after all.

Candidly, the cost of just my materials to build the boat (not one time tool purchases) was around $1,200 or so. As it was my first boat I now see where I could have saved some but not much. In the marketplace out there you might hope to take your cost, double it and that is what you sell it for.

As one month has dragged into the next my wife insisted I sell it for "At least $5,000"; then a month later, "No less than $6,500"; April came with no completion in sight, "You better ask $8,600"; and now it is June as the finishing touches are being applied, "That boat is worth $9,400!"

If I take my cost and double it the boat would sell for $2,400 and I just pocketed a gross profit (before paying for heat, lights and all those one time disposables of $1,200. It is reasonable to say that that those disposables are a good $400. That leaves around an $800 profit for four hundred hours of work. Hmmm... is that $2.00 per hour? Even if I could cut my time in half it is nothing to get excited about.

[ 06-08-2003, 07:47 PM: Message edited by: Captain Pre-Capsize ]

[Tom Lathrop]

If we are just talking materials here, there should be a fairly good correlation for boats of a similar type. Plywood, epoxy, paint, etc. should fit the price to weight ratio well. A power skiff will be ar less per pound than a sailboat (Both without engine or sails) though because of the extra rigging and hardware.

In my opinion, the actual cost of building and finishing the boat has very little relation to the weight. Other factors such as sophistication of the design, labor cost, level of finish and use of exotic materials will dominate the final cost to the customer.

[Venchka]

I solicited quotes from several builders for the same boat last summer. After equalizing materials as best as I could, I had the following:

$8,000 (no sails)
$13, 500 (with sails)
$14,500 (no sails)
$15,500 (no sails)
$16,500 (no sails)

I just realized you must have been talking to private builders. I got quotes from full time professionals.

The boat is a 19'-6" double ended open centerboard boat, finished weight of the boat and rig is about 500 pounds. Here are a few expenditures I rememeber during construction:

Plywood: $1,650.00
C.P.E.S.: $200.00
Kirby's Paint: $160.00
Sails: $1,300.00
Lumber: $750.00 (Approximate-perhaps more)

The above items, less sails, works out to about $5.50/pound. No allowance for epoxy, fasteners, etc. If folks are building for + or - $3.00/pound, I can't figure out how they are doing it. Or their material prices are WAY OLD!

[ 06-08-2003, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Venchka ]

[Buzz73]

Sorry for the lack of clarification, folks! The builders I interviewed were all amateur builders. Therefore, no cost for time of labor was considered. Of the designs I inquired about, all were strictly plans-built using raw materials procured by the builders from various sources. No kits were involved (except for some builders using Sailrite sail kits). The $3.00 per lb. formula is strictly for raw materials. No outside professional labor was considered. Most of those builders I asked did not purchase pre-sewn sails. They either made their own sails from a dacron Sailrite kit or made their own from white sailtarp. ONE LAST IMPORTANT NOTE: Most of the builders I interviewed were from the Midwest, often from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Our cost of living in Indiana seems to be about 1/2 to 1/3 compared to those who live on either coast. (Of course, our median income is also comparably 1/2 to 1/3 less as well so I guess it all evens out one way or another!) Perhaps for us Hoosiers, $3.00 per lb. is somewhat relevant. For others, it may be closer to $6 or $9 per lb. if living elsewhere in the U.S. Of course, the formula could just be plain wrong!!! Of all the boats I've built, it seems somewhat accurate for my own uses. But I tend to scrounge for materials. Spending only $250 on construction of a small sailing pram may show that the formula only proves me to be a cheap-skate! :)

[silvergull]

In the 80's, I built Bolger's Crab Skiff. The plans were purchased from Harold Payson. I used marine fir plywood, System 3 epoxy for construction and WEST for the fiberglass covered bottom. I ordered the sail from Payson when the boat was finished.

The whole project cost, in Wisconsin, $740. I used the marine paint available at ACE Hardware

That boat might have weighed 150 lbs. $4.93 per pound with the sail and a dandy pair of oars I made following Pete Culler's directions.

Jim

[Venchka]

Living in the Midwest might make some materials like white oak, black locust or sassafras less expensive. Quality marine plywood, on the other hand, would have to be "imported" from sources like Harbor Sales, Boulter or M.L. Condon. That was my experience when I talked to professional builders in Ohio. Epoxy, fasteners and finishes would be about the same price as the rest of us pay.

More power to you if you can build for $3.00/pound. The plywood I bought was $3.63/pound before taxes and shipping. Checking a source in Ohio for lumber, white oak is $1.20/pound. Sassafras, cypress, cedar & white pine are equal to or less than white oak on a $/pound basis. OK, so the lumber & plywood for my 20' boat would average at or below $3.00/pound. Adding the cost of all the other things it takes to build a boat sends the total cost way past $3.00/pound, even if you use Sailrite kits instead of a sailmaker. By the way, in the case of my particular sail plan, the price of the mizzen kit from Sailrite was more than the price of a finished sail from a sailmaker. Do-It-Youself isn't always cheaper.

[paladin]

Figure $5 per pound for Tana Mari....
34,000 pounds..$170,000 in materials less engine and sails and all the other boat stuff that went inside.......

[Venchka]

Originally posted by paladin:
...and all the other boat stuff that went inside.......That's the stuff that blows the price per pound survey way off the scales.

[Alan D. Hyde]

I would also guess that bigger boats may tend to cost less per pound, and smaller, more (all other things being equal)...

Alan

[Bruce Hooke]

I'm building a 14' plywood skiff that should weigh around 125 pounds. So far I've spent just over $1000 on materials and I'd guess that I'll spend at least another $400 before I'm done, which works out to about $11/pound. HOWEVER, I'm using marine mahogany plywood, cherry and wenge for some details of the woodwork, and fancy bronze hardware. So...

When you say "Marine Grade Plywood" am I right in guessing that you mean douglas fir marine plywood? If so, then someone who uses hardwood marine plywood, and takes a similar "higher-end" approach in other areas, would probably come up with higher numbers. Similarly, "marine quality hardware" can mean galvanized (or chrome-plated) hardware, or it can mean fancy bronze stuff from specialty suppliers (I know of oarlock & socket sets that cost over $200/pair). The cost difference on a boat that uses much hardware can be significant.

Of course, all this means is that your numbers are particular to one approach to boat-building and should not be applied to other approaches. If the approach used by the builders you used for your comparison figures matches your approach then your numbers are probably pretty good. After all, the best comparisons come from looking at boats and methods that are most similar to yours -- just don't try to apply these numbers to boats using different qualities of materials.

It is probably best to leave things like electronics out of the basic figures and add up the cost for things like that seperately because there can be so much variation in that area...

Finally, to be accurate in your numbers you need to make sure that they accurately reflect ALL of the materials costs for the boat in question. For example, much of that $1000 figure I quoted went into small purchases of things like epoxy supplies, chip brushes, a box or two of screws when I ran short, and an additional board or two here and there. If I leave out the purchases that were under $60 (which would be easy to do if someone is just keeping track of the major costs) then my "cost" gets cut in half.

[Barrett Faneuf]

18' 6" Cedar strip-planked kayak, fiberglassed in and out per plans.

Cedar lumber, plans, hardwood, bending ply (coamings), fiberglass, epoxy, disposable brushes/gloves, router bits, tablesaw blade, bits and pieces: $845 ish

Final weight: 60 lbs

Cost per pound, materials: $14

What the plan-seller sells them for: $5500, cost per pound: $91