Why Sail Wooden Boats? [Archive] - The WoodenBoat Forum

outofthenorm

11-11-2009, 04:13 PM

Why a wooden boat?

http://www.me.com/ro/outofthenorm/Galleries/100013/100_0031/web.jpg?ver=12326503300001

Because every wooden boat is an individual, unique and irreplaceable. No two Beetle Cats, or Concordia yawls, or Thistles, or Alden schooners are exactly alike. Each stick of wood has a character of its own, and so each boat has a character of its own. The piece of Honduran mahogany that forms the bridgedeck on my cutter is 10 inches tall and 6 feet long. It's a flat-sawn plank with 8 coats of good varnish, and in some lights the swirls of its grain look every bit like a map of the Milky Way Galaxy. I've spent many, many hours during the last 25 years, sipping a good whiskey and pondering, drawn in to that bit of grain.

Every wooden boat is the creation of many hands: the designer, the builders, the owners, her crews and, extending the circle wider, the logger, sawyer and lumber merchant, the foundryman, sailmaker, engine builder and chandler. I like being the person standing at the sharp end of that line of people. I like the responsibility and the fact that she needs me as much as I need her. I like meeting people who "knew her when" and have a story to tell of her from 30 or 40 or 50 years ago.

I like the feel, the look and the smell of fresh cut wood. I also like the colour of old wood at sunset, when the light slants in low. I enjoy laying on varnish and polishing a bit of brass. I love the power and resiliency I sense in her varnished Sitka spars, stout cedar planking and tough old oak frames. I love the sound of the wind in the basket weave of her gaff rig. I love the hush when I go below.

I've been around wooden boats for more than 50 years and with this particular boat for more than half that. With luck we'll get another good decade or two, or three together. Then I hope someone else can fall in love with that fantastic, universal swirl that marks her as something special, and will care enough to take her as far and as long as she wants to go.

- Norm

Peerie Maa

11-11-2009, 04:27 PM

johnw

11-11-2009, 04:29 PM

Well said, Norm. I like that a lot.

johnw

11-11-2009, 04:33 PM

I too love wooden boats. I am fascinated by the different ways wood was joined together to suit the available timber, the service (harsh or benign) that the hull would be used in, and the intended purpose.
Although you can perpetuate ugliness, tree wood tends to encourage you to make eye-sweet shapes. A properly traditionally built boat can be progressively repaired until new.
"Congealed snot" makes ugliness easy, and is unpleasant to repair. It is easy to build badly without that being obvious.
I recall reading a few years ago that owners of fiberglass racing boats were keeping the rig and the gear and building new hulls to the latest racing rule. Unlike wooden boats, they can't be repaired piece by piece, so they trashed the hulls when they required too much repair.

With planing powerboats the mode of failure tends to be that the hull has finally taken too much pounding, and cracks in the structure of the bottom make the boat unsafe. Solution: new hull.

I do like the fact that old boats live on because people love them, and keep fixing them.

Thorne

11-11-2009, 04:34 PM

I'd rather sand or cut wood than grind fiberglass...and any mistakes fit into the fireplace quite nicely...:D

BobW

11-11-2009, 05:07 PM

I'm late to the party - having sailed predominantly FG boats since the late '60s (no, not a solid 40 years of sailing as life had a way of interrupting things...) - but I am learning a new appreciation for wooden boats, the tools used to build them, and the people who build them.

John - I like what you had to say and how you said it.

Norm - that was beautiful...

Thorne - I, too, would rather cut or sand wood than grind FG

Bob

John Smith

11-11-2009, 06:37 PM

I recall reading a few years ago that owners of fiberglass racing boats were keeping the rig and the gear and building new hulls to the latest racing rule. Unlike wooden boats, they can't be repaired piece by piece, so they trashed the hulls when they required too much repair.

With planing powerboats the mode of failure tends to be that the hull has finally taken too much pounding, and cracks in the structure of the bottom make the boat unsafe. Solution: new hull.

I do like the fact that old boats live on because people love them, and keep fixing them.

I've had boats made of several materials: wood, fiberglass, and aluminum. And plastic.

