Tattoo 26 Production Suspended, factory relocating

[mastreb]

Hey Matt!

Good post. A business plan is a good way, and really the only way, to give you a ball park idea of whether a business if feasible. And as you point out its accuracy is only as good as the numbers you have to plug into it. Nice over view.

One thing I noticed, I think you meant commercial/industrial space is $5 per sq ft per year, not per month. That would make the cost around $84,000 over 20 months, not $1 million. (?) A larger facility (10,000 ft^2 sounds small to me) would make that number larger of course.

I'm not fully convinced that we've seen the last of the 26's in the longer term. It's on the back burner for a while.

-B.

Well, I googled commercial space in the area and they indicated $5psf. In San Diego, that's per month, and it's about right. I suppose theres some strange possibility that they're indicating price per year, but I seriously doubt it. If so, then keep building the 26 in place and build a new facility just for the 22.

But I'm pretty sure they're quoting per month. I've never seen a price quote on commercial property annualized, nor have I ever seen property as cheap as .40 cents PSF per month, which is what that would be.

[mastreb]

Roger wasn't driven by money, that much is clear.

Roger is an inventor. That mindset is out to improve the world, and prove-out ideas. He doggedly stuck to his opinions and ideas in the face of considerable and sustained criticism and an industry that went an entirely different direction. His clients are not "establishment sailors", they are the different. They invent themselves, as we've seen innumerable times on this board. They modify their boats incessantly. They care little for ultimate performance and value flexibility and utility above all. Roger's clients are people who are like Roger.

Roger kept his boats at the razor's edge of cost because he wanted more boat out there. If you read his website, the thing he is most proud of is having build more boats than anyone. Anyone. Ever. He wants more people sailing. He wanted to build accessible sailboats and make them accessible, and that meant taking very little out himself. Yes, he's got a nice house in Newport with a dock of his own and nice boat, but its a small house on a small plot--$5M max valuation. He's a guy who took out $10M dollars on $750M in present-valued sales over 40 years when he could have been MUCH more wealthy just by increasing prices by 20%.

Russ is right: People will pay twice as much for a new Tattoo hull than Tattoo charges. Not as many, but a 130% margin would pay for that gap. And that's right where the 22 is going: Much higher margins, without competing with used inventory.

Mass customization is the future. I've been thinking up various custom manufacturing methods that could produce a one-off sailboat hull without specialized tooling for some time. If nobody steps into the 26-28 foot space, I might eventually do something about it.

[dlandersson]

You'd need a BIG 3D printer.

[Russ]

You'd need a BIG 3D printer.

[Crikey]

Not only that... you'd need a few million bucks!

[BOAT]

There is always enough money for good ideas.

Basically if what Matt is saying is true (and I think it probably is) then what Roger did was put a lot of us into boats whom otherwise without Roger we would have never been into a boat.

I would have to say, that I feel that is true - I think if it was not for Roger my dad would never have had a sailboat even though his boat was build by Rogers competitor just down the street from the Costa Mesa factory. Whitney Peden would have never changed his production from the Balboa 26 keel boat to the Aquarius 23 trailer-able boat if it had not been for Roger who came first. I think that is the case for ALL of the trailer-able cabin sailboat boat manufacturers. (Roger invented the Pop-Top, too - which made standing up in a trailer-able boat possible.)

Many of us whom have spend hundreds of hours on the water over the course of our lives in trailer-able sailboats have Roger to thank.

I still think fiberglass has gone about as far as it can go - the next chapter of the trailer-able sailboat industry (if there is even going to BE another chapter ei: the demise of the internal combustion engine, et.al), is really in the hands of the materials engineers and the dreamers like Roger who are willing to take a risk on new materials.

[Ixneigh]

Graphene cloth and epoxy?
There is still all the other junk that goes onto the hull costs money if it's good quality.

