Some classes authorize builders to use their molds. Here in CA (especially) the good glass guys are skeptical when you walk into their shop and start talking about hull production blah, blah, blah. Everyone of them has been burned by the smooth talking "next big class" guy. There are lots of dreamers out there. All of my boat builder friends call these guys "Day F*****s", that's how common this phenomenon is. Having the Hobie name would help jump this initial hurdle.
Aside from the hull molds, there are templates for the glass, foam, sometimes separate molds for flanges and decks etc and jigs for the hardware. The bottom line is that building boats takes a lot of space and a lot of expertise, so just giving the molds to someone to build a single boat would probably cost double what Hobie builds them for. Is the Euro 2:1 yet?
Then, you would have the issues of build quality varying from manufacturer to manufacturer. A small one-off builder would be less inclined to take a hull back if it ended up overweight or had some issue. That gets pricy.
A solution could be to find a socal glass shop that has the technology to build the boats and get a quote. A friend of mine mentioned Columbia yachts has the space, the technology, and a built in workforce ready to take on a project like that.
If I was Hobie, and wasn't into building the boats in-house, that's what I'd look into doing, 'cause I don't think the dollar is going to recover that soon.
We just bought a 55 gal drum of resin, and I'll tell you petroleum prices are starting to hit hard. In the glass business, resin is about 10 weeks behind when fuel jumps in cost.
A lot of variables in that equation.
|
, then could we get a boat that was closer to 15K? ( Or possible even less )
