cottage on the water

I have been making reference to the boat cottage ratio for some time. What I have noticed over the last few years is a strong trend toward the cottage end of the ratio in many production boats considered trawlers including long range open water use boats. Today I opened the June issue of Northwest Yachting magazine and found a full page add by Kadey Krogen Yachts. In large print NOT JUST SEAWORTHY BUT SHEWORTHY. and lower down in the add This is the boat she will say yes to. This for me certainly crystallizes where the trawler market is going. In order to sell boats to usually older couples the cottage package has to pull a possibly reluctant female over the line. Not a galley but a kitchen-not a head but a bathroom-not bunks but a bed room-not a place to sit but a living room with large picture windows. The less one is reminded they are on a boat the closer to the sales target. I am not saying that this is wrong but it does explain many of the design features and trends we see on newer boats. Do these things make a better boat? Not always but if that's what it takes to get out on the water so be it. For someone who just wants a good boat without all the sheworthy baggage it is going to get harder to find production models and custom boats are expensive and will have a shrinking market if sans the sheworthy stuff.

Many people I know just buy an older boat and gut...with home depot they can have a nice boat cottage at a fraction of the price...or they buy an old but highly regarded hull and refit to their standards...leaving out the unnecessary or unwanted and adding back what they do....whether it costs the same or more than new...it is still the seaworthy boat as always and now exactly like they wanted it.

Think we all do the cottage requirement to some degree. For many it may not be as much the things that you see versus the things you won't be without. How many of the following would you live without that were rare or nonexistent 50 years ago on these type of boats?

Air conditioning
Water maker or large capacity water tanks
Multiple heads
Home style refrigerator / freezer
Navigation electronics (radar, plotter, depth sounder)
Auto pilot
Windlass
Bow thruster
Twins
Genset
Stereo
TV

Yup, considering what I deem not optional, I could consider my wife's needs in the galley, stateroom, and head as being very reasonable.

Ted

eyschulman said:

I have been making reference to the boat cottage ratio for some time.

The less one is reminded they are on a boat the closer to the sales target.

For someone who just wants a good boat without all the sheworthy baggage it is going to get harder to find production models and custom boats are expensive and will have a shrinking market if sans the sheworthy stuff.

Click to expand...

It's all in definitions. You use the word "cottage" to imply something negative because to you the concept is negative. However, to most buyers, comfort and creature comforts are important.

I don't buy the "less one is reminded they are on a boat" line at all. People just experience it differently. Open views are very important. Galleys up to be involved and closer to the water and boating. Flybridges for open air and ocean breezes. These are all reminders on a boat and just because a galley is nice doesn't remind one less.

Then in the last statement the words "good boat". There is no such thing as a universally defined "good boat." That's a personal choice and definition. You can only define that for yourself. For most of us certain amenities are part of making it a good boat.

Now, we come to the boats that you would personally consider good and without cottage or sheworthy baggage. Are they harder to find? I think they've always been difficult to find. People like amenities. Stripped down boats is how many of us might label them. They don't sell to the masses.

You have a unique taste in boats. Your boat reflects that. Doesn't make it more or less of a boat than others, just a different style. It fits your definition of a good boat, but the fight you keep having internally is that others have very different thoughts on what makes a good boat. Even the market pricing leaders have always had a certain amount of bells and whistles and frills. Bayliner was not a stripped boat. Look at the largest sellers today. They're all dressed up boats. While many don't like or want teak, teak continues to sell. I was talking to someone who is looking at 2005-2007 65' Marquis today. The models without teak look "cheap" to the owner he was working with. He's apparently not alone in that the prices asked for the models with teak vs. those without is much higher.

You and my wife and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum. You at the simplicity end, concerned with design and efficiency and economy in use. We're at the luxury side and we like the frills and also want some speed. Neither you nor we are in the mainstream of trawler owners or buyers. As a result, we'll both continue to have problems finding boats that fit our desires. You'd like the KK narrowed and stripped down and with a smaller engine and fewer electronics and other features. We'd like it to go faster and have more features.

Nothing wrong to having our own tastes, but then nothing wrong to smart builders who continue to try to target the mainstream.

