There are still many boat made of wood along the coast of Maine. Last
summer, a traditional plank on frame yacht was launched not far from me.

No doubt a wooden boat requires more work. That is true.

If I were to look at a wooden boat, I would first look at the basics.
General condition. Rot. Type of wood construction. A strip plank
construction is easy to saturate with epoxy.

Unless the boat is beautiful, you should not offer much for it. The
insurance will be prohibitive.

What skills do you have? Are you a woodworker? Have you ever worked on a
wooden boat? Do you know about fastenings, rot, dead wood, keel, etc etc?

I saw an old wooden sailing boat that was for sail and she was in top notch
condition. Strip plank construction. Lots of epoxy saturation. Good paint
job. Updated engine, etc. She was beautiful. But even the owner told me
she was a lot of work. He loved her and hated her at the same time.

Another thing .. where are you planning on sailing? In the hot sun of
Florida, the decks, hull, everything starts to open up.

==========

I think you should move toward steel if you want affordable. Might not be
as pretty, but a simple metal hull can hold up.




"biz" wrote in message
...
Hi group

OK, now I've exhausted my search around usenet and the wider web for
information on this topic I thought I'd post for some fresh thoughts and
ideas.

I'm considering buying a wooden boat as a liveaboard, and I have some
major concerns. Almost everyone I come across - surveyors, brokers,
finance houses, insurance companies, usenet posters - seems to balk at it
to lesser or greater degrees. It seems established that they require
regular and vigilant maintenance. I don't want to buy a money pit, and
two marinas I've come across are so fed up with people abandoning wooden
boats they won't allow them. Any thoughts on this?

I've been quoted GBP950 (about $1800) for a survey on the hard, and the
surveyor will do an initial walk-through to see if it's worth going ahead
even to that stage. It's 45 feet long, and is carvel constructed. I don't
yet know the year or specific hull material. The beams are about 2" x 2".
I'm going to go along tomorrow and try to have as many of the floorboards
up as possible so that I can go through with a bradawl and check for
sponginess.

Think I should not risk it and try and find myself a nice tongue in
cheekeasy/ steel-shell?

Biz