Msybe you could offer kits... Luger used to to that but I guess they couldn't make it work. I might have bought one had I liked the boats though. I certainly would have considered a Mac kit. There are still several outfits offering small boat kits in wood.
The question of Insurability of an owner completed boat comes into question though.
Ix

[BOAT]

Roger is right now on a material that reduces the weight of a boat by a full 1/3rd. The MAC 70 weighs only 2/3rds the weight of the MAC 65 yet the MAC 70 is 5 feet longer, has more sail, and a more luxurious interior.

Same goes for a trailer boat - figure out a way to make the MAC 26 even a full third lighter with an even better interior and people will come in droves to pay 50 grand for that boat easy - how can anyone turn down a boat that can be easily pulled with a minivan?

[kurz]

Well a the VW Sharan ca tow 2200kg or as 4WD 2400kg.

So for the old style mac and the old price you get the VW Sharan for free... if you compare to more expensive contructions

[Catigale]

Hey Matt!

Good post. A business plan is a good way, and really the only way, to give you a ball park idea of whether a business if feasible. And as you point out its accuracy is only as good as the numbers you have to plug into it. Nice over view.

One thing I noticed, I think you meant commercial/industrial space is $5 per sq ft per year, not per month. That would make the cost around $84,000 over 20 months, not $1 million. (?) A larger facility (10,000 ft^2 sounds small to me) would make that number larger of course.

I'm not fully convinced that we've seen the last of the 26's in the longer term. It's on the back burner for a while.

-B.

Well, I googled commercial space in the area and they indicated $5psf. In San Diego, that's per month, and it's about right. I suppose theres some strange possibility that they're indicating price per year, but I seriously doubt it. If so, then keep building the 26 in place and build a new facility just for the 22.

But I'm pretty sure they're quoting per month. I've never seen a price quote on commercial property annualized, nor have I ever seen property as cheap as .40 cents PSF per month, which is what that would be.

Its an east coast thing. Commerical space is usually quoted in price per sq ft per year.

And 5 bucks per sq ft per year in FL for warehouse space sounds right.

[BOAT]

That's okay - after Roger or someone else (in California of course) figures out the new material there will be yet another explosion in manufacturing and then the California Boss Hogs here will create new regulations on the new material and all the new material plants will all move to Florida and the cycle continues. Jeans, wetsuits, Electric Cars, videotape, Cell Phones, lasers, Theme Parks, the Martini, Tablet Computers, Motion Pictures, Zamboni Machine, Fiberglass Boats, spaceships, software, and my all time favorite: The Dashboard Hula Girl, whatever they invent and manufacture in California will always end up being manufactured in Florida or China or Mexico sooner or later.

The people that invent everything all live in California and don't want to move and those same people don't want to live next to their own factories or breathe the same pollution they create so those are (believe it or not) the same people that are driving the regulations. What a scam.

Roger is an exception - but a LOT of the wealthy manufacturing plant owners in California are also driving Sacramento. They are all rich wealthy people up there and they run Sacramento.

[RobertB]

Boat, Come on, do you really believe that everything cool is only invented in CA? If I remember correctly, IBM started their PC business in Florida and moved to North Carolina. Some of the most important aircraft developments happened in first New York/Glen Martin and then Texas/Harry Hillaker (and also California/Kelly Johnson). Smart people are everywhere. Maybe California is most famous because rich people loose so many homes - fire, mudslide, earthquake, yetis

[Russ]

Boat, Come on, do you really believe that everything cool is only invented in CA?

True.

And we all know the center of the universe is New York City.

[BOAT]

Boat, Come on, do you really believe that everything cool is only invented in CA? If I remember correctly, IBM started their PC business in Florida and moved to North Carolina. Some of the most important aircraft developments happened in first New York/Glen Martin and then Texas/Harry Hillaker (and also California/Kelly Johnson). Smart people are everywhere. Maybe California is most famous because rich people loose so many homes - fire, mudslide, earthquake, yetis

No, I believe everything cool invented in California ends up getting made somewhere else.

[RobertB]

Sometimes things get confused in written communication