Van de Stadt Caribbian 40

Has anybody had any experience with a sailboat designed by Van de Stadt, Caribbian 40, perhaps even built one? This boat seems like a bigger sister of a very popular design by the same designer, Van de Stad 34. The 34's have been built all over the world. A tripple hard chine, 1.1 m draft with CB, Caribbian 40 seems like a good candidate for amateur builder.

 

I do not know this Caribbean 40, but I've sailed long time ago on various boats designed by Van de Stadt.
The Van de Stadt designs have excellent reputation in Europe (the quality of the plans is astounding also). It's Dutch...and the price of plans excellent as I've seen on the Internet site..
The style of the Caribbean gives a date of about 1970-1980 if I'm not mistaken. It's a classic rather light displacement if made in wood or aluminum.

 

Id prefer something more modern. You might look at the work of the French shipyard Alubat.

http://www.alubat.com/les-gammes/gamme-cigale/cigale-16-new/

 

Yes Michael, it's modern, but Alubat only builds boats. The Ovni 365 by Alubat would be in the sizes than the Caribbean.
It seems that Edik is looking for plans for an amateur builder...
Marc Lombard has no plans for amateurs, or it will be at the unity. He can see also on the side of European NA, there are plenty of plans, but I say again that the quality of the Van de Stadt plans is astounding, that helps a lot the poor builder embarked in a 5 years hard job. Such a boat in amateur building will cost more than 250K USD.
The Caribbean 40 has a misleading name; his lines are in the Nordic tradition of cruising sail boats, like those by Wauquiez in France and Nautor in Findland, with protected cockpits. The Van de Stadt are sweet boats, but with a rather good mean speed. The wood version of the Caribbean 40 weights 7.3 tons for 98 m2, it's rather light for a cruising boat (the steel version is too heavy).
In fact there are so many used sail boats to sell in Europe (there are Caribbeans 40 in alu at 150K USD including sales taxes...) that I would make the trip to UK, Holland and France to search one, rather than build it. Even if a some paperwork will be needed for importing it in the USA.

 

Alubats are way out of reach. But building a boat in your own backyard means that in the worst case scenario, you will only suffer a set back equal to the cost of ALuminum sheets. Carribean 40 surely is a prety boat albeit almost too modern - I was considering something a little more traditional. VdS designs boats that exude confidence. And I like the fact that the CB is housed in the shallow keel and doesn't interfare with the interior.

 

Edik the Caribbean 40 is not too modern; it's a very classical boat in the Nordik style of the 70. The lines are very beautiful, et the boat looks very comfortable. If you plan to build -whatever the boat- yourself, think about the material you're going to use.
Aluminium is not for amateur builders at least for the metallic part of the hull. Unless you're a very experienced welder and aluminum worker, you can go to the disaster. At best a very ugly boat with tons of filler, at worst a very unsafe boat. But if you are not experienced in metal I can tell you that you are going to suffer... impossible to work alone just because the size and weight of the plates...If you are a pro of aluminum boat building and the king of the MIG in "spray" alu weld, no problem.
There are 2 possibilities;
- A professional shipyard in aluminum makes the bare hull at the Lloyds standarts as designed by the NA, and you finish all the inside insulation, carpentry and joinery, the longest and thus the most expensive work. That's the solution employed by almost all the home builders of metallic boats in Europe. Another advantage the bare hull is certified by the Lloyds or the DNV, guaranteed by the pro builder and thus can be insured without problems. No problems with USCG also...I do not mention the resale value.
Do not forget that a metal boat implies 2 constructions; the metal part, and the inside lining and insulation (I do not talk of the joinery). That makes the metallic boats rather expensive.
- Or you can make the hull in wood, as the NA has a version in wood. The lighter thus the fastest but also the cheapest for the home builder. A well built wooden boat do not need an inside insulation plus lining, that eliminates a long and tedious work and a source of problems. Also in this case a great part of the inside joinery can become structural.
Other advantage "Round-bilge Wood-epoxy & Glass-fibre Wood Core" that means that the hull is in strip plank and plywood with fiberglass epoxy on each side. The easiest and cheapest method for a home builder.
Great advantage; very litle framing inside and that means the maximal habitable space. Also the cheapest and simplest to maintain, with no risk of corrosion...
The Lloyds standards for strip plank gives very generous scantlings (that explains the little difference of weight between the alu and wood version, but the steel version weights 2.5 tons more!!!).
Wood is less expensive per pound than alu, and alu 5082 plates are almost as expensive as a epoxy resin like the raka 127, and more than the fiberglass, before transformation, so make some excel sheets after buying the study plans and the lists of materials. Do not forget the price of the welder(s), electricity, 5356 wire, and argon. You can be surprised...

 

Once you get a set of plans in hand, calculate a realistic budget to build that design.

Contact a trusted Yacht broker....show him your boat plans and your cash pile, then ask him to search for a brokerage boat that fits your needs.

