Any news on the Tattoo 22?

[Ixneigh]

If go for vinlyester if I was building a new boat. I like the workability, is almost as good as epoxy and easier to repair.
Ix

[kadet]

Sunmaids in Australia were made by 2 manufactures C D and E M Hall (1975 to 1981) and Bolwell Fibreglass (1981) they were not copper gun but hand laid strand mat using polyester resin. In the heyday of Australian boat building it was in the middle of the world oil crisis and resin prices were thru the roof. Most boats made then were polyester. This is why boats from that era suffer from osmosis the moves to epoxy and vinylester did not happen till the mid to late 80's.

Some homemade and expensive built custom boats were possibly epoxy but the vast majority of mass production boats were still poly simple because of cost and profit.

Even the most modern of Austral boats like the Clubman 8 (made in china) is still mainly poly with vinylester layers for osmosis protection.

[miamistyle]

If they know it is too expensive and have no plans on going into production, why would they keep the web-site active.

Why not just say they are retired?

They are still paying to have a phone line also. If they were done it would be easy to pull the plug on those items.

They might be waiting for some of the used inventory to clear out to create more demand. Or they really might just be having a hard time getting everything moved and ready. Can't someone on this site get in touch with Laura and get the full scoop?

[Drifter]

Does the company still exist, as such?

It's 2017 now and their site doesn't seem to have been updated for a long time.

[BOAT]

The URL and the all the other stuff associated with the company is not going to go away - no one really retires these things for tax reasons. These things are like company property and they have a value. It's also possible that someone can purchase the assets as long as the company is kept intact. there are probably other people involved too like other family members and creditors so you really can't shut down without violating contractual obligations, (stated warranty agreements - etc) - easier to leave the company alive.

[grady]

Their Domain is up for renewal on the 9th of March. I would guess it would get renewed but you never know.

[BOAT]

I think the trailer sailboat era is over.

Trailer sailing was a pastime of the middle class - there is no more middle class.

We are all getting too old now. The young folks seem to like the eco-adventure zip line organized big tires off road jet ski "mechanized infantry" kind of life over the solitary way of us individualistic sailors. It makes sense - they are all connected with their twitters and social media and they all have all their on-line rules and regulations that tells them how to think and act and if something does not fit into their 'Apple-group-think' it's not correct. We see the middle of the country changing as the kids all leave the farms to head out to California to get a new cell phone and to get brainwashed. I know - I am a database administrator for a Bay Area company and I can tell you that only one thing drives the Social-Media planners that are taking control of your kids: MONEY. It's all about money. The main purpose is to control how they spend their money.

I'm pretty sure the individualistic type of people that we are will be dying off and replaced with the herd of the youngsters and their cell phones in pretty short order. When those kids buy boats they will get BIG boats with full condominium facilities on board and slips and club memberships because they can afford stuff with the high tech high pay jobs they have - the rest of the young people will be poor living in mom's basement or on welfare and they are not going to buy boats.

The market is changing.

[jpaszk]

They still built good small trailable yachts in Poland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eDotTSERCc
around 28K$ (74kPLN)

[Baha]

I think the trailer sailboat era is over.

Trailer sailing was a pastime of the middle class - there is no more middle class.

We are all getting too old now. The young folks seem to like the eco-adventure zip line organized big tires off road jet ski "mechanized infantry" kind of life over the solitary way of us individualistic sailors. It makes sense - they are all connected with their twitters and social media and they all have all their on-line rules and regulations that tells them how to think and act and if something does not fit into their 'Apple-group-think' it's not correct. We see the middle of the country changing as the kids all leave the farms to head out to California to get a new cell phone and to get brainwashed. I know - I am a database administrator for a Bay Area company and I can tell you that only one thing drives the Social-Media planners that are taking control of your kids: MONEY. It's all about money. The main purpose is to control how they spend their money.

I'm pretty sure the individualistic type of people that we are will be dying off and replaced with the herd of the youngsters and their cell phones in pretty short order. When those kids buy boats they will get BIG boats with full condominium facilities on board and slips and club memberships because they can afford stuff with the high tech high pay jobs they have - the rest of the young people will be poor living in mom's basement or on welfare and they are not going to buy boats.

The market is changing.

I think this is a bit pessimistic. As dad to 2 millennials, I see some hope. Plus, there will always be those who want to save a buck. The truth remains that it is easy to spend mega-boatbucks. The hard part is owning a sailboat without breaking the bank. This is what Macs do so very well. If this was not true, I would already have that Prout or Genesis that my loving wife would enjoy!

[BOAT]

I will clarify: The trailer sailboat era in AMERICA is over.

Even the MacGregor's were doing most of their business overseas towards the end.