Here's our anchor type item for the day. Dishwasher. This came up in a discussion I was in elsewhere. I'm betting you consider that a cottage item and unnecessary if not inappropriate on a boat. Now, I haven't ever been without one on land or water and don't want to start now. It's an essential feature to me.

Greetings,
Mr. BB. (dishwasher) "It's an essential feature to me." Me too...



Oh my. I'm gonna burn for THAT one...

Wifey B: RTF

That was pure evil.

Can't believe you'd be wasting that beautiful lady's talents on dishwashing.

Man you are gone.

Fortunately RTF has firmly established his humor so that he never risks anyone talking him too seriously.

On our boat "loading the dishwasher" means handing the Capt. a scotch on the rocks.

Tied to a good dock of course.

SCOTTEDAVIS said:

On our boat "loading the dishwasher" means handing the Capt. a scotch on the rocks.

Tied to a good dock of course.

Click to expand...

That's how it works for us, except it's a bourbon on a mooring or on an anchor. The Admiral cooks and I clean up.

Greetings,
We are considering another vessel for local use since we live at some distance from the "big" boat. As a result of the potential size (~24'), we won't have much in the way of "amenities" but it will get us on the water. No AC/heat, no refrigeration (ice box/coolers), probably no galley save a sink and very small counter space, no wall of electronics (VHF and GPS only), no washer and dryer, no generator BUT it will have a head and a v-berth for sleeping. So, essentially, compared to the "big" boat, we'll be camping out but for the use we'll put the vessel to (weekends), quite acceptable. We'll cook on a camp stove on the aft deck, hang our towels on the rail to dry and listen to tunes on our battery powered transistor radio.
Will she be a "good boat" as mentioned by Mr. BB. Of course. She'll do for the purposes intended and that's all one can ask of any vessel. Would she do for our ONLY vessel? Hmmmm...
Oh, and in spite of post #5, I do all the cooking and 50% of the washing up. If we had the extra space for a dishwasher would we install one? Probably not. Only takes about 10 minutes or so. No big deal.

I like RTF's photo as it reflects my position perfectly. I don't do food and I don't do cleaning up. Period, end, full stop.

I don't care if it's a 50' long gourmet kitchen with every culinary device known to man or a tiny on-board galley, you're never going to find me in it. I had to cook and clean when I was single and that was fine, you do what you have to do. But once I was married, that was it. I haven't turned on a burner since.

I'm actually a very good cook but I absolutely despise doing it. Cooking and eating are, to me, both giant wastes of time. I could be doing something else that's far more interesting. I would love it if they would come up with a pill that you took for each meal. Prime rib dinner pill, Reuben sandwich lunch pill, that sort of thing. I hate having to stop what I'm doing to eat a meal. It kills the whole momentum of the day. It's not that I don't like the food, I just don't want to waste the time it takes to eat it.

So it follows that I view cooking it to be an even bigger waste of time. You cook for the better part of an hour or more and then eat it in five minutes. It's one of the dumbest things man does in my opinion.

And since I'm not doing the cooking, I'm not the one making the mess in the kitchen/galley. Therefore it is not my responsibility to clean it up.

Don't get me wrong; I don't view cooking and cleaning up as woman's work. I view it as not MY work. Anyone else who wants or is willing to do it, more power to them. Their gender is irrelevant.

However.... I will crawl down in the engine room and around the front of an FL120 and lie on top of batteries and seacocks and stuff and change out a fresh water pump, which I did on Saturday. My wife, who is fully capable of doing the exact same thing, doesn't for the same reason I don't cook.

So a dishwasher to me is a device from an alien planet. We have one at home and I don't even know how to turn it on. So I have no opinion about whether or not to have one on a boat because to me, it's an irrelevant question. If it's there, great, if it's not there, great. Either way, it's not part of my world.

Wifey B: My hubby cooks more than me as he grills regularly and most meats we cook, we grill. I do salads. And some other things. When we're on the boat we often have others who cook as well and often the same at home.

But whether on our boat or not, we neither one manually wash dishes and I could say it's because we have more people generally but when it was just the two of us we didn't either. I do remember one time the dishwasher broke at home in NC. We....ummm....like....went out to eat until it was fixed...

