Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

[shortboot]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

Woodenboat magazine as it began is a drying publication. The content of its articles as a majority doesn't relate to the skill of woodenboat building. Will not renew my subscription.

[wizbang 13]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

It ain’t called wood boat building , there is a sister publication for that, it’s called wooden boat.

[dutchpp]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

................Trees remove carbon, but the sawmill uses it - maybe that balances out? Dunno, but it still has to be way less than making fiberglass & epoxy I'd think.

May I introduce sawmill "De Rat" ( yes indeed "The Rat" ) a well known wind driven sawmill in Friesland in the Netherlands. It's frequently used by builders of traditional ships.
This guarantees an almost CO2 neutral, usually carvel, built ship.
de rat.jpg
rat2.jpg
An example in European oak;
fries jacht.jpg

[shortboot]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

don't know your point, splain

[rbgarr]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

Seeing all those boats driven ashore and totalled by recent hurricane surges makes one wonder how they've been "disposed of".

[Bruce Brown]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

As the OP here, I feel justified in wading into what appears to be a crowd of feelings which have been or expect to be hurt. I am sorry to point out, however, that we have met the enemy and he is us. Not only us but we're at the very least standing on the fringes. So how about some constructive suggestions?

An example might be this organization which, unfortunately, is operating only on the other side of the country (https://www.decarbthepassage.net/). The Island Institute here in Maine has declared that they are researching electric propulsion conversions for the lobster industry. Much simpler would be encouraging a supply of R99 and using existing engines. A campaign such as this would build a bit of moral high ground which the industry sorely needs in its fight to delay the implementation of Right Whale-friendly gear. We might even be able to buy renewable diesel for our boats too.

[sp_clark]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

Walt Kelly fan are you too, eh?

That bit about R99? Not encountered that before reading your post. Interesting stuff.

Thanks for OP'ing this thread.

[Rumars]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

I'd like to see WB commission a study of wooden boatbuilding's impact on the environment, using fiberglass construction as the control. The following are questions which might be answered:

1. per foot comparison of wooden construction with fiberglass construction e.g total construction costs
2. how worksite construction, emissions, waste disposal, and maintenance compare
3. engine emissions and effectiveness of alternative energy generation in lowering footprint
4. comparison of environmental consequences for longitudinal boat maintenance (anti-fouling, re-painting, rig replacement)
5. wood vs. fiberglass disposal carbon costs
6. carbon footprint estimates for common materials (and alternatives) like epoxies, adhesives and bedding compounds, fasteners
7. how cold molding construction effects traditional wood construction carbon footprint

I'm sure the readership can add to this list...

Your asking is to broad, comparing apples to oranges and potatoes. We have the tech to reduce "carbon footprint" but you have to be prepared to pay for it.

1. What are we comparing? Old growth burma teak vs. polyester FG? Or domestic fir vs. carbon epoxy?
2. How do we build? Steam bending? Infusion? Chopper gun? How do you heat and cool the place?
3. The shipping industry bets on two horses, methanol and ammonia.
4. Wood is not better.
5. Both are toxic waste, wood will release its carbon content by default, glass won't unless burned.
6. Very complicated, their origin and tech is to diverse. We can make plant based epoxies and carbon fiber, using renewable energy in their production. Compare with a copper nail mined in Chile, smelted in China and sold in the US.
7. Depends on the glue source. Cut veneers are a more efficient use of wood then anything else.

[AJBTC]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

These are good questions, and I don't think all that political. Every builder I know, from large commercial to small wood shop, is concerned about waste. This is just a waste question writ large.

Second, I assume the biggest waste savings would be to find an old boat and restore it, no matter what the hull material.

[AJBTC]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

don't know your point, splain

Wooden Boat Magazine is published by Woodenboat Publishing, which also publishes Professional Boatbuilder.

https://www.proboat.com/

The internet is awash with boatbuilding series videos and techniques.

[sp_clark]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

... you have to be prepared to pay for it.

Words to live by, 24/7/365 especially these days.

5. ...wood will release its carbon content by default, glass won't unless burned.

Um, glass has carbon innit?

Last I heard it's (mostly) silicon & oxygen, maybe some other trace elements. And it doesn't burn well.

[Breakaway]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

Um, glass has carbon innit?

I am almost positive the reference was to fiberglass, another material from which boats are made.

Kevin

[johnw]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

I am almost positive the reference was to fiberglass, another material from which boats are made.

Kevin

AKA GRP, or glass reinforced plastic.

[Rumars]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

Yes, my meaning was GRP. The most common recycling procedure for GRP is shredding and burning in a cement kiln. Another way is pyrolysis, wich actually recovers hydrocarbons. The biggest problem is contamination from paint and antifouling, wich require special precautions.
Landfilling the GRP keeps the carbon locked in, but of course this creates other problems.

[heimlaga]

Re: Carbon Footprint of the Wooden Boat

It is possible to build wooden boats with a rather low carbon footprints.

If I go into the our wood parcel (1,2 km from home) and cut down a few spruce trees and use my tractor to uproot some stumps for grown crooks and bring the logs to a Woodmizer band sawmill some 5 km from home and bring the timber home and sticker it the only fossil carbon emissions will be those from the chainsaw and the tractor and the sawmill. Very small amounts that is. All pats of the tree that aren't boat timber becomes either construction timber or shuttering boards or firewood. The twigs are left in the woods as fertilizer for the new trees growing up. Hardly anything goes to waste.
With those boards and crooks and some spruce saplings sawn in half for ribs and some birch for thole pins it isn't too hard to build a clinker rowboat. The only store bought materials would be nails (or rivets) and screws and a stainless steel flat bar for a keel shoe and some cotton to put between the lands. Linseed oil and tar could also be home grown but for the sake of efficiency they would be store bought.
That would make an almost entirely renewable boats built using very little natural resources and having a very small carbon footprint.