This is the only way to prove "build new"..or buy used.

As was mentioned the used boat market is a very good place for buyers right now. Because I work in a shipyard I frequently see pedigree boats available for quick sale because of divorce, bankruptcy, death........... A well connected broker will be aware of these boats.

Not long ago, .a Swan 36 whose owner had died, was sold for 80k euros. A very nice boat. Last ear A Beneteau Figaro2 sponsorship program collapsed, it was seized by the bank, burnt in the sun, banged into the dock and ran up dockage bills for a year, then was sold for 50k. A fantastic bargain.

Before you build, find out the price of what you want.

 

Before you build, find out the price of what you want.....................VERY good advice, most people have NO idea of the real costs of building a new boat.......the used boat market does have special deals every so often, if you can wait a year then chances are you will be able to get one somewhere, certainly lots below a new build, but if I had the money, it would be a new build, then look after her.

 

Michael you gave an excellent advice and Landlubber you're right...often people have no idea of the cost of building a boat. Myself if I wanted a boat, I wouldn't build one even if I'm a former naval carpenter and a retired naval engineer. In fact it's because I know too well the number of hours involved in building a boat that I would prefer to buy a used one. For example there are plenty of Caribbean 40 to sell in UK and Holland. The nicest in aluminum with radar, plenty of electronics, big winches and looking pretty good on the pics is at 100 K pounds (166K USD VAT included, less than 142K USD without VAT as for export to the States you can deduce the VAT, and you'll pay the sales taxes in California) is less than 2/3 of the cost of building it with the bonus of the saved work. You can estimate for a beginner boatbuilder something between 2000 (very crude finition) to 5000 hours ...Something to meditate.
If you take that you work about 2300 hours a year and you have a well paying job, it's not worth to build yourself. If you have a low income, a 40 feet won't be affordable even for its raw materials. And The hull is only 25% of the total cost of such a boat...
Building your own very specific boat boat is a nice adventure when you have the means and time, otherwise it can become a nightmare.
It remains that the Caribbean 40 is a pretty boat, and at 2050 Euros the plans with the mylar templates is a bargain...Tha Van de Stadt plans are always very complete, detailed and precise.

 

Ilan,

Well said.

Everyone should build at least one boat but that may be enough...

 

Sometimes the journey is as important the goal. Only edik knows if building the boat has a value to itself.

Erik

 

Yes the journey may have value by itself, you may be able to take all the hardship, you may have the mental strength...but the journey must be carefully prepared. A stupid failure has no interest.
You won't cross the Greenland even in summer in shorts and t shirt.

I'm 60 and worked in boats for 43 years. I saw the birth of the home builders trend (before they were just some isolated guys). Some very beautiful successes, many failures and I have seen a lot of hulls abandoned.

The analysis of the successes and failures gives the following clues;
- Money. Without it no boat, specially when you go over 30 feet. The price of boats using similar technology level can be roughly calculated by weight. A heavy boat is more expensive than a light one, just arithmetics, even if some materials look cheaper at first sight than others.That means also good incomes, with savings.
- Time. A good income means possible free time for the boat. Unhappily there are many people obliged to have 2, even 3 jobs for trying to meet ends. An exhausted guy without money can't build a boat.
- Family and friends support. Without that, you'll end alone with an unfinished boat.
- Manual ability and using (and mastering) the techniques used for building the boat. Many times we have questions in the forum about very basic techniques of boatbuilding that show that the person has not read the most basic books.

Of these clues you can derive some consequences:
* The size must be adapted to your budget and your time.
* The chosen material must be within your technical possibilities and budget (cost of tooling for example).

So after rationally considering all the factors, you can make a choice of size, model and material to build a boat with success. The most common mistakes are underestimating the cost and time, and taking a technique with a steep learning curve, and thus causing very costly mistakes.
I have seen a few all home built aluminum boats just good for dumping because 80% of the welds wouldn't pass a very friendly visual inspection. I do not mention the wrinkles and the asymmetry of the poor things. Having leaking welds is annoying but a weld exploding in the middle of the ocean is truly very annoying.

So choose a material you can master easily. The choice of the materials of the boat are strip plank (the easiest, the cheapest in tooling and in materials, the lightest. The most tedious maybe with hundreds of strips. Probably also the strongest), steel (relatively cheap by itself, but the insulation and lining are expensive. Also the protection and no-ending maintenance. The hardest, the noisiest and the dirtiest. Too heavy), aluminum (not cheap, expensive tooling, expensive insulation and lining, easy to cut, very technical to weld, electrolytic corrosion to survey).

In my biased opinion for a home builder without technical background (the ordinary guy) strip wood is the easiest to master, needing only ordinary tools. Other advantage the job can be planned easily along the week, even when working for a living.

The Gougeon Brothers on boat construction is now free:
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/HowTo-Publications/GougeonBook 061205.pdf
Read it attentively, it's extremely instructive whatever the material and boat you'll choose.

