Wood blue water boat opinions, would you buy one

[SKG56]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

SKG: You've done us all a great favour :-)!

I was thinking: "Whyn't he just as about kauri-wood up front?", but look what a wonderful discussion you generated! All kindsa stuff being learned by all kindsa people - and that's just the few that post. There's got to be many, many more, just lurking, who learned something from this thread :-)!

Looks, now, like it's a "go", doesn't it?

All the best!

TrentePieds

I wanted to keep this close, but, this one is mine if I want it, so I decided to come clean with more spec, I've never considered a wood boat until this one, so I wanted to generate a discussion on the subject, and it's been very informative, so much more to learn though, so much, I wish there was a way to determine the weight of the ballast, on a 34k boat it's got to be, I don't know, 7-8k, what do you think, if anybody has an idea how to determine this, I would like to hear it, okay, here it is
"Walrus"35' LOD serious crusing ketch

[TrentePieds]

I wouldn't be too concerned about the precise ballast ratio since stability is the name of the game. Stability is achieved via two things: form stability, which is a function of hull shape, and weight of ballast, which is chosen by the designer to complement the form stability in such a way that the boat has positive righting moment up the a certain angle of heel.

That certain angle in any of these Colin Archer "Redningsskoite" designs is beyond the angle of heel that brings her "rail down", and way beyond the angle by which the wet patch under the helmsman is not sea water :-)


The 34K seems reasonable for a hull of this design. Here is a rough test – very rough - and you can play around with the numbers to see what you get:


LWL * BWL * Draft * Block Coefficient * specific weight of water = Displacement


Therefore: 30 * 10 * 4 * .45 * 64 = 34,560


So the owner's statement that D = 34K is probably right on the nose. Another number you can play with is the “lbs per inch immersion”


LWL * 10 * Area Coefficient * 1/12 * 64 = 30 * 10 * .65 * 1/12 * 64 = 1,040


This number tells you that for every half ton of “cargo” you take aboard she'll settle 1” on her lines


These numbers are close enuff for your present purposes. The two coefficients I've suggested are typical for hulls of this genre. To determine them accurately you'd have to “take off the lines”, and given the ship's history and the fact that she looks in all respects to be within the acceptable range of parameters, that wouldn't be worth the effort.


I think you'll find that she'll be a fine sea-boat. So perhaps it comes down to whether you are willing to contract another marriage, and whether your present wife (if you have one) is willing to tolerate a mistress that will – inevitably – remove you from her bosom :-)!


TrentePieds

[Schooner Chandlery]

With the copper rivets she may not have the motion/working of a nailed or screw fastened hull. Otherwise the hull would have been refastened at least once by now if not twice. Ask the owner for all maintenance records including before his ownership. If you don't have a good wooden boat surveyor pm me I know a couple good folks in the Bay Area. Look for cracked frames, condition of floors, find out when the keel bolts were redone since that would have also happened during the boat's life. Hopefully the owner has a lot of info for you. If he's a member of the Master Mariners (Bay area wooden boat group) that's a good sign because maybe he's kept up with things.

Is that just paint on the cabin or has it been glassed? It probably has rot under it if not just paint.

Good luck figuring out things. If your cruising boat budget is close to the price of the boat I do suggest you look for a fiberglass boat but if you've got reserves (think at least 2x the boat price) to repair any surprises then you're well armed. 😀



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[Schooner Chandlery]

Oh. On the ballast if it's lead you can just take measurements of the lead portion of the keel and do the math to figure volume and then multiply by density of lead.

Our keel had been modified about 10 years after the boat was launched and we weren't sure of the exact ballast so did that math to see what the difference from design weight of keelwas.


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[LakeSuperior]

The yawl I sail was home built by my father who was a perfectionist. It was 20 years in construction.

It is strip planked teak (1960's old growth from Thailand) on white oak dead wood and cold molded frames. Glued with resorcinol and edge nailed with monel ring nails. The remaining fasteners are silica bronze.

The hollow spars are resorcinol glued sitka spruce without fasteners.

I have found that wooden boats are warmer and tend not to sweat on the interior like fiberglass. They are beautiful to the eye and you have the feeling you are on a "real" boat, like the old days I guess, so very nostalgic.

I have found the maintenance to be about 20 to 30 percent more than an equivalent glass boat.

[TrentePieds]

I didn't comment on "copper rivets".

On a boat this size and this age??? Not likely, but I spose strange things are found. If she is carvel plank it certainly wouldn't be "rivets", it would be screws or drifts, most likely the former, but unless you are "into" stuff like this, I spose a drift could be mistaken for a rivet. If the fastenings are indeed copper, that would indeed be a problem and bei mir that would be a deal breaker. But it is unlikely that anyone would have been that daft. Silicon bronze or manganese bronze is more likely what they are, and that's okay. Gun metal ("red brass" to Americans, "bronze" in modern parlance) is okay too. Silicon bronze and manganeze bronze are just plain old gun metal with a coupla percent of the indicated metal added for even greater hardness and corrosion resistance.

None of the bronzes even look like copper or feel like copper.