I like wood. Maybe because I grew up with wood; I like the smell of the sawdust.

It's my theory, and just that, a theory, that in the days when boats were made of wood, they were designed for the water. When fiberglass came to be, and more mass production followed, boats were designed for the showroom.

Remember those shiny chrome cleats, and how nasty they looked after the salt water splashed on them? I think that era ended, and some really nice, seaworthy fiberglass boats have come to be.

I also think, regardless of material, there are well built and not so well built boats.

Garret

11-11-2009, 07:23 PM

All great responses. Of those currently posted, Norm's wins though. Thanks Norm!

Since I own (maybe I have that backwards? Think I do ;-) an older gal, I have to add history to the mix. First though, the patina/color/feel of 65+ year old varnished teak, the wear spots on bronze fittings, the incredible grain of the mast swooping up into the sky, the curve formed by planks tailing up to the curve of the transom, the meld of different types of wood to create a whole that's way more than the sum of its parts, feeling everything settle in & go "Aaaahhh...." as you put the rail just above the water, right were she's happiest.
http://www.automatesoftware.com/neoga/mastsm.jpg
But then there's the frame repair (oak frames) that utilized a piece of balustrade that looks like it came out of an old courthouse (yes I left it in & sistered next to it - too good to lose - what courthouse I wonder?), the folding bow roller cast to fit & blend in just so, the remaining pillow blocks of an ancient steering gear that no longer goes anywhere, the writing you find on a piece of wood that you've sanded just right, the discovery of some nice casting that was buried - but polished anyway.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

I'll add that if you get, you get it - if not, you don't.

My 1.8 cents.... Thanks for the thread!

johnw

11-11-2009, 07:23 PM

It may be that one factor is that fiberglass tolerates neglect so much better than wood. Bad glass boats last, bad wood boats don't get the care that gets lavished on boats people really like, so they rot away and die off.

willmarsh3

11-11-2009, 08:07 PM

I like wood for the looks. It is a warm and personal material that often stands in stark contrast to the impersonal world. I can easily work it with my own hands and tools. Few things match the sense of accomplishment of sailing a boat that I built.

JimD

11-11-2009, 08:31 PM

At this point I'd be willing to build a glass hulled boat finished with wood from the deck up, except I'm not willing to learn new methods. So I will continue with plywood, which it can be argued is only a means to an end that has little to do with wooden boats.

JMAC

11-11-2009, 09:14 PM

I can't improve on some of the writing here, but I will mention that I love the sound of the water on a wooden hull.

Garret

11-11-2009, 09:24 PM

I can't improve on some of the writing here, but I will mention that I love the sound of the water on a wooden hull.

Good one!:D

jclays

11-12-2009, 10:15 AM

Wooden boats have a different feel. They feel alive. Even the small wood dingy has a feel. Its a warmth, The solid silence as the hull moves thru the water.

TimH

11-12-2009, 10:23 AM

Wood boats in the day were designed and built for function and beauty. Asthetics and seaworthiness went hand in hand. I believe if it looks right it probably is right. Except for a handful of boats fiberglass boats are designed and built more like truck campers, maximizing space at the expense of both looks and seaworthiness.
Wood has a warmth and a solid feel slicing through the waves that no other material can match.

Russ Manheimer

11-12-2009, 10:45 AM

Sjogin is a very musical boat being lapstrake. When down below in a light breeze it almost sounds like Phillip Glass composed the music. I'll try to get a recording for you all.

It's the thought of all the hand labor that goes into fashioning the oak, cedar, bronze etc. that draws me in. Each touch seems to have added something that makes the boat more than the sums of the assembled parts.

Alive indeed.

Russ

Clive P

11-12-2009, 10:59 AM

Russ Manheimer

11-12-2009, 12:12 PM

Just enough Clint, just enough.

johnw

11-12-2009, 01:21 PM

Does this mean that some people actually find time between the restoring and the maintennce and the varnishing to actually sail their wooden boats?
Just kidding, I think,Clive Pickles. 1957 wooden Dragon
Or time to sail on other peoples' boats...