We have friends like Marin. Christina has never cooked a meal in her life and she's...well, older than....older than my hubby. She was shocked that her daughter, Carmen, actually cooked and her comment was like, "Why?'

BandB said:

Wifey B: RTF

That was pure evil.

Can't believe you'd be wasting that beautiful lady's talents on dishwashing.

Click to expand...

+1 on that.

I'll jump in

Regarding the "cottage on the water" concept.

Personally I like it. You do not need to give up amenities to have a perfectly functional boat. Either a Coastal Cruiser or a Passage Maker.

I like a kitchen, and nice size bedrooms and bathrooms. That doesn't mean the boat can't cruise... just the opposite. Comfort makes for a better cruiser.

As far as the boat duties, cleaning, cooking, etc... Thats my job. My wife says its my boat. My escape place. My home away from home. She will help out but in the end its my responsibility. She enjoys her time aboard and is happy to get a break from the household routine. I generally arrive at the boat a day before her and stay a day later than her to do the heavy cleaning and maintenance. She does not, and will not sit on the boat while I maintain it, unless its a necessary repair underway.

At home things are divided differently. Home is her domain. What she says goes. I help out by cooking dinners (I am the chef ) and helping out as needed, but at home I am the builder, fixer, etc... She prefers to do much of the cleaning herself, with help from me.

I agree with your "cottage" assessment, Kevin, as far as a boat goes.

As to the who-does-what question, my wife and I have long since established that I don't cook or clean up anywhere--- home, vacation, boat, nowhere. I don't jump out of planes for fun and I don't cook or clean. I'm talking specifically about cooking and cleaning dishes and the galley/kitchen.

However I'm fortunate in that my wife is a 100% participating partner in our boating. While she doesn't do engine room work, she participates while I'm doing it by handing me stuff I've forgotten to take down with me. She is an artist with a heat gun and scrapers does all our de-finishing when we need to redo brightwork. She paints (roller-tip), she sews and maintains all our canvas, we both wash and wax what's left of our boat's gelcoat, and so forth.

Because we live 100 miles from the boat we clean it up and get it ready for the next run before we head home. We both work together on that; for some reason we cannot fathom it always takes two hours. Even if we go out just overnight, it takes two hours to get the boat ready for its next use. Part of this is explained by the fact that the breed of dog we have always had is a major shedder, but nevertheless it always seems to take two hours to get the boat cleaned and buttoned up.

She also drives the boat and navigates and that sort of thing, too. But she has always been fully involved in our boating (and flying) and enjoys it. Which makes it more fun for me, of course.

ITS Advertising folks,all image , reality need not apply.

The first tall tale (for his ego)

is in many production boats considered trawlers including "long range open water use boats."

For her the Roomaran language and photo shots.

If it gets the boats sold ,the folks on the water, cottaging is fine!!!!

I like our ocean capable cottage with a prop. For what we need it to do, it fits us great.

We wouldn't be without a dishwasher,
it's a great place to store wine.

BandB said:

Here's our anchor type item for the day. Dishwasher. This came up in a discussion I was in elsewhere. I'm betting you consider that a cottage item and unnecessary if not inappropriate on a boat. Now, I haven't ever been without one on land or water and don't want to start now. It's an essential feature to me.

Click to expand...

And you're still cracking me up!



Gotta admit, dishwashers can be useful. Can't imagine never having been without one, though. Kids were the dishwashers back when Spam was part of normal diet, and radios and heaters were optional on cars...

Different pasts.

-Chris

ranger42c said:

And you're still cracking me up!



Gotta admit, dishwashers can be useful. Can't imagine never having been without one, though. Kids were the dishwashers back when Spam was part of normal diet, and radios and heaters were optional on cars...

Different pasts.

-Chris

Click to expand...

