Mass production daycruiser! Most cost effective production method?

I understand...I just think that its important to have a market in mind. One thousand boat production runs are almost dreamy.

It had better be a truly groundbreaking, must have product , before you commit serious brainpower and money into devising ways to make the production process ultra efficient and your suppliers commit to tooling up to offer you economies of scale pricing. .

Perhaps a good design concept to tool up for and market would be a consumer friendly, plug and play, affordable, stylish , electric powered 6 to 8 meter trailer motorboat suitable for both restricted inland lakes and general messing around in the Mediterranean. The Iphone of boats type product.

You might be able to generate the economies of scale to pursue super efficient manufacturing.

 

I totally agree. There needs to something unique to sell boating to the masses. A low price will do some of the work but not everything.

As you say there are a number of ways to achieve this but that deserves it's own thread

My first problem is that I don't have any good ideas on how to produce that many boats in an effective way? If there is no way of producing hulls at a really low price the concept will have to compete with every other boatbuilder. And that is not realistic.

A low price is key to my concept. It will not work otherwise. Look at it as the VW Beetle of the boating industry. Bringing boating to people who normally couldn't afford it or wouldn't prioritize it.

 

If it's a powerboat, economy of the power package is key.
Look at Brunswick owning Mercury / Mercruiser and Bayliner, Boston Whaler, & SeaRay.
Look how many perfectly good hulls are set aside already because the money isn't there to repower.

 

I see your point. But will that still be true if you can by buy an entire boat at the same cost as a mercruiser engine and drive combo?

Why bother to repower if you can get a new boat for the same money?

 

It takes a very long time and a lot of careful construction, sometimes with exotic materials, to make a light boat.

Making them heavy is the cheap way to do it. That's why Sea Rays (chopper gun and polyester) are so heavy. It's way cheaper than having a light boat (corecell and carbon fiber).

Sorry but i am going through this excise right now and its quicker and cheaper to build lighter boats and you dont have to get all exotic and complicated and use carbon !! that a waste of time !!
By simply changing types of glass and the thicknesses of cores and better cores you'd be amazed what can be done . Just take a little thinking about and not much of that goes on in all glass shops ive worked in specially when it come to management !!They are away in LALA land and flirting with the female office staff .
For a deck we have taken almost close to 1/3 of the glass and more that 1/3 of the resin weight out by changing materials and taken far less time to buld ,so it is quicker !!.
Where decks had 12mm foam core its now 18 mm and using quad glasses on each side we are able to reduce the mount of Chopped strand /gun roving considerably . Where places had 12mm or 15mm plywood for no particular reason its now 18 mm foam and is way more light weight and ridged plus vac down a;;ores so its stuck better !! ,All vertical side panels in the cockpit etc etc that were some where between 6mm to 9 mm thick of solid glass now has 3 mm core mat and a better , more consistant 900 grams chopped strand each side . Its Lighter and almost the same thickness !, this will get changed later to 6mm H80 foam and a double bias on the inside with a sprinkling of csmunder and over the top
And thats just for starter .
By doing wet on wet lay ups and keeping the catalyst lower it possible to take a tidy sum of resin out of a whole deck as well !!,Ups the glass content and downs the resin content !!.
Will be interesting to see just how much weight we have actually plucked out when the deck goes on the load cells in a couple of weeks time . Have a week of national holidays !! slowing the catayst down a little you can lay more glass and get better wet to wet continuous laminating schedual going and work quicker and make a much better cleaner tidyer job .so you also save on sanding and clean up time . Take a while to get every one thinking along the same path but its worth the effort in the long run !!

You are on a differant planet to me !! I have been doing this for way to many years and always got better products , lighter and more consistant built products and the guys dont have to work harder or quicker Just smarter and thats the secret working smarter

We use our chopper gun all the time !! But mainly to spray resin and to wet out with !!! not much gets chopped strand glass !!!

 

Tunnels, what you are describing is pure old fashioned engineering. Doing things smarter is what engineering is all about.

Unfortunately engineering is expensive and the boating industry doesn't have the money to spend (as far as I know?). So the industry have to rely on really good and experienced engineers/naval architects.

 

Doing things smarter is what engineering is all about. no its not it called using you head and plain common sense !!!Unfortunately engineering is expensive ! Yes only because they have to spend so much time running round and round in circles getting no where and if they went and talked to a exsperianced laminator he could tell them what they needed to know in the first place .
It maybe old fashioned !!, the engineers i have come across in recent years dont know the differance between sh -it and chewed dates! to much time spent looking at computer screens making endless streams of useless prediction that are meaningless and missing the simple but very eccentuals called exsperiance and knowing what works and what dosent and how to make things even better by a simple move of turning over a triaxle or quad to gain a little more ridgidity !!,or stacking the laminates in a differance sequance to gain even more from the same .
Now that will make you think!!!What the hell is he talking about ????

 

You must have come over a poor batch of engineers, tunnels

But you don't have to have a degree to do engineering, in my mind. Solid experience is often way better then academic degrees. The problem is that is is very hard to find

 

About using your head and common sense. Here is my favourite quote:

 

You would have to cut down the production steps. Instead of a hull form or mold to glass ,foam, then glass again one boat at a time, maybe a mold to stamp out thick foam blanks . Infuse the blank in and out all at once , one layer of glass and epoxy. drop in the interior, paint inside, top it off, paint outside. Just like car production, a three peice unibody boat. Rick

 

I think Rick here just figured it out!

Stamping out foam blanks would really speed up the process. Good thinking!

Just use some kind of hot stamping mold to bend the corecell (sorry, cheap foam), then infuse, just as Rick says.

 

I,m buying up boat material so I cant invest, a stock share or to would be nice . Not cheep foam Cat, build with the best. I dont know how to sail, so a safe design was a must. Put in enough foam they cant sink it, use material that makes it hard to put a hole in it. You will buy material bulk so the best becomes cheep. You will be selling to the masses and takeing on a lot of libilities,the boat must be more capable than the skipper. The concept of the boat will be as important or more so than the production method. One hull design can be made into a daysailer or cruiser ,however many options you want to offer by only haveing an assortment of topside and interior molds. Rick

 

Rick, the op wants the final price to be the same as a Ford f 150. No Corecell for him. The foam alone would cost as much as a pick up truck. He's got to go cheap.

 

I have around $6500 give or take in enough 5/8 H80 for a 31' tri with 6 sheets to spare. If your looking to build 10,000, 24' boat,s a year ,buying that much foam you wont have more than $1,500 or so in a boat. I would tell you a story about buying Hilti 1/4" bits bulk but I wont for Hilti,s sake. The point is you can get the best cheeper if you buy enough. Set a goal for $800 to a $1000 a foot and its do able. Rick

 

This would be swell, hundreds of thousands more of mediocre quality boats on the waterways.
I really don't think there would be a market. You want to sell to folks that have a priority of cheap. Boats are a luxury item, not an essential like a car. Boats are expensive to run and expensive to maintain. There's no place to park them. What's an average marina slip fee, $7 a foot per month, plus other fees? A trailer is an alternative. Where is everyone going to park their 25' boat and trailer? You'll also need a vehicle capable of pulling it.