But yeah, that's why there's no varnish on Black Swan.

shamus

11-12-2009, 01:24 PM

To paraphrase Robb White..
Because they don't end up on vacant lots breeding skeeters.

Garret

11-12-2009, 01:28 PM

To paraphrase Robb White..
Because they don't end up on vacant lots breeding skeeters.

Just in harbors (http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78375&highlight=portland)? :D

Rich VanValkenburg

11-12-2009, 02:15 PM

Nobody's mentioned the sound of the hull through the water. Plastic and aluminum both have a hollow, impersonal sound. I haven't heard the same with a wooden boat.

Rapelapente

11-12-2009, 03:51 PM

I recently realized that what attracts me first in a boat is it's sheer... A boat without a gentle sheer is definitively disqualified to my eyes.

And it completely disappeared in the mass produced plastic bubbles.
When sailing on a wooden boat, I frequently find myself just contemplating the rail, underlining the sheer.
Is there any genetic reason to that ? A relation with the woman body curves ?
Is the sheer sensual?

TimH

11-12-2009, 04:04 PM

I recently realized that what attracts me first in a boat is it's sheer...

Like this? :D

http://willshomepage.homestead.com/Free_Wind.side_view.04_op_640x451.jpg

Or maybe not so much sheer like this?

http://www.chooseyouritem.com/boats/photos/294500/294624.jpg

TimH

11-12-2009, 04:06 PM

God I make myself sick sometimes :)

KAIROS

11-12-2009, 04:10 PM

Nobody's mentioned the sound of the hull through the water. Plastic and aluminum both have a hollow, impersonal sound. I haven't heard the same with a wooden boat.

Sound, yes. And taste. Wood tastes better than plastic and metal (ask a ship-worm ;))

Since there is no ceiling down below in my sailboat, I am surrounded by the structure and the craftsmanship that went into it. The shapes that real wood can be bent to seem most pleasant to me. Always pleasing curves.

Then, too, when I leave the boat, and look back at it sitting there in the water, it just look good....partly because of the shapes which a wood boat can have.

TimH

11-12-2009, 04:12 PM

what kind of boat is that?

KAIROS

11-12-2009, 04:16 PM

what kind of boat is that?

Which boat?

Russ Manheimer

11-12-2009, 04:22 PM

As an antidote to Tim's example here's my favorite sheer. I love it when there's about an inch or so of freeboard left and the waves match the rails, quarter wave hissing at your shoulder.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2713/4076983748_26de7df35b.jpg

Russ

Russ Manheimer

11-12-2009, 04:36 PM

And here's an example of simple curves:

http://static.flickr.com/30/62524597_8112fa7041.jpg

Russ

Garret

11-12-2009, 04:38 PM

God I make myself sick sometimes :)

Aw c'mon... All they're guilty of is packing a 40 footer's interior into a 25 footer. Think how many newbies that grabbed at the boat shows!

Oh, and making her look as though she'll fall over sideways.

OK, and making one ugly boat! :D

[edit] The filthy fender protecting against nothing & covering the portlight is a nice touch.

zydecotoad

11-13-2009, 07:11 AM

I feel like an agnostic in Church on this site. I love sailing wooden boats, it's owning one that I avoid.

TimH

11-13-2009, 11:52 AM

I went down to the marina last saturday and it was lowing pretty good. My Typhoon (really low windage) was heeling slightly in her slip from the wind.
Id hate to see what those monstrosities with 5' of freeboard do when the wind blows.

johnw

11-13-2009, 01:13 PM

I feel like an agnostic in Church on this site. I love sailing wooden boats, it's owning one that I avoid.
Nothing wrong with the Other Peoples' Yacht Club. I've been a member myself from time to time.

paladin

11-13-2009, 02:36 PM

Sailing a plastic or tin boat just ain't the same.....quiet, comfortable, and a nice smell to it......

johnw

12-21-2009, 08:23 PM

Since the other articles I wrote are linked here, I'm putting up another. Not that any of them come close to being as poetic as Norm's post.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/24392480/All-I-Ask-is-a-Small-Ship

wizbang 13

12-22-2009, 02:49 AM

Coffee tastes better on a WB

Vince Brennan

12-22-2009, 05:28 AM

Well, they also make great sleds, but getting them back up the hill is somewhat difficult on a ten-year-old.

