Estimating that is not simple unless you are willing to accept a method that is open to wide variations. Assuming that you are willing to spend more if needed, a fairly accurate method is to multiply the length of the proposed boat by her beam. To that figure, add $100.00 per foot of boat length. 

The result will be what you must lay out for the lumber and other material plus the ordinary sails—maybe.

Here is an example. The boat you are to build is 16 feet long and 6 feet wide. Sixteen times six is 96, or $960.00 out of your poket, plus $1600.00 more; or a total of $2560.00 more or less—probably more. This checks up well with the rule of thumb that says that the material cost of a boat—not counting any overhead, profit, or labor— is one third her list price. Remember that this is for a simple, small, open sailboat. Admittedly, you can build a flat-bottomed skiff and rig up some sort of a sail for less money. If you feel that the result is a sail­boat, your opinion will not be shared by the other fellows around the anchorage. If, for example, you can drive a Model T and remain heedless to the jibes of “get a horse,” you may be the sort of character to go to town with boat-buying economy.

Having disposed of first cost, we come to depreciation. Marine-insurance people have complicated formulas to work out such things, but the average mortal can come pretty close to a correct figure if he knocks off 10 per cent of the boat’s value each year. True enough, this would imply that after 10 years she would be worthless, a situation far from true. But the idea is not to arrive at a real value but to set a figure that you know you can afford. The 10-per­cent system will run higher than should be true and is thus better if you are pushing the wallet too hard.

Anchorage charges may be nothing at all. You may live where there is plenty of mooring space and all you have to do is to put out a mooring and let it go at that. Most fellows are in no such cushiony position and must hire mooring space from boat­yards or join clubs where such privileges are included in the dues. The service may cost you anywhere from $150.00 to $2000.00 a year depending upon how swank you want to go.

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• Yachting on a shoestring (money.cnn.com)

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Taking these up one by one, depreciation is dependent on first cost and first cost is something almost impossible to estimate. Good sailing boats are on the used-boat market at prices ranging from a couple of thousand dollars upward. You may be able to get a buy for even less providing you are willing to do some work fixing her up. Let’s settle one point right here. Sails cost money and homemade ones are seldom of much use unless you are satisfied to limit your sailing and your speed to a point where the game may not be worth the disappointments and the embarrassment of having everyone else sail rings, around you.

To save all the dinero possible, and still have a good boat, the logical advice is to build her yourself. This means first, that you have a place to do the work; second, that you have the skill; and third, that you have both the tools necessary and the time required. Don’t let anybody kid you that you can build a sailboat in your cellar shop in a few days. A fair time estimate, assuming that you can read plans and use tools, would be something close to 10 working hours per foot of boat length for the simplest sort of an open craft. Any boat with a cabin, or much in the way of interior arrangements, will take a lot more time.
How much will she cost if you have the time, the place, the plans, and the skill?

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MOOGLY, the Neanderthal man, was having troubles. The previous night he had, like men of the present generation, been out with the boys. Zigzagging caveward, he had faced Zook, his irate, club-swinging mate, who had promptly gone into action with a barrage of mastodon-bone dishware. In a frantic effort to escape, Moogly rushed to the murky river and executed a quick, but ungraceful, dive into the pea-soup waters. His safety was short-lived for, having never studied naval architecture, he became a living exponent of the theory that a floating body must have a weight that is less than that of an equal volume of water. In brief, Moogly was at the point of drowning when he spied a floating tree trunk with some of its withered branches projecting above water. In what passed for a jiffy in those days, he was astride the trunk.

But his safety was none too secure. Zook trotted along the bank accurately heaving the remainder of the family utensils. Luck came to Moogly at that point; a miasmatic breeze came up and caught the upper branches of Moogly’s craft and he sailed out, out toward the murky horizon and freedom from Zook’s hirsute pitching arm.

It was all as simple as that—then. Moogly sailed, but he didn’t know where he was going and he had no idea in his pea-sized brain of how to get back home again. Per­haps he didn’t even want to get back. Out beyond, there might have been better Zooks waiting for the sweet caress of his club.

Things are different now. We want to sail with a lot more comfort, with greater speed, and certainly with some surety of getting some place and then turning around and coming back more or less the same way. Our sailing craft give us the desired speed and comfort, but naval architecture has not done too much to aid us in getting there and back again. These latter points are accomplished through application of what Moogly lacked—a pretty superior sort of human intelligence. We now sail good boats designed by skilled men, but we re­quire some knowledge of why a boat sails, as well as how we must handle the little ship, to make her go when and where we want.

Sailing is fun, lots of fun. Hundreds of thousands of youngsters between eight and 80 consider that it is the world’s best sport. In this era of cluttered concrete, it offers about the only practical method for the average person to taste a slice of transpor­tation freedom. On the water, you find traf­fic laws to be almost nonexistent. True, there are navigating rules designed to pre­vent collisions, but the average boat sailer may not have to apply them more than once or twice a day, rather than at inter­vals of seconds as is true on the road. There is also the head-swelling joy because you are the master of your ship. You go and come when you please and limit your ter­ritory only by the time you have to spend and the borders of the waterway upon which you maneuver your boat.

You can enjoy an entire day’s sail within view of the club house or, even if the boat is pretty small and very inexpensive, you can go off on cruises. Expense is an impor­tant item for most people. It is true that the operating costs of a sailboat are so low as to be considered nonexistent. In fact, only depreciation, anchorage, winter stor­age, and upkeep can be charged as truly applying to operational expenses.

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