Cheapest boat?

[Forthsailoar]

This from Edwin over at Openboat:
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Had a chat today with a man on Swanpool Beach who had just rowed ashore in his dinghy. Lovely neat piece of work about 10 feet long, sort of on the lines of a Whitehall. But, it was made from old pallets and covered with canvas that I think someone had given him. Dearest item in the construction was the bituminous paint.

He goes far out into and around Falmouth Bay. Lives nearby so he can pop down with his boat on a trolley and be off fishing within a minute or so. That is open boating, practically a sea person.
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Anyone beat that? And a gift of an old boat doesn't count! Nor finding one!

Osbert

[John P]

You say the gift of a boat doesent count, but I thought it worth mentioning that if you don't want to build yourself a new boat from new materials there are ways to go sailing for very little initial cost, a free yacht being one approach. Just as an example, a boat yard I know of wanted to clear space by getting rid of several yachts for which I suspect they were unable to communicate with the owners. They moved the yachts to a plot of land separate to the main boatyard and said that they were available to anyone free of charge but if still unclaimed after two weeks they would be crunched up by a JCB. The yachts subsequently disappeared but I dont know how many were claimed. I did not inspect them closely, but driving past I thought at least one of them looked seaworthy.  

Of course, even if you can acquire a seaworthy yacht free of charge, it will cost you upwards of £5000 every year to insure it and keep it in a marina in any of the popular sailing areas in the southern part of the UK.

[gmatkin]

Happily, for our little 19-footer the cost of insurance and keeping on a creek in the south-east of England costs much, much less than £5000/year. If it was costing anywhere near, we couldn't justify keeping the boat.

I haven't got an entrant for cheapest boat, though Lew Clayman once made one out of bamboo and polytarp and I think John Welsford's first boat was fashioned from a found piece of corrugated iron.

Gavin