Russian Yachts

[BandB]

I'm glad to see the President SOTU speech talk about bringing jobs back to the USA. When he mentioned all the job's we shipped overseas I could not stop and think about boat building in China. Yes, I have mentioned the need to support our boat builders here at home at least once prior to this post but it's something I believe in. I look forward to seeing a shift in our decision-making process which does not include the impact of funding other countries which are not our allies just because they offer the "lowest price". I look forward to seeing us purchasing a boat of equal or higher quality at slightly higher costs but built in the USA. If we need to settle for a slightly smaller LOA to keep the jobs in the USA then we should consider doing it. At least this is my thinking as one who is getting a little older and would like to see the follow-on generations have good paying manufacturing jobs (including boat building) in the USA and not support countries which are not our true allies.

This will not happen over-night and I have no plans to sell my wife's German built MBZ SL which sits covered on the garage and never driven (she would kill me) but if there is another new boat build on the shrinking horizon it will not be built in China but in the USA. Not sure anyone else thinks like me but I plan to do my part to contribute to this country's growth and continued world leadership of democracy.

OK, I'm ready for the feedback even it goes against my thinking. Discission of any type is good for everyone.

John T

Boat building in the US is largely a dream right now. I was involved with some who attempted to purchase a builder and bring them to the US but failed. The real issue is lack of investors for a real boat manufacturing firm. I'm not talking $10 million investors but $100 or $200 million. It's investors, not pricing or anything else. Europe has those investors although several are from China and China has the investors.

Now that many US builders are gone, no one is thinking of restarting builders up here.

 

[Mako]

@N4061, yes you and I had chatted about this earlier. So let’s take this to a more realistic level.

The argument is that for a certain amount of money you can build a 50’ boat in China, a 40’ boat in Turkey or a 25’ boat in America.

Obviously the small American boat will not fill your family’s needs. However, building the 40 footer in Turkey may be a good compromise. Even considering all our political and religious differences, they are more ally than China.

So you decide to build there, but to further support American business and jobs, you source components from home. Engines, generator, pumps, toilets, etc.

It may not be much but it’s a good start and a good compromise.

 

[OldDan1943]

No need to be in a hurry to build a new boat. No matter which country you are looking at, a 2 year wait, +- (months)

Look to the used boat market with the understanding the boats may be over priced. So you have to make up your mind, a boat now or 2 years from now.
Hint: if you order your new boat, you must realize the price will go up too.

 

[Mako]

Perhaps we need a thread on the economy but I can feel that we are over the hump and slowing. Car prices are dropping $100 a week, boats and trailers are not selling on fire like they were, house appreciation is cooling off, Peloton is not well you know already, etc.

Perhaps by end of year the used boat market might return to normal.

 

[Hippocampus]

Was involved in a LLC trying to series build Peter Ibold designs in Wareham MA. Was a successful mechanism to have members get boats but business failed before a successful series production run. Problems were tax, liability, zoning and general increased costs due to obligations to meet government requirements. In retrospect some quite reasonable except for tax structure. In some states boat purchase is tax free but not in MA. The tax free or very limited taxing states realize they will get the income, real estate and sales taxes from workers employed in boat construction. They realize those taxes will be greater than the tax collected on boat sales. Unfortunately Massachusetts isn’t such a state so Whaler and others left the state.
At present there remain skilled boat construction workers but that population is aging out. Labor costs isn’t what precludes construction in this country for middle and high end boats. Yes the economy of scale for non stick built, glued liner construction requires massive investment and best left to benetau and the like. But a run of just ~5 boats is sufficient to justify tooling and molds for grp. With 1-3 for metal depending upon size.
One need only look at Poland, NL or Turkey. Yes there are large, extensively capitalized construction yards but there are also much smaller yards producing excellent boats.
My last boat was built in mainland China. New ones in Taiwan. Current boat was built in Pacific Northwest where multiple builders still exist and are doing well.

 

[kthoennes]

Warning, thread drift from Russian yachts, might want to skip this one:

I'm not sure it's trending back toward normal quite yet. This is crude and utterly un-scientific but I tend to use eBay listings as a barometer of the boat market. We bought our last two big(ger) boats through eBay. At any given time in past years (pre-COVID, pre-2020) there were around 25-30 power boats over 40' listed on eBay. Today there are three. One of them is what I'd call a pretty normal listing (1980 Pacemaker, $61,900 at the moment -- a little high I think, but okay). The other two are a paddle-wheel steamer thing for half a million, and a work crew (oil rig?) transport boat for $2.25 million. I don't think the market is trending back to normal yet.