Wifey B: I was without a dishwasher when I was a little girl. One thing I never grasped was how the dishes had sex but obviously they did cause my sperm donor always was screaming to wash the f...ing dishes. Also I wore gloves doing it which made him furious for some reason in his drunken stupors. But then my very existence did that. Of course he blamed my existence on my mom and took none of that responsibility. Knowing him he was too dumb to know how that works, conception and all. Always so comforting for a child to hear her parents arguing over whose fault it is that they have her. When I ran away and this kind lady gave me a room she had to teach me how to use her dishwasher. I thought it was great and said to myself that when I grew up I was going to have one of those things.

dishwashers like washing machines are generally more efficient for water usage....


having them aboard makes some sense no matter who you are...though in the big scheme of things...most people don't live aboard so what goes on when they boat is not necessarily related to a 3-4 times as a daily chore.

psneeld said:

dishwashers like washing machines are generally more efficient for water usage....

Click to expand...

Good point. As are showers over bath tubs generally. However, through no fault of mine, our showers are generally not efficient, even shared as they generally are.

BandB said:

this kind lady gave me a room she had to teach me how to use her dishwasher. I thought it was great and said to myself that when I grew up I was going to have one of those things.

Click to expand...

There ya go, progress in action. Sounds like a good outcome!

-Chris

BandB said:

Good point. As are showers over bath tubs generally. However, through no fault of mine, our showers are generally not efficient, even shared as they generally are.

Click to expand...

Wifey B: No fault of yours??????!!!!!!!!!!!! Takes two to tango. Surely not the fault of innocent lil' me.

Our showers aren't aaallllllllllllllwwwwwaaaayyyyyyysss long. Sometimes we're in a hurry and have somewhere we must go. Beside I bet most people here use more water with each person showering separately.

I think he might have meant...at least the way I took it ....shower head efficiency over personal desire....but then again....


And water use/conservation is based on a lot of things...the people in the shower is only one component.

psneeld said:

I think he might have meant...at least the way I took it ....shower head efficiency over personal desire....but then again....


And water use/conservation is based on a lot of things...the people in the shower is only one component.

Click to expand...

Wifey B: But as a scientist would you say the more people in the shower the better for water conservation?

Greetings,
Mr. ps is a scientist?

I actually like the term "cottage on the water". For me it describes a special place to visit that is different than home. At one time it was a refuge from the work world. "Cottage" also implies a certain romanticism about boats and the nautical landscape; funky waterfront hangouts, chandleries with oil soaked wood floors, cafes and working man's taverns...and the boats are mostly made of wood or steel. When we first moved to Seattle 25 years ago, this was still the boating scene. No surprise that my 1st boat was a wood boat built in 1941. It utterly oozed with charm and character: brass, bronze, oil lamps, teak exterior, mahogany inside...and the faint smell of diesel. In no time we became "PNW boaters", starting on Lake Washington, then beyond the locks and out to Puget Sound and eventually northward to explore the islands and stunning scenery of Desolation Sound. That was then...

Today we live full time on an island near Seattle. The city house was replaced with a romantic cottage and the wooden boat was replaced by a much newer "plastic" boat, though still of traditional design. I no longer work in the city or travel for business, no more worries about college tuitions or house payments. The boat is still important in my life but not in the same way it was before. In earlier years it was maybe a three week cruise to somewhere; now it's three months to Alaska or exploring the Inside Passage. And because we live in a cottage full time, the boat has become my workshop. It occupies my time and provides a new "refuge" for my busy mind. I truly love my wife and our home and children, but I still need my cottage on the water.

very interesting thread. I am bit offended at the idea that boat builders are pandering to women with kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. But I also realize I am not the typical female spouse that is not interested in boating for boating's sake. I feel I am just as involved in the boat as my husband, though I do not take it in and out of the slip. Now that I have lost vision in one eye and my depth perception along with it I don't think I will ever try!

I personally love having a dishwasher on the boat. Neither of us enjoys hand washing and we are on the boat to relax... so it just made sense to us to find room for the dishwasher. Other than that, our boat is very traditional with lots of teak inside. It has an aft cabin with a walk around bed and a separate shower so in that respect I suppose it is also "cottagey." There is no way I would go back to a Vee berth or a pullman or any situation where we have to crawl into the bed. I got over that in my sailing days.

For those in a marriage where one spouse is into boating and the other is a reluctant participant, if having a "cottage" boat is what gets the reluctant spouse on board (pun not intended) then why not? Or perhaps the boating spouse wants the boat to be a private getaway so will go utilitarian to repel the other. Whatever works for your relationship.