In America the infrastructure for sail boat ramps continues to dwindle as more and more ramps are moved behind bridges and into cheaper real estate and to accommodate the larger boat community of jet ski people that far out number all others. Also the middle class in America is shrinking, not growing. Also, it's harder and harder to make a boat in America - no one wants a boat factory withing their city limits anymore unless they are desperate for jobs. And the final nail in the coffin for trailer sail boats in America were regulations. Have you not noticed that most of the sail boats in the world now are made by French people or other companies in Europe? The American trailer sail boat industry is pretty dead. Read all the AMERICAN industry news and marketing data and all you will hear about are the "affluents". That is the market segment they study exclusively now in the US. That's all they care about and they say that is all you should care about if you expect to survive.

It would be good here to list the names of the remaining AMERICAN boat manufacturers that build a trailer sail boat. Each year their numbers decrease.

Other news about the state of the sailboat industry in the US:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/co ... story.html

[grady]

I would have to kinda agree with Boat. Except for dingy's. With the 5+ S's and D's at our marina they stay on lifts and in the water. 3 of them are trailered to go to other races and to be work on. Out of the 10 years at my lake you almost never see a sailboat being put in just to go sailing. I was just about the only one up till 3 years ago when I went the slip route.

[BOAT]

Please, don't get me started - Americans really need to know the truth about how a middle class is created in a society. It's created when people who have no college degree and who are not wealthy can get a starter job in our economy and work their way up to higher and higher pay. If you do not have a system to even get a middle class started your not going to have a middle class. America has sent it's entire middle class creation system overseas - it's GONE - it's dead. There is no more middle class being created in the US - that's not pessimism - that is fact. It's the middle class that was buying trailer sail boats. NOT the affluent class! (rich people don't want a TRAILER boat! ) - they can afford much better than that.

We have a growing affluent class in the US, but they are a tiny segment of the society, and they are NEVER going to be "trailer boat" people, (EVER!).

One of the biggest problems in the United States is that all our factory, farm, and fast food jobs pay so low that no one who was born here can actually live independently off such jobs, (ie: your kids). In the rest of the world people that make your T-shirts and pick your tomatoes make enough money to take care of their kids and have some spare bucks to enjoy life a little. In the United States we have slave labor - we import people from other countries to work for sustenance wages - in other words - the wage they work is just enough for them to feed themselves and share rent with 5 other people and that's about it. A plantation owner 200 years ago gave a better life to his slaves than people have working the fields today so that's why they all need welfare and free healthcare - because of cheap employers that want to run a plantation with slave labor instead of actually building a quality company with quality workers that can take care of themselves. Many American businesses today claim they can't get good workers that will work for cheap wages and work as hard as illegal immigrants. (Well DUH! if your illegal are you gonna complain about your wages? NOT!). Businesses using illegal labor are actually responsible for destroying the middle class in the US. We no longer have entry level jobs for young AMERICANS - so they never migrate to the middle class from the bottom. They just stay on the bottom in moms basement or on welfare. Meanwhile Walmart imports all the cheap Chinese stuff your wife buys in bagfulls every other day and the rest of us are afraid to spend an extra 200 dollars on our electronic Auto Pilots because we have gotten so cheap that all we care about is getting the cheapest possible crap from anywhere in the world. We ourselves destroy our own middle class every day when we go shopping.

To me I would rather pay a little more for my burger, fries, t-shirts, and tomatoes and have a bigger middle class. The more of them paying taxes the less I have to pay.

Most Americans have no clue how economics works.

Sorry for the rant - it just seems like no one cares about poor Americans anymore. I do because I used to be one.

[kmclemore]

!	kmclemore:
	Just a note from your friendly moderator... one man's politics is another's poison. I agree that economics sometimes comes into play when discussing vendors and suppliers, but let's try to not to let this go down the political road if we can avoid it, please. This forum is one of the few havens many of us have to avoid all the pettiness of politics. Thank you.

[BOAT]

Right,

Sorry - the trailer SAIL-boat industry is something that does have some deep sociological and economic AMERICAN undertones and I think Roger MacGregor made that point quite clear right from the get go when he started his business college thesis about the socio-economic ramifications of the American middle class on leisure activities that were previously only enjoyed by the affluent class.

I still honor Roger greatly for bringing that activity to the growing middle class of the 60's and 70's. If not for him I probably would not even know how to sail today. People from my class back then would not afford such an activity without the innovative ideas of guys like Roger. I guess I am sorry to see it die. What more fitting thread to express that sorrow than this one?

[kmclemore]

It does appear to have all come to an ignominious end. However, all of our Macs have now become a limited and (sadly) slowly diminishing supply, but this then hopefully will make their market value increase or at least maintain instead of fall. Time will tell.