question re: time on the hard

[mbranniff]

New to the world of wooden boats (I love my new old boat and want to try to take great care) I've got a probably idiotic question. Is it a bad idea to store a wooden boat out of the water for an extended period of time (like four months)? Help, please, wooden boat gurus.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

:D :D :D :D :D Just smiling cuz I look at the ice in the bay every morning...

I suppose it is in the technical sense, but I live on the shores of Lake Ontario, and my boat comes out about the end of october and goes in about the first week in April (if I'm lucky)so thats the normal cycle for us northern wooden boaters.It doesn't create a world of difficulties. :D Now salties are different so you'll have to wait for their routines.

[Mrleft8]

Seattle is so humid, it probably won't hurt it. You gotta figure boats are hauled for long periods just about everywhere, even if it's just for major repairs, not out of season storage. When you drop her back in the drink, she'll weep a bit, but that's normal.

[ishmael]

What kind of boat?

Living in Seattle gives you the perfect situation, where a boat can be in the water all the time and not be a nuisance in the winter. An annual or so haul to scrub and paint the bottom.

If you have to haul, then keeping the stay on land as short as possible is a good thing. It is hard on a carvel planked hull to dry out and then soak up, over and over.

If done properly, with careful blocking, a proper cover, and for as short a time as practicable, it doesn't have to be a problem.

[Ed Harrow]

As was said, boats have been hauled out as long as there have been boats. A couple of years ago Paul Haley did a piece in WoodenBoat on this subject.

The issues vary with type of boat or, more correctly materials/building method. If plywood, not a big deal at all. On the other hand, if glued seam construction significant stresses can occur as the wood shrinks and the glued together seams want to expand... Also, of course, the local climate will play a part. A few months out of the water in Seattle and the boat won't even know she's not floating, LOL.

[mbranniff]

Thanks, folks, for the word. Yes, my boat is carvel planked on frame, not glued, so that's not an issue. And she's actually staying where I bought her, up on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. (a misnomer if I've ever heard one), so that's a good thing. Up there it seems to make Seattle feel like San Diego most of the time. cheers. feeling better now. :D

[Eric Sea Frog]

Hm...The caulking tend to dry in time, though the wood doesn't want too much dampness.
A contradiction there. Means: a compromise to be found.

[Roger Cumming]

An excellent queston. Let's think about the mechanics of the carvel planked boat in the water and out. The wood shrinks and swells much more across the grain than longitudinally as its moisture content changes. Planks are fastened to frames, whose function is to keep the planks in place in relation to one another. When the boat comes out of the water, the screws (or rivets) fastening the planks to the frames must resist the tendency of the planks to shrink across the grain, or become more narrow. This change in width stresses the fastening causing it to loosen. The longer the time out of water, the greater the shrinking, the more the stress. The more this is repeated, the looser the fastening gets. The fastenings lose their ability to keep the planks in place, the boat leaks. A long-ended boat will "hog", losing its original shape.

What can you do to avoid this? 1. Keep her in the water year round, haul her only for bottom maintenance. 2. Move to a place where winters are cold and wet. 3. Haul her late, treat the bottom to keep it moist, commission her early. 4. Trade her for a boat of different construction such as strip planked or cold molded wood-epoxy.

[ahp]

When I had a wood boat on Long Island Sound, I had her hauled at the end of October and not launched until April. Almost everyone else did the same because of ice.

The boatyard recommended swabbing the bottom with lindseed oil and turps after the bottom surface was dry and clean to prevent further drying. They claimed the worst drying occured in March.

[Dale Genther]

Here on the Chesapeake we usually have our carvel planked sloop hauled out the first week in Dec. and put back in the last week of Mar. With this schedule we have little shrinkage taking place. The marina puts in on a Fri afternoon, leaving us slightly supported by the travelift slings. By Sat. morning were ready to go. One year due to some work we needed to do, we were hauled out the middle of Oct. and put back in the middle of Apr. I was shocked how much water came in at first, however within 36 hours it had almost stopped. As previously noted most of the shrinkage seemed to happen in Mar til April. This winter, again due to some needed work, we were hauled out in Oct. and probably won't be back in until April. This year before going back in, I'm going to try pre-soaking the bottom. Since my marina would not allow my to keep a sprinkler on the boat for 24 to 36 hours straight, I'm going to try an experiment. I got two surplus timers and a solenoid valve from work. I'm going to wire the timers up to the solenoid valve so that I can turn the water on to a sprinkler for an easily adjustable lenght of time (say 5 minutes every half an hour), just enough to keep the bottom wet for 48 hours. Has anyone tried something like this or have any opinions on the chance of success?.

[imported_Jimmy]

somebody here told me about a trick they used before putting their boat back in the water. They put a humidifier in her for several days before launching and she swelled up and hardly leaked when put back in the water. I wonder if some variation on this idea might help with longer term storage?

[JormaS]

Dale,

I´ve had my 36 ft teak hull hauled now fore more than a year. Will launch next May and I expect it to leak very little, if at all.

Last April I provided the hull with a skirt from tarps hanging from deck level to ground, with some weights keeping them attached to the ground. Several tarps overlapped each other maybe 4 ft, I tried to make it as tight as possible. In a windy place it´s very difficult to get a tight skirt. The tarps should be of a dark color.

Inside the skirt I installed a plastic hose on each side of the hull, plugged at the bow end and connected via a Y piece at the stern end to an electric water pump. The hoses were fixed to a height of 3 ft above ground with a clearance of about 2 ft to the hull. Four spraying nozzles were attached to each hose. The nozzles were of a type which brakes the water into a fine mist (they are normally used in greenhouses).

Between the nozzles and the pump there was an efficient filter (the nozzles actually never clogged). The pump drew water from the sea some 20 yards away. The pump had a simple timer allowing for a minimum running time of 15 minutes.

The pump was set to run at preset intervals in day time only, and depending on atmospheric conditions. The exact times have to be found by trial and error.

The intention was to keep the air moisture inside the "tent" as close to 100% humidity as possible. In actual practise, it oscillated between 90 and 100%. The idea was not to let the wood get below it´s fiber saturation point which is about 24% with teak. This was pretty well achieved even during the dryest spring and summer months. If a seam opened up a bit it was because the weather was both dry and windy and the "tent" had too much ventilation. The seams closed again in a few days when the pump was given more running time.

There was no appreciable mold growth on the hull. All hatches were closed and floor boards kept in place in order not to let the hull lose too much moisture on the inside. Two port holes were left open, though. I should add that the free standing winter cover was left in place.

In short, the idea was not to wet the hull directly (because it´s difficult to do evenly and also because there would be an almost continuous stream of water on the ground which the yard owner does´nt like very much) but to wet the air around the hull instead. As bonus it keeps the top sides from drying up as well.

One has to keep in mind that this procedure leaves a very narrow margin because the wood´s moisture content cannot possibly be kept above fiber saturation point. When air moisture goes down, the wood starts shrinking immediately. Close monitoring is a must, unless the pump is controlled by an air moisture detector of some kind.

Generally speaking, I don´t think boats hauled only for the winter need this kind of moisture control. Hulls start to dry rapidly only in the spring when the surrounding air becomes dryer and winds start blowing. Moving air is the principal factor and therefore a tight enough skirt is always a good device.

Hope this helps.

Jorma

[Ed Nye]

Ok, so post a picture of this new old boat so we all can share. Also for you folks that don't live in the PNW, it isn't all that humid here. I've seen any number of boats hauled for extended periods that you can see through.
Ed