RFNK

12-22-2009, 06:13 AM

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2713/4076983748_26de7df35b.jpg

This is nice Russ! What's the setup with your jib though? Do you have it fixed to some sort of boom or pole or do you just roll it up and store it that way to keep it off the deck? Why do you have two `forestays'? Rick

Ian McColgin

12-22-2009, 06:27 AM

I started with wooden boats because I could not find a glass boat that I could:

Sail;

Liveaboard;

Afford; and

Love.

Turns out that if a boat meets that latter criterion all the others fall in place, no matter the hull material.

Just that the odds are better that a wooden boat will fill them better. Especially as a boat grows older. On a 25 year horizon, the amortized cost plus annual maintenance of a wooden boat is considerably less than a comperable glass boat, and that assumes you can find one. Since the demise of the the CCA rule, the sweet glass hulls are fewer and farther between. And some really nice ones, like the Cherubini's, are getting built in wood also.

But the reasons are all, while valid, just rationalizations. It's love.

Dick Wynne

12-22-2009, 01:23 PM

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/64/192939897_cf6c27a268.jpg (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/64/192939897_cf6c27a268_b.jpg)

I can't put it better than Constance's builder Fabian Bush:

I must say that I have always found it more pleasant and satisfying to be afloat on a traditional-built boat ... in a way, maintenance is easier (simply using basic traditional paints and varnishes), the materials and surfaces are kinder, the smells are more pleasant, the sound of the boat sailing and at rest is more gentle and 'full'; the hand-built nature of a traditional boat is much more evident ...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/49/114758293_763ce08be8.jpg (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/49/114758293_763ce08be8_b.jpg)

Yeadon

12-22-2009, 01:42 PM

And here's an example of simple curves:

http://static.flickr.com/30/62524597_8112fa7041.jpg

Russ

I'm endlessly pleased by photos of your boat.

Harbormaster

12-22-2009, 02:01 PM

Nobody's mentioned the sound of the hull through the water. Plastic and aluminum both have a hollow, impersonal sound. I haven't heard the same with a wooden boat.

Oh and I thought that he said "the sound of the water through the hull!"

Nothing leaks like a wooden boat.

Harbormaster

12-22-2009, 02:27 PM

It's years and years ago now, but as a young idealistic crew member, I got into a summer long argument with another deck hand. I said that wooden boats were just prettier than fiberglass boats, and that it was impossible to build a really ugly wooden boat. We anchored in Pulpit Harbor and saw the Three Belles. I used it as proof that fiberglass was just an abomination. We rowed over to take a look and though the closer we got the more abominable she became, it also became obvious she was built of wood.

There are some beautiful glass boats, and some really ugly wooden ones too.

http://ic2.pbase.com/g4/63/672163/2/62780499.k0cmpbWM.jpg

And a great looking fiberglass one - I bet you couldn't do that in wood!

http://www.theclassicboathouse.com/lonestarmeteor59b.jpg

http://olered.com/sitebuilder/images/Franks_Meteor_20-766x409.jpg

2MeterTroll

12-22-2009, 02:48 PM

feel!
theres not any other material that has the helm feel of a wood boat. theres a flex to it that is hard to describe with words but my hands and body know it.

2MeterTroll

12-22-2009, 02:53 PM

It's years and years ago now, but as a young idealistic crew member, I got into a summer long argument with another deck hand. I said that wooden boats were just prettier than fiberglass boats, and that it was impossible to build a really ugly wooden boat. We anchored in Pulpit Harbor and saw the Three Belles. I used it as proof that fiberglass was just an abomination. We rowed over to take a look and though the closer we got the more abominable she became, it also became obvious she was built of wood.

There are some beautiful glass boats, and some really ugly wooden ones too.

