Because it always becomes a comparison of apples with oranges.
You're right of course from many points of view. But doesn't it depends on what the person is looking for?
If someone said "I only have $10 for fruit" would you tell them to spend the $10 on buying an orange tree or would you tell them where they could find cheap apples?
Sure, you could find used equipment but that's not the point. People then say that such and such can be done for $$ because I did it, neglecting to point out that nobody else on the planet can because what they got was pure unobtanium. A recent example is a person I know who picked up a Hardinge HLVH lathe for $3000. The more representative price for such a machine is somewhere between 4 and 10 times that price. If I wanted one tomorrow for $3000, what do you think my chances would be?
If you want one tomorrow, your chances may well be zero - but if you were taking part in a multi-year project (like building a big boat) and could keep an eye out for the right second-hand gear at the right price during that period, your chances may be very high.
There's a big difference between what could be only obtained with a lot of luck, and what can probably be obtained with a bit of waiting.
Taken to its logical conclusion, if you were given a rig for free because you knew someone who was scrapping theirs, does that mean that anyone can have a free rig?
No, but it does mean that I could say to people "keep an ear on the ground because sometimes people give rigs away" and they could also get a free rig if they were lucky.
However, I don't think the chances of getting a cheap suitable rig are anywhere like that low, as long as one is keeping an ear out throughout a reasonable term such as the normal period of yacht building or renovating.
My way means that you can't claim that a rig that would cost say $50K to buy new can be done for $5K because one person actually managed it by being in the right place at the right time.
I don't actually care what rig people use, any more than I do what hull form they use. I just don't like people glossing over obvious differences when it suits them.
I didn't. I pointed out an alternative way around the issue of rig costs.
Friends of mine recently - as in less than a year ago - launched a brand new 40' cutter rigged boat. Their rig cost them $50K plus. Their boat is going to point higher than mine and sail faster on some points, not necessarily all, but they paid a lot for that extra speed. Neither hull is ever going to surf downwind so there's never going to be enormous differences. I've got an extra $40K in my sailing budget. Not being a purist, I can motorsail and buy a lot of diesel for that $40K if I have to.
So far nobody who supports marconi type rigs has ever said that they could and have built their rig for a 12m sailboat for less than $10K.
That doesn't mean that it's necessarily impossible. Lots of people don't even seem to think about going down the used-gear route, or making stuff themselves.
What that tells me is that, for that budget, I can sail a *lot* faster and further, because they can't leave port and won't be sailing anywhere.
I'm not arguing about differences in efficiency, that's a settled discussion IMO. The things that David & Arne are doing with hinged battens and cambered sails are kind of interesting in an abstract way but they're introducing a lot of complexity and points of failure in the pursuit of small gains in pointing ability - and that's assuming the underwater hull shapes are up to the job. If I cared that much about the ability to point high, I'd use a marconi rig and be done with it.
PDW
