derbrym,

You have a small problem there.

Victory was not afloat last time I saw her. she was in a concrete
cradle and the conservetor I spoke to said he did not think she would
float if they allowed the attempt. She has recorded four rebuilds (more
on that later)

Constitution has also been rebuilt four times. When I discussed this
with some of the people that worked on her most recently, (I knew a few
of them) the best guess then was that she was less than 5% original
wood. That would be the inner keel, lower fretlocks and floors.

The word rebuild is old navy. It seems that, in days of yore, a navy
was allowed just so many ships. When one good too rough to maintain,
they would "rebuild" it. This was a job where they would take the ship
into a drydock two ships long and then strip all the guns, rigging and
fittings of the old hull build a new hull infront of it. Since they
would pull the inner keel, lower fretlocks and floors out of the
original hull, that would pretty much lock them into the same ship they
just brought in. By the time the rebuild was done, there was no
original hull left, but there was a new Constitution ready for sea.

The Constellation was first built in 1797 as one of the American super
frigates. This was the catagory that would soon include the
Constitution. In 1855, she was rebuilt and came back out as a smaller
and lighter corvette. The name was never striken and the "ship" was not
decommissioned until 1945 or so - I leave taht for you to decide.

Matt Colie


derbyrm wrote:
Both HMS Victory and USS Constitution are wooden and are over 200 years old.
It's just a question of maintenance.

Roger

http://home.insightbb.com/~derbyrm

"Jasper Windvane" wrote in message
news:2Wuxf.2794$7l4.1644@trndny03...

Here is the scenario; find an old wooden sailboat, circa 1955, and speak
to owner. He wants boat gone.

Boat is very cheap. It is a caravel planked boat. It has been taken
cared of but the last couple of years that has been by the local marina.
Many things have been done to the boat. New keel bolts, for example.

But, it still is a wood hull.

Question: is this boat worth investing time and energy in, how many more
years of life does the wooden hull have, will the boat need a complete
rebuild, etc...

Any and all thoughts.

Jasper