Market for DB-1

I thought I'd try and do a little market research relative to DB-1 based on the number of boats listed for sale on "Yachtworld.com". I found that in the range of 29 to 32 feet length there are 5,372 power boats listed. Of these the most common type is the "Express" of which there are 2,021 listed or 38% of the total. The Express class has all the basic features that we are planning for DB-1.

I also found that there are 4,550 twin engine boats (85%) in this range and 816 single engine boats (15%). 4,231 or 79% of the boats use gas engines and 1,128 or 21% use diesel. Within the gas powered boats, 3.845 or 91% have twin engines and 380 or 9% use single engines. Of the diesel powered boats 694 or 62% use twin engines and 434 or 38% have single engines. I'm not sure what conclusion can be drawn from this but it is interesting to ponder. It is probable a combination of reliability, cost, weight, ...

I also looked at the ratio of gas to diesel engine boats as length increases. The split is almost 50/50 in the range of 36 to 38 feet. At 39 feet 54% are diesel and at 40 feet 62% are diesel.

Cheers;
Mike Schooley

 

I think the figures tell us a great deal. Not the least of which is that the boat buying public have quite firm views about what should and shouldn't be incorporated into a boat in a particular size and price range.
But I'm sure that if you conducted the same survey looking at the buying / selling habits of boaters in other markets the make up would be vastly different. In Europe, for instance, I imagine diesels would make up the bulk of power plants for most inboard engined vessels.
Also I think it's important to remember that most of those boats would be:

1. Production boats. As O-1 is going to be home buildable, it's potential owners may be more open minded about what's powering it. They are less likely to be market led...?

2. Until recently there were few powering options available for "our kind of boat". Outboards were thirsty and noisy. Diesel's were smelly, noisy, heavy, sluggish and generally too big. That pretty much left petrol engined sterndrives / inboards as the engine of choice. This is no longer the case.

Having said all that, it will probably take some time before the general boat buying public are prepared to shell out their hard erned bucks on something that is (mistakenly) considered to be unproven. So, we will probably have to make a decision about what sort of boat we want to end up with: one which appeals to the masses, or one which opens their minds and makes them look to the future........

 

Mike,
I'm just haveing my morning coffee. My only question is how many of these boats would be trailerable? Very few boats of this size are built these days with a beam under 10 feet.
Gary

 

Mike and Will,

I think you both know that some disasters have been offered to the public as the result of market surveys. This soes not mean that products should be offered with no market savvy but, only that public surveys should not dominate the thinking. I have found that my boat has triggered considerable interest since it occupies a previously empty niche in what is available. Anyway, satisfying the whims of the largest segment of the buying public is dull and uninteresting to me. There will be much less competition and, perhaps success, for a boat that fills an unsatisfied need.

The two engine thing is a case in point. I think that a small separate second engine is much more efficient, less costly and more reliable than having two engines working all the time and particularly off the same fuel and electrical systems. Many outboarders have discovered this and use this setup.

I ran some numbers for a larger version of my boat at 28' x 8' 6", 8' 4" beam and get projected speeds of 24kts with a 90hp outboard, 28kts with 115hp and 32kts with 150hp. This boat will not bash its way through big waves at these speeds though but it should hold plane in the low teens and maybe even down to 10 or 11. I assumed somewhat higher displacement for the larger engines so that these speeds are not on the same boat. I also think of higher deadrise in the planing sections for the larger engines.

 

Will, Gary and Tom;

I think the figures are interesting, but you must be careful not to draw erroneous conclusions. I agree that decisions shouldn't be made just based on market trends. Nobody ever got ahead by being a follower. OTOH it helps to predict future market trends if you understand past trends and their causes.

It would be easy to determine if Europe has a diesel bias since YachtWorld's search engine provides the ability to restrict the search based on geography.

The trailerable boats tend to drop out at 27 to 28 feet. The 32 foot boats all have beams of 10 to 12 feet and are not considered trailerable. I think the challenge for BD-1 is to design a boat with more features than the 27' to 28' trailerable boats can accommodate and still be trailerable.

One way to deal with the gas versus diesel debate is to offer gas and diesel options. I noticed that many of the new "Express" boats take this approach. Unfortunately this is very difficult to do for the outboard main engine approach due to the lack of Diesel outboard options (Yanmar).

This gets me back to why I started this survey in the first place. I wanted to see what percentage of boats with heads and showers had inboard versus outboard engines. Unfortunately YachtWorld's search engine does not allow me to determine this. I started doing some searches in Google and I found lots of big boats with heads and showers and outboards on their tenders. So far I have not found an example of an outboard powered boat with a head and a shower.

I think YachtWorld calls all two engine boats "twins", when in reality many are single engine boats with an outboard "kicker". Many of the boats I looked at were using this approach but it is very difficult to develop statistical numbers. One problem with the kicker motor approach when combined with a diesel main is you need to haul gas for the kicker motor. This limits the kicker motor range.

Cheers;
Mike Schooley

 

For a 28 foot outboard powered boat - with all the luxury cons see http://www.sundownmarine.com.au/seaquest.htm

As far as the market research goes, I agree with Tom - it's interesting to see what people are buying - and from a manufacturers point of view it can be very important. But from a design point of view, I think it is much more interesting to lead the pack and try something new

 

Tom, I assume from your remarks that you have incorporated relatively low deadrise in the forward sections - thus the boat's inability to travel fast in the rough water. Is this in order to keep the planing area to a maximum? By fining up the entry could we improve rough water capability somewhat without compromising the boats other attributes too much? I'm not suggesting that it should travel at 30 knots in a 4 foot slop or anything, but to be able to maintain, say 18 - 20 knots in most conditions would be nice.
Weight is, I guess, also an issue (as always!). A boat capable of going faster needs to be more sturdily constructed......