TrentePieds

[coastalexplorer]

Perhaps Sam will now tell us how he is going to get his new to him sailing vessel from NZ to Thailand?
There is a potentially interesting cold moulded sailing vessel for sale in Vancouver for asking $20,000 firm offer but that is even more distance to get it home. So much for scuttle butt?

[Schooner Chandlery]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

I didn't comment on "copper rivets".

On a boat this size and this age??? Not likely, but I spose strange things are found. If she is carvel plank it certainly wouldn't be "rivets", it would be screws or drifts, most likely the former, but unless you are "into" stuff like this, I spose a drift could be mistaken for a rivet. If the fastenings are indeed copper, that would indeed be a problem and bei mir that would be a deal breaker. But it is unlikely that anyone would have been that daft. Silicon bronze or manganese bronze is more likely what they are, and that's okay. Gun metal ("red brass" to Americans, "bronze" in modern parlance) is okay too. Silicon bronze and manganeze bronze are just plain old gun metal with a coupla percent of the indicated metal added for even greater hardness and corrosion resistance.

None of the bronzes even look like copper or feel like copper.

TrentePieds

Copper rivets are indeed used on planking for boats of varying sizes. Carvel planked boats may have, holding the planking on, 1. boat nails made of steel, iron, galvanized or not 2. screws, bronze (never heard of other than silicon bronze but suppose someone somewhere might make other bronze alloys) or galvanized steel/iron depending on age. 3. Copper rivets -- more common on boats built outside of the USA than here in the USA. 4. Bolts of varying design and materials as above (other than copper of course). 5. larger boats might see wood trunnels but that is very rare in construction post 1900.

I have never seen nor heard of drifts used in planking applications. They are used in deadwood and in some keel appliations. Our boat has every other floor bolted and every other one drifted, for example. All deadwood held by drifts. There are numerous books on traditional wooden boat construction that you can use to reference proper fastener sizes, materials, and schedules to meet the requirements of Lloyds, Nevins (yard), Herreshoff (designer), as well as particular naval architects.

I would have liked to refasten our hull with copper rivets but the size required was just large enough to make it cost prohibitive to do so. We used bronze screws.

Copper rivets last and last and last. Even so, it sounds like the particular vessel has been used a lot so there would be some working expected at frame to floor, frame to deck beam, shelf, clamp, and other important structural elements. The bilge stringers, structural bulkheads, deck beams, and any number of other important elements may be close to end of life and should be thoughtfully looked over by a qualified engineer, NA, or surveyor if the OP expects to actually cruise with this boat. JMHO.

[TrentePieds]

Hi Schooner, yes I concur with everything you say, suspecting that we are just using different jargon because, as someone said, Canada and the US are two nations divided by a common language ;-0)!

Here, in the US as far as I know, and certainly in my native Norden, what I call rivets (in a boatbuilding context) are used in lapstrake construction, mainly in quite small boats where the planking is thin and the lands require fastening. For this application the rivet has to pass through a roove, onto which the blank end of the rivet, having been nipped to length, is clenched or upset. Never seen that in a grown-up ship :-)

Rivets as used in steel construction and boiler-making is a whole different bag of chips.

Three city blocks from my parents' last home in a small coastal town in Denmark there was - and still is - a yard where the last wooden ships for the Greenland trade were built. It was wonderful to behold. The frames, white oak, were paired, spaced about 4" within the pairs and 12" betwixt. Sided maybe 5", and moulded 8". The whole was then double planked with 2" white oak. This construction was meant to be ice-resistant lest a ship should be crushed when caught in pack ice. Can't build 'em like that any more. The oak just ain't there!

The planking was drifted on to the frames with wrought iron drifts. Memory is fading but I would say they were about 3/4" diameter. The thinking behind wrought iron, I was told is that the peening creates the head that holds the plank. The roughness of the shank of the drift within the frame caused by corrosion of the iron generates so much friction that the drift can never shift. Making iron sickness work for you, eh :-)?

This woulda been in the early '70s. Geezers who were then the age that I am now worked in teams of three. One geezer bored for the drift, another, a few frames after him, would hold the drift in the bore with tongs while it got started. Third geezer with a 14# sledge would whack the drift till it was well and truly started. Then the one with the tongs would lay them down and grab his own fourteen pounder, and taking turns these two would alternatingly address the drift till it was home. Absolutely splendid to watch those old boys 15 feet up on the staging swinging those sledges :-)

TrentePieds

[Schooner Chandlery]

Rivets, as you describe them, yes, are used in quite large construction of yachts. In "grown-up ship" as you say. Somewhere in my pics I've got a lovely one of the rivets in a 65 ft Alden yawl -- the inside of the boat, frames and whatnot back by the engine compartment.

That is indeed a sad thing you describe--putting together white oak, known to be degraded by contact with iron/steel, and wrought iron drifts. How strange.

[SKG56]

Originally Posted by coastalexplorer

Perhaps Sam will now tell us how he is going to get his new to him sailing vessel from NZ to Thailand?
There is a potentially interesting cold moulded sailing vessel for sale in Vancouver for asking $20,000 firm offer but that is even more distance to get it home. So much for scuttle butt?

