How Many Hours did it take to build a 37' LNVT? (Tuggers Vol.62)

I was running some numbers in my head today while Cetoling Nellie's companionway door and came to an obvious but startling conclusion, the number of man hours in an LNVT is huge.  Here's the back of the envelope calculation.

Given:

According to Tommy Chen 250 people work at the OEY yard in the peak years

1 person works 2000 hours/year

In 1986 OEY made 33 boats: 4-41LNs; 12-35LNs; and 17-37VTs (the peak year)

Assume:

VTs and LNs evenly split the available labor hours (there's some quibble room here)

Result:

250,000 man hours = 250 men * 1,000 hours/man

14,705 man-hours/tug = 100,000 man-hours / 17 tugs

Or

About 7-1/3 man-years/tug

That's a lot of hours!

Posted by: Dave Howell