And a great looking fiberglass one - I bet you couldn't do that in wood!

http://www.theclassicboathouse.com/lonestarmeteor59b.jpg

http://olered.com/sitebuilder/images/Franks_Meteor_20-766x409.jpg

bet your could. just takes a bit longer. parts of some of my kayaks are hand hewn from solid and they have some heavy curve. the limit with wood is time. I could get those curves out of the right log it would take time to find and time to carve it out. just sayin

RFNK

12-22-2009, 04:01 PM

Dick's Constance is a treat - thanks Dick! I like Fabian's quote too - pretty much sums it up for me. Rick

johnw

12-22-2009, 05:22 PM

It looks like an amorous female frog.

http://olered.com/sitebuilder/images/Franks_Meteor_20-766x409.jpg

Russ Manheimer

12-22-2009, 07:54 PM

Rick,

The jib on Sjogin is small enough to keep bent and furled. To stow, I set up the sheets on a pair of belaying pins on the mast. I then roll up the sail and do a simple lashing to keep it place. It's the only jib I have so it makes sense to keep it ready.

The other stay is the head stay, supporting the top of the mast. The jib-stay goes about 3/4 of the way up.

Thanks Tim.

Russ

RFNK

12-22-2009, 10:36 PM

Thanks Russ, I think I'll adopt your way of stowing the jib for my Folkboat. It looks like a really smart system to me! I'd like to see a picture of your boat under sail - I guess you've posted some?Rick

Russ Manheimer

12-23-2009, 06:52 AM

As requested:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2052/2145351008_aa1b7e8435_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2127/2145350558_66b48acc66_b.jpg

And one more showing Sjogin hove to.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/34/67212802_298808f84a_o.jpg

The first two pics taken by my son, Jeffrey. Anyone in SW Oregon/Rogue Valley want to take Jeff for a sail?

Best,

Russ

RFNK

12-23-2009, 03:24 PM

Very nice indeed Russ! Thanks! Merry Christmas! Rick

Garret

12-26-2009, 08:49 AM

http://olered.com/sitebuilder/images/Franks_Meteor_20-766x409.jpg

But it's SO ugly, it goes beyond ugliness & kinda circles back around to the other side.... I hope the fuel filler is in the back of one of the fins a la the late 50's Cadillacs it resembles. The trailer fenders are a nice touch.

Harbormaster

12-26-2009, 10:12 AM

How can you call that ugly?

http://olered.com/sitebuilder/images/Franks_Meteor_26-954x496.jpg

And here's one with backup lights - not something your average woodenboat has!

http://www.theclassicboathouse.com/lonestarmeteor59d.jpg

peter radclyffe

12-26-2009, 11:59 AM

http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy195/helpME7/img427.jpg

Susanne@PB&F

12-30-2009, 06:14 PM

Mid-to-late-50s Cadillac fins, shiny OB and placement of immaculately maintained shiny bits are some decisive 'statement'. Should be in a Museum on its own terms...

Peter Malcolm Jardine

12-30-2009, 06:56 PM

Boats made of wood have a soul. As a believer in the concept of an life after death, I cannot and will not be subject to a form of transport that cannot accompany me into the hereafter. If my boat and I should founder at sea, I fully expect to navigate through the pearly gates either under full throttle, or with sails full and little weather helm.;)

Vinny&Shawn

12-30-2009, 08:22 PM

Sailing a wooden boat is not just ownership,it is the fact that the vessel has a history,and a life story that now,you the present owner are part of. From its conception, the first owner wants a boat that suits their needs and dreams of previous experiences. All of a sudden, they are at the doorstep of a designer, builder or both. Shake hands and we're off and running. Or the first owner builds themselves.
The story begins, life happens,boats change owners, life's stories unfold and are retold.
You yourself have a dream and an eye to behold beauty, this vessel speaks to me," Will you and can you keep me?" A challenge,to be met!
You are now part of the history, the upkeep and pride of this hand wrought craft that proves itself worthy of sailing and enjoying your hand at the helm.
Some dreams last life times, some end abruptly, but there is always good times and stories to be told of each vessel that has passed through your life,to begin it's life over as part of someone else's.
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp278/vgeorge1/P1010642.jpg?t=1262226449