Good luck and cheers.

 

I was advised by 2 different people, both with *extensive* experience in building aluminium boats, not to do it myself. I am very glad that I listened to them and used steel.

However I must disagree with you about the difficulty of handling big plates by yourself. I have no problems at all moving 3000 x 1800 x 4mm sheets of steel single-handed, nor any problems fitting them to the hull with precision. I've welded, rotated and positioned accurately the entire keel assembly, some 8m long and massing over 500kg, by myself using cheap chain blocks and lever blocks off a gantry - which I also built myself. It's all in the technique and I've never built a boat before.

I also *completely* disagree with you on your assessment of material strengths. You claim above that wood strip is stronger than steel? Come off it. That is a ludicrous claim.

I also have not found that a steel boat is difficult to build. I would rather fit a 3000mm x 1200mm sheet of steel to a hull than machine up the requisite number of timber strips, glue them together and then spend a lot of quality time fairing & fibreglassing the result. At least with steel I only need to grind back the outer welds rather than fair the entire surface.

As I am currently fitting out the interior of mine, I do agree with the observation on insulation and lining. It is time consuming and expensive. However, you end up with a *much* stronger boat with much better thermal qualities than you would with an unlined timber strip plank hull.

I would support the suggestion to buy rather than build. While I'm having fun, I have the time to do it without having to worry about a job, and I wanted to build a boat myself. If you just want to go sailing, go and buy a boat. The hours you spend building your own would be better spent working for Macdonalds or similar low wage position.

PDW

 

The steel is the most resistant to accidents (high local stresses) like grounding as this material is ductile and won't be punctured easily.

But it's not the strongest per pound for making a boat; its high density penalizes it so you have to work with relatively thin plates on a lot of framing structure. Even sometimes you may have the "horse ribs" mainly on the bow zone where the pounding by the water distorts the too thin plates between the framing. Also it has very little resilience, so it can be deformed locally with relatively low effort.

While making a hull, when you want strength and rigidity with low weight per square meter, structural calculus shows that a thick light material with variable modulus from the center to the skins of a composite achieves the better ratio weight/strength/rigidity.
That's the purpose of sandwiches and the most affordable and easier to make is wood/epoxy/glass fiber, giving excellent and very durable results with fairly low maintenance.

I precise for dissipating any semantic doubt that the meaning of strong or general strength in this case is the acceptation of the expected loads by the material without permanent deformation at the minimal weight.

Besides you get a monocoque structure, with no cluttered interior by the ribs and other framing. That helps highly the finish which can be inside a cheap automotive acrylic paint. It does not corrode nor has electrolytic issues thus does not need an expensive protection, it needs just a protection from the UV.
Also it's insulating, thus generally you save all the work of insulation and suppress the problems of internal condensation that may plague metallic hulls.
I agree that for navigation in cold to very cold waters a good insulation is imperative whatever the material. But generally if you plan to sail in the Arctic or Antarctic a steel or thick aluminum are better suited because of the resistance to puncture (not the same thing as general strength of the structure).

That makes a lot of savings in materials and work which are fairly superior to the apparently slower construction of the bare hull itself. I have built boats in a lot of materials from classic wood to high tech carbon composites, and I have remarked that plywood and strip plank were the two materials most suited to the average home builder, and were also the most successful.

The other possibility for a home builder is to have the metallic hull built and pre-finished (anti corrosion primaries after sandblasting on steel) by a pro shipyard, the home builder taking care of the (very long) remaining work. In aluminum the calculations of cost/amount of work/final value show that it is the best solution.

Also you can have a preferential love and feeling for a material and that's beyond any discussion, it's personal matter. The most important is to happy and able with the material you're working with.

PS a 40 feet (12m) hull in steel weights more than 3 times the weight of a 8 meters hull. You're probably building with 2.5 to 3 mm plates, the ordinary thickness for steel in this size of boat, a 12m asks for 3 (deck) , 4mm (topsides) and sometimes 5 mm around the bottom. Not the same weight. A 8 meters asks for an amount of work hours of about 1/3 of the amount needed for a 12 meters (very rough estimation).

 

If you like the Van de stadt plans buy them !!

Once you have the plans in yours hands, do a very careful cost estimate for build workshop, tooling, materials and marine equipment... all the way thru to the finished boat.

This number is important... no cheating...no wishful thinking, no inferior materials, only marine quality.....you must know the cost and have these funds.

As was stated, having a pro shipyard build a hull would be my preferred custom boat routine. Metal..Aluminium ...is a nice material for a custom one off hull. Not steel..its to heavy.

You would be very wise if you explored this route.

For used boats the best value are production plastic 40 footers, many times ex charter boats. Search is places like Greece. Greece is were old boats go to die. An older Bavaria charter boat without a mast is a very cheap boat to buy . Im sure you have the same boat graveyards in the US. Find them and see what your money can buy.