M-20 Pricing

US$22,000.

Initially, a new M-20 scow is offered at virtually the same price as the I-20 scow, seen on the page above.  The hardware would all be essentially the same, with one notable exception: there would be no asymmetrical sprit, but a double-ended spinnaker pole, a ring on the spar, and a topping lift and downhaul for the pole.

Two dilemmas present themselves when considering a new M-20, and this would have to be thrashed out with the greybeards of the M-20 class: the Rules call for an aluminum spar, and also only provide for fiberglass hulls with polyester resin or vinyl ester resin, but not epoxy resin.  The spar is not a huge issue, although anyone who starts using a carbon spar is a bit like the 20 year old who has just lost their virginity: they don't ever want to go back.

There are many used M-20 spars of aluminum available, so putting together a new boat with a used spar would be no particular challenge.  A decision to use polyester resin in a new hull, when epoxy resin was available, proven, and used in the first hull pictured on these pages: not wise.

No new M-20 hulls have been built since the M-20 Scow Builders moulds (the Johnson Boat Works moulds) were in the hands of Gray Giesfeldt, who operated OSP and built about 10 boats, ending in about 1997.  I am interested to see if there is life out there in the M-20.

In addition, for little extra money, new hulls could be built as 'bisexual' hulls: capable of being sailed with symmetrical, as well as asymmetrical spinnakers. Geoff Catlin's warhorse hull #556 is just such a boat.

Geoff makes a couple of additional points/clarifications:
-There were two more hulls pulled from the JBW moulds, in Newcastle, Ontario, after 2002.  One came South into the U.S., and the second was still unassembled when Geoff and Willie saw it in spring of 2010.
-Rudder posts were typically vertical in the M-20, while boats built as I-20s had canted rudder tubes, with the rudder shaft and rudder blade in the same plane.
-Geoff's boat #556 is the only recent M-20 with a special dispensation from the M-20 class to carry the mast on deck, not stepped on the keelson.

Willie Crear
5696 County Road 7 Southwest
Post Office Box 84
Howard Lake
Minnesota
55349 USA
e-mail: williecrear@hotmail.com
cell: 207.423.0061