For one thing, it's not in NZ, for another, I can get a good seaboat from anywhere in the world to Thailand, even though I've been living in Thailand since 09, living may not be the right word, it's been my base, which is not my primary destination when I go

[South Pacific]

Hi there SKG56. Kauri is a great boat building timber. Is has good resistance to rot and insects, and is a beautiful timber to work with. When Walrus was built there was an ample supply of good quality heart kauri available which will last for centuries if she was well built. According to the advert it is “triple planked” not carvel. If so it should be a good sound watertight hull, this building method was used back in the 1800’s and there are many examples still sailing today. It is basically cold moulding without the glue, but they would often use red lead between the skins.
Areas to check; Anywhere that fresh water can gain access and there is no ventilation, around the stem and at the stern (I was going to say quarters, but being a double ender it doesn’t have any), and the decks, carling etc. Check the stem and keelson as any deterioration there would be reason to walk away.
Can you post some photos of the inside of the hull?
Happy sailing.

[OneLeggedParrot]

Originally Posted by SKG56

...if you were in the market for a long distance cruiser would you or would you not consider one?...

Absolutely.
I had one for 25 years or so.

There's some things to know about wood though that are particular for world cruising.

(1) It's HARD to find good wood to do repairs with. Say, if you need to replace some planks - took us TWO YEARS to source about 6 planks last time we had to replace. If you GET a wood boat, and can find an old industrial support beam from some ancient building and store it somewhere, DO SO. We managed to find a huge old beam from an old factory that was old growth timber- had it milled up for a few $$$
(2) The DECKS and TOPSIDES in the tropics are more important to be in good shape than the hull IMHO -seams tend to open up in the heat of the tropics. That means rain comes in and if you go sailing and the boat heels, you get water inside. Salt water is ok, but rain water is eventual death to the boat. GOOD DECKS and tight seams are important.
(3) That methods for fixing wood boats are well proven. Wood has been around for ages, of course. I think they are EASY to fix, and one can do so cheaply with some learning. TAR and COTTON for seams and corn starch and sand for the deck seams, etc... again, it's the wood itself -old growth tight grain wood is more and more rare, and you'll have to hunt HARD if you ever need repairs done. Most MOST boats we see of wood on the market now (besides cold molded, which is better actually IMHO) are ON the market and at low prices if they need repairs BECAUSE it's so hard to find wood, I think.
(4) Tropical worms. Wood has this particular vulnerability in the tropics to worms. Wood boats need extra work and care, and that means money, to be in the tropics. You can't let the hull go a few years, or you can lose the boat.

So with that in mind, as long as you don't have dry rot masquerading as good wood, a wood boat is a proven world class material.

That said, as I get older, I think I'd go with FRP or at most cold-molded boat -something more common and typical. Wood is beautiful and easy if you do carpentry, but it's just getting too difficult to find good old-growth or hardwood or the kinds of wood boats used to be made out of that made them so well built.

...My $0.02

p.s.
That Walrus is a nice design. Not having seen the interior or more details (we were considering it, but he's hard to get a hold of AND withholding on details we'd need to know) and not having looked at it and combed it with a fine-tooth comb for dry rot, I decided to not even pursue it. IF YOU ARE SERIOUS about his boat, HAUL IT OUT and get the undersides SERIOUSLY inspected. It will be about $400 for the haul out, in and out in one day, and have a SERIOUSLY experienced wood boat restorer to survey the below-the-waterline (and anything else you can afford to have them do). That will be money WELL SPENT and for Mike to get a sale, I'm sure he would take it off the final price AND let you do it. DO NOT SKIP ON THIS.

I got my first boat without doing it and it seemed solid as a tank. Then a year later we found the dry rot in a perrrrrfect glassy glossy hull, hidden from leaks from the deck from everyone- just paint holding it together. We only found it from the inside while trying to mount a piece of wood on a rib -the outside seemed solid- but it was just a thin shell with hard layers of paint. Had we gone voyaging, the first storm would have sunk the boat. Walrus MUST have a good survey done on the hull, or just send me your money, since you run a big risk of throwing it away.

Make sure the surveyor knows wood boats and is a highly experience wood boat restorer-repair person and will do a seriously thorough dry-rot search. Then have them give you an estimate (which is why you want a pro restoration person, not some layman or general surveyor) on how much they would charge you to do the work they find.

You'll probably get it for quite a bit less than what he's asking. Not to screw Mike over, but unless it's a pristine boat and really solid construction, I don't think it's worth 24k.

SURVEY SURVEY SURVEY!!!!

oh, and it's a great design albeit a bit slow but you won't mind as long as you provision up!

[bailsout]

A guy from another dock came over to look at my Herreshoff 28 ketch, double-planked mahogany on oak frames. After a couple of minutes of looking her over inside and out, he said, "Wow, this is a real boat." I know, pretty corny, but it stuck with me. Working on her is a labor of love. And I never met any boat, new or used that didn't need work.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by South Pacific

Hi there SKG56. Kauri is a great boat building timber. Is has good resistance to rot and insects, and is a beautiful timber to work with. When