I did catch an article on the RV market though, couple days ago, about buyer's remorse after the COVID stampede for RV's -- kicking in already. Made me laugh though, it's a lot of the same issues we have with boats. Have to carefully plan trips, find a mooring or marina, maintenance costs, finding service providers and parts, holding tanks, etc. Never as easy and care-free and low-cost as everybody thinks. But even there, the regret articles are mostly human interest stories, not hard market analysis. You can still find a lot of harder market pieces that say the RV market is still red hot. To come back to the topic, I do think (yet another) world crisis will continue to drive people to their own recreational pursuits for a while anyway, like boats and RV's and "stay-cations."

 

[rgano]

Here's my thought on the hand-wringing about the legality of the seizure of "private persons" vessels.

These oligarchs are not private individuals but rather co-thieves of public funds supported by the thief-in-charge all working to support the rampant despotism. The Russian gumint is apparently a large criminal enterprise.

It's all in your perspective.

 

[Hippocampus]

Will note the form of war has changed. Open declared war is increasingly rare. For some time “low level” regional conflict rather than world war and proxy wars have been the norm. Both cyber and economic war with China and Russia has been going on for well over a decade. As the prior link to Wikipedia points out seizing, freezing or impounding assets of your adversaries has been within the playbook for quite some time. The Russian oligarchs are our adversaries. Russia declared cyber war on us by both trying (and to some measure) putting their thumb on our elections as well as the tactic permission of cybercrime against our citizens. We will not need to be concerned about international law by seizing their assets in the current setting. Just as Russia was able to shrug off their attempts to facilitate Trump’s election or Trump’s attempt to blackmail the Ukrainian president. My concern and disappointment is in my opinion Biden has not been forceful enough in engaging the American public. It’s unfortunate he is a lifelong stutterer and poor public speaker. Hence a poor communicator. I disagree with much of the progressive far left agenda as to me there’s a much more pressing concern. That being the basic fight between totalitarianism and representative democracy. Failure in this fight makes other issues moot. This fight determines if we will have the wherewithal to address other issues. Woke politics split us and create domestic disarray. There are better ways to address those inequalities. Here both democrats and republicans side step the basic issues of the limited opportunities for white, black and Latin populations imposed by class structure.
In our foreign relations there’s no room for politics. I’m reminded of Disraeli, Chamberlin and the English nazis of prewar England. This time it’s Ukraine in stead of Poland. In my view Churchill was right from the start. There’s no room for appeasement or isolationism. Use every moral, reasonable tool.

 

[CharlieO.]

Rich, your second to last sentence could leave out the words Russian and apparently. .

 

[kthoennes]

On a completely different note -- but vaguely the same topic -- after a little research it seems that very little Russian vodka is sold in the States lately. Turns out I don't have any at home to pour down the drain. Even Stoli and Smirnoff haven't been produced in Russia for years (Latvia and the U.S. respectively). But I am trying to find a bottle of Khor or Dima's (Ukraine) but there's a run on it, very hard to find at the moment. Or I'll buy anything Polish too I suppose, and I tend to like potato vodka anyway -- the other kinds usually gives me an instant headache. Na Konya!

 

[kthoennes]

One more, found what sounds like a pretty well-informed, detailed update on the attempted sinking of the Russian superyacht. Might be of interest to members on this forum. Still can't find any current photos though, that's kind of odd. (The title screen of the video is a mock-up, it's not an actual photo.)

 

[oscar]

As a child of the cold war I remember the "fishing trawlers" with 50 antennas and domes on them, which everyone knew were NOT fishing trawlers. Don't see those anymore. What I do see are VERY large yachts with...... a lot of antennas and domes on them. Owned by friends and former KGB colleagues of the most ruthless dictator of the last 50 years. NO ONE in Russia gets to be an Oligarch with a yacht unless Vlad says he can.

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

One of them was arrested in Norway after "cruising" up a fjord which housed half the Norwegian defense forces and was to be the scene of NATO exercises later this year.

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/s...inst luxury yacht of,place in March and April.

 

[Janet H]

Folks - we are closing this thread. The forum has a few third rail topics and politics is one of them. https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/misc.php?do=sknetwork&page=rules

Here's the pertinent bit:

General discussions, statements, images and links that are political in nature or that reference general government policies, weaponry, gun rights and religion are not allowed in ANY areas of the forum. Discussions about current or pending legislation or regulations, weapons and religion that directly pertain to Boating are acceptable but will be closed or removed if they wander off topic or become disruptive.

This thread has departed from the "directly related to boating" proviso ... thanks for understanding.