BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Wooden Yacht restore and maintenance cost questions & advice please.

Bruce in Bangkok[_5_]

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:19:22 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Hi,

I have a series of questions that could possibly be served by a chat
with a decent Yacht surveyor but I would like some real life feedback
before starting to engage professionals. Consider me to be
researching.

To be quite frank it is probably impossible to furnish you with a
guess as repairs to wooden boats always seem to grow as you work. What
started as scrapping some teak and revarnishing ends up as replacing
the keel timbers. I saw a plywood catamaran, in Singapore, that
started as "a couple of soft spots on the keel" and a year later they
had replaced the planking and structural members all the way to the
deck. The last time I saw the boat the bills were over $100,000 and
still growing.

As far as maintenance costs go, research back copies of Practical Boat
Owner as some years ago there was an article written by a bloke that
owned a Channel Cutter. He was selling it as maintenance costs had
reached a point that he couldn't keep up. He planned on selling the
boat, which was built in the 1800's (I believe) and having a
fiberglass replica built in Canada.

I recently saw Gypsy Moth IV when it passed through Phuket. To get an
idea of rebuilding costs do some research on her. I was told it was
"millions".

In short, rebuilding a wood boat, which would have been in the 1970's
or earlier, is a tremendously expensive undertaking.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct email address for reply)