 

Will,

No, the forward sections are not flat at all. The deadrise at station 2 1/2 is about 26 degrees and the entry angle is pretty fine. Running into a fair degree of chop at 12 to 13 is pretty easy and comfortable. The deadrise in the aft monohedron planing sections is 10 degrees in the current 24 ft boat. This is the maximum deadrise that the light displacement will allow for stability. I assume that a somewaht higher bottom loading will allow a bit more deadrise in the aft sections, say 12 degrees.

The comment about rough water has more to do with comfort than capability. When running fast in waves, the light hull will become partially airborn off the waves and slam into the next one with the flatter mid sections creating the bang. To stop this, the aft planing sections require more deadrise like in the deep V. This in turn means higher displacement and it is a vicious circle. I chose to get off the circle and maintain light weight for its other advantages and give up high speed in waves.

Of course, if the boat is heavy enough, it will not ever become airborne and can have flatter aft sections. Then we have the typical storebought seagoing palace with terrible economy in all respects. I assume we have no interest in that kind of boat.

 

Competitive Analysis

Boy am I embarrassed. As the #1 advocate of less speed, I think I may have been in error.

While performing competitive analysis research, I found the following review in Popular Mechanics of 5 Express Cruisers. http://popularmechanics.com/outdoors/boating/1999/8/5_Picnic_Cruisers/print.phtml. As you can see these boats provide a top speed of 39 to 45 mph and the price range is $35K to $60K. I think for O-1 to be competitive in this market it will need to offer comparable speed at a competitive price or lower speed at a much lower price. In addition, I failed to anticipate the requirement to pull water skier(s), which increases the power requirement and therefore the maximum speed.

I truly hate to vacillate on requirements, but I am thinking that the low cost version should have a maximum speed of 40 mph (35 knots) and the GTi should be 50 mph (44 knots).

Fortunately I think that we could use the Power-Vent drive and lighter weight to obtain these speeds with significantly less power than the 220 to 280 HP that these boats use. Which would give O-1 a competitive advantage.

Cheers;
Mike Schooley

 

Tom,
I would consider 26 degrees in the f'rd sections to be quite flat. Many sportsfishing boats run angles approaching 50 - 60 degrees in the bow, flattening to 10 or less aft. This allows them to slice through the chop, rather than bouncing over it.
As you suggest, there will come a point where the boat begins to become airborne, so the driver will have to slow down.
If you take a look at the powerboats that Wally are currently building, you'll get an idea of the type of hullform that I envisage.
http://www.wally.com/WALLYPower/index.html
This hullform can produce problems whilst running downwind, but these can be overcome quite simply.

Mike,
I couldn't access the link you supplied - I had trouble with a couple of the surface drive one's as well (are you adding afull stop to the end of them - I think that may cause the problem...)
But I have a couple of queries.
Do people really try to waterski behind their 28 or 30 foot cruisers? I used to ski competitively and couldn't think of anything worse!
Also, alas you may recall that we recently revisited the speed issue and the overwheling vote was for a top speed of about 28 knots.....

 

Try this link

I tried posting the link the printer friendly page since the actual URL was soooo long. Try this one.

http://popularmechanics.com/outdoors/boating/1999/8/5_Picnic_Cruisers/

The article states, "powerful enough to pop a slalom skier out of the water", but maybe that is just salesman hype.

Maybe I don't understand the O-1 design objective. Is it intended to compete in the "Express Cruiser" market? I thought that made sense since it is the largest market segment.

Cheers;
Mike Schooley

 

O-1 received the tag "express cruiser" because it is to be a cruiser capable of a week long cruise, which travels relatively quickly. If that makes it an express cruiser in the marketing sense, then I guess so. But one thing which everybody has agreed on to this point, is that the boat should be as light as possible - in order that it remains efficient, easy to handle and tow.
Also, I wouldn't have thought that we were aiming to compete head on with the express cruiser in the "normal" sense of the word - boats like my own 27ft Searay Sundancer - more like trying to carve out a market niche for people who want at least some of the creature comforts, but don't want a small floating condo.....
So perhaps we should mould more accurately describe her as an ultra-light displacement trailerable express cruiser!

 

Will,

I'm a little lost. I can certainly see the sexy nature of the Wally boats but I cannot see how that design fits into our framework. How could a livable interior and economical performance in a afordable trailerable be done with the Wally tri-hull. Fitting a suitable interior into the Wally at anywhere near 28ft looks impossible to me.

The 26 degrees I mentioned is at 25% of waterline length (station 2 1/2) aft of the bow waterline so it is much steeper forward of that. Steep forward deadrise cuts rapidly into interior volume and bouyancy.

 

Take another look at the Wally, Tom _ it isn't a tri-hull, though I can see how they might look like one at 1st glance. If you take another look at the 118 footer http://www.wally.com/WALLYPower/118.html and then click through the "under construction bit, you will see that they are simply a warped plane hull with a very fine forefoot. The transom deadrise is higher than we would probably choose for O-1 and I'm not too sure of the function of the "boxes" sticking out the side of the hull is (air intakes?).
I'm not suggesting that we go down exactly the same path - merely use a similar hullform.
But no matter how you look at it - you're right - they are VERY sexy!

Having said all that, I misunderstood your deadrise info before - that's probably closer to how I envisaged it - got any napkin sketches you might like to share with us?...........

 

Very Very Lost!!!! Notice with the forum age thinggy set for 10 days I have the last post in all of them as of now? I'm setting all kinds of records!! If anyone messes this up before I send this heaven help them!!!!!!! lol