Boom tent thread

Posted By: Kurt - CP23D - Winyah Bay, SC
Date: 7/22/04 11:25p.m.

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Hi all - I'm the guy Bob was talking about that sails and also makes tents. Thought I'd throw out some thoughts for you, just off the top of my head, after reading the previous posts about this topic. I'll try to give you some guidance for your brainstorming, and make some points about maybe where you need to head with the thinking. It may be a bit disjointed; today was my birthday, and it's late, post-family get together. OK, first things first, let me talk about money, and/or economic realities. At least give you some things to ponder. My best guess, from 5 years of tent business, is that the only way you are going to get near the list of features you are talking about (ie; zip in/out windows, a design capable of withstanding storms, lots of headroom, no-see-um netting, zippered doorways, etc...), at a price point anywhere near $150, would probably be to have a lot of units manufactured at once. By "a lot", I mean A LOT. Several hundred units. Sure, you can go to WalMart and buy a big ole tent for $75, but there are factories in the Far East that make 10's of 1000's of those things on contract, and that is how the price gets so low. As low as does the quality of workmanship and materials. Off the top of my head, I'd guess the market just isn't there for those numbers with this boom tent - I may be wrong. However - that begs this point - how "universal" of a design will you have? Would they only work with the S2's, or might they also work with Cat 22's? If so, your market just got way bigger, and so did your sales potential, which means your costs dropped, per unit. Something to consider. If someone wanted to gamble and put the front money up for say 100-200 units, then perhaps that price could get met. You will need a finished design to present to a contractor before they can give you anywhere near a firm price. They will disassemble and reassemble the tent, and time how long the steps take as part of their pricing process. Better construction will take longer. The material you use will also be a determining factor. More features adds more construction time. All this factors into what the boom tents will ultimately cost you. If you are like me, you don't have wads and wads of cash to throw at your boat. At least not as much as you'd *like* to have... So, just like your boat, paring down to *just what you need* from *what you want* could drop the price substantially. In your design, you need to come up with the minimal amount of features, the gotta-haves, and build your design from there. If, at the minimum, you find that you have "price to spare", then add a wanna-have from your feature list. I am just going to throw out a very, very loose figure here off of the top of my head, but it should give you an idea of what I mean. Take a seat. For me, to make the design with all the features you are talking about, it wouldn't be worth it to me to charge less than $400-500 apiece, and more than that is not at all out of the question, and probably more than likely. Your design parameters are fairly all-encompassing, and to make the "dream tent" would take some serious engineering, and then quite a bit of sewing. Probably 3 days construction time, once you had the kinks knocked out. I would hazard a guess that if you go to the local canvas maker and get a ballpark figure, they will be near double or more than that in their guesstimate. Then again, you never know, you just may be able to find someone who would do it for say $300, or maybe as low as $200, if they had a firm order for 10 or 20 up front. It all will depend on how complex it is, and where this person is at financially. It may be cheaper, on a per unit basis, to have them built offshore, but then the minimums you'd need to meet may be higher, resulting in an overall increase in production cost. Another consideration is that customer service from Taiwan, if a problem with a production run comes up, is going to be a lot more difficult than with a US company you can easily go talk to. Forget those WalMart tents, and their low, low prices. Sadly, thats just not going to happen. For what you are paying for this tent, you will want some measure of quality. If you look at the backpacking tent market, even the small tents of a medium quality level are in a price range far north of $100. Most will be over $200, and for a good design built to higher than mass-market standards, you will easily spend in excess of $300-400. OK, I can answer questions and give more opine on this money stuff later. Let me touch briefly on a couple other things. Some of your design parameters are almost mutually exclusive. Going from having a nice, airy, bug-free screen room, to battening down the hatches for a Kansas supercell, and surviving it nicely, will take some serious engineering and construction. It may be best to limit the capabilities of the boom tent to winds no more than 20 kts with light rain, or heavier rain with less wind. This would be much easier to design for. Think in terms of percentages: how often will you really need the "Perfect Storm" surviving capabilities? If the boom tent is made for lighter conditions, it will be much easier and cheaper for someone to make. You won't need the double-wall design. On a sailboat, with as much ventilation as we get, it's not really necessary. Single-wall with adequate ventilation will work just fine. I understand the desire for a lightweight, small package. However, the UV-resist capabilities of Sunbrella are unparalleled. It is expensive, but well worth it - 5+ years of constant exposure, and some of mine looks darn close to new. I would suggest you sacrifice some weight and packability, and go with at least the top of the boom tent being made from Sunbrella. Not only will this resist the elements better to last a long time, it is stronger than lightweight tent material, and will give you a long-lived "backbone" on which to build and even maintain the design. This will be important as the netting gets tears and needs replacing, when a zipper stops working, etc etc... I have seen only one mention of this being used under sail - thats good, because it'll save you a lot of boat bucs *not* to attempt to design this feature in. For that, get a bimini and a dodger, something with a solid framework. At anchor, you can use the boom as some of your structure, and save on package size and weight that way. Aluminum tent pole sections shock-corded together are not at all difficult to have produced. They should be a part of your design, definitely instead of battens or straight wooden/FRP dowel material. IMO, the best, first, and easiest thing for ya'll to do would be to look at the possibility of finding a cheaper dome-style tent that is on the market already, one that will fit the dimensions of your cockpit and/or coamings, and figure out a way to get it to set up in your cockpit. Cut the floor out of it, and you should have a pretty small-packing, cheap, lightweight shelter that will do 80% or more of what you are looking for. That's what I'd do, at least - it would definitely be the most cost-effective route. Well, there's a bunch of stuff to think about. I'll keep checking in and try to answer any questions ya'll might have, or to help in whatever way I can. Hope this helps - Kurt