"DSK" wrote in message
t...

Hmm. I guess your definition of *fanatic* and mine differ. Both my
wooden boats required annual sanding to be relative smooth and free of
fairly severe paint irregularities.

???

Are you talking about taking them down to wood? Or just taking off
overcoating? Sounds like you might have had some problem I'm not familiar
with.

Unlike fiberglass hulls, wood ones (not cold-molded, however) soak up quite
a bit of water each season. You, of course, are aware of this. I'm sure
you've seen wooden hulls below the waterline after hauling that have lost
paint from the planks in areas where the wood soaked up water at the
interfaced between the wood and paint. Many owners just slop on more paint
next spring, but I sanded the wood and paint each spring before repainting.
My boats generally had about 85% adhering paint and 15% paint loss leaving
bare wood.


.... I will concede that many wooden boat owners just slop on another
coat of whatever paint happens to be sitting around in cans in the
garage. But those boats looked neglected topside as well, for the most
part. I guess I never thought I was fanatical about my boats. I just
wanted them to look good, if not perfect.


It's a boat, it's never perfect. And since I have raced almost every boat
I've ever owned, the bottom & the rig always get lots of attention. But a
wooden boat doesn't take that much more care of the bottom, or shouldn't
IMHO.


Deck and house: glass: virtually no work required, beyond a bath,

Really? No recaulking of ports & hatches? No rebedding of deck fittings?
No gel coat touch-up? No replacing crazed Lexan?


That falls under the heading of repairs, not routine maintenance.

And I thought part of your point was that wooden boats need regular
repairs & fiberglass boats don't?

My point was that wooden boats will require far more repairs and more
extensive types of repairs than fiberglass boats. Ultimately the amount and
frequency of routine and semi-routine maintenance performed on a wooden boat
will determine how extensive such repairs are. For example, if you don't
bother to paint the canvas or Dynel cover on the coach house every third
season or so, you'll wind up replacing the covering material more
frequently, or at least have to put up with leaks and cracked/crazed
covering plus the subsequent underlying rot of the wood. It's pay me now or
pay me later. I'm unaware of any fiberglass boats that need the coach roof
painted periodically.



wood: similar, except when the Dynel or canvas needs to be replaced,
which is a multi-week job encompassing many hours. Then painting is
necessary. If the deck is wood (common with wooden boats, rare with
fiberglass) a certain minimum amount of maintenance is necessary
annually.


I dunno, we own a fiberglass boat that had a teak deck until quite
recently. Right now I'm hopefully about 3/5 thru replacing it with
fiberglass, including rebuilding a few sections with rotten core. How's
that for your comparison?


The point was that wood decks are fairly rare in glass boats, but
ubiquitous on wooden boats. Once again, the glass boats in this
comparison are generally high production boats, such as Catalinas,
Hunters, Beneteaus, Jenneaus, Pearsons, Ericsons, etc. Not a whole lot
of wood decks among those.


Many Jeanneaus have teak decks. In fact I think it's a more expensive
option to get the fake plastic teak...

Anyway repair of deck core is a common issue for fiberglass boats, so
there's one more item to level the playing field.

To some degree. My boat has Airex foam coring, thus no moisture between the
laminates at all. I'm surprised that so many builders still use end-grain
balsa and plywood core material.

And I have personally put plywood/fiberglass decks on boats that to my
knowledge have lasted 15 years with no trouble. Not an uncommon scenario,
unless you're a fanatic that has to have either laid planks or canvas duck
with *just* the right amount of paint in it.




You can't simply dismiss those maintenance items.

I wasn't intending to dismiss them, just point out that the scary things
about wood boat ownership are not monthly occurences.


But when they do occur they can be very scary. At least the yard bills
can induce coronaries.


Agreed, if you can't do it yourself.

However I don't think that a person who can't do (or is willing to learn)
most of the work himself should not have a boat, wood or fiberglass.
Unless you don't mind pouring out money like water so as to have a nice
toy.


.... Pay me now, or pay me later is the mantra of wooden boat ownership.
A neglected fiberglass boat can be brought back to a fairly clean and
attractive level of condition with some buffing, cleaning, and minimal
repairs. A neglected wooden boat will require immensely more time and
money to accomplish the same task.

If it can be done at all.

At some point, the only thing that can be done is get a team of marine
archeologists to build a new boat piece by piece in the place of the old
one, and pretend it's the same boat... or take out in the back yard and
use as a self-mulching planter.


... Most wooden boats are neglected

Most boats are neglected, period.


To some degree, perhaps, but most owners do the minimally-required
maintenance at least.

Right, and that's what skews the *perception* against wooden boats.

To repeat- to keep a wooden boat in good working order is not much more
work than to keep a fiberglass boat of similar size & equipage in Bristol
shape.

You keep trying to bring up major repairs, which fiberglass boats need too
(and I'd one HECK of a lot rather saw wood than grind fiberglass), or say
that fiberglass can be neglected.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.




The annual Wooden Boat Show, sponsored by Wooden Boat magazine, was at
South Haven, MI, a few years back. I attended two seminars at that
show--one about dinghy building, and the other about wooden boat
maintenance. The instructor in the second one summed it up best when he
opened his talk with, "If you dislike working on boats, buy something
made of plastic."


Like a Corvette?

One thing I wanted to say- you mentioned the sounds of sailing a wooden
boat: it's very different from any other, and it's awesome. My boats
didn't creak very much, but the sound of water rushing by the hull was
very different, and there was a sort of purring as the rig & hull
transferred stresses back & forth. A lovely addition to the sailing
experience.

My current boat is largely silent through the water. It does create a
modest bow wave, but it's too far forward to be heard well. I really miss
the sounds from the wooden boats. Once, on a trip back from Beaver Island
on our last wooden ketch, I went below to take a nap while my wife took the
helm. I found I couldn't sleep, even though I was exhausted, primarily
because I was so entranced with the creaking and groaning of the hull as it
moved along in 18kts. of wind. I'll never forget that experience.

Go ahead and take the last response. I think we've flogged this dead horse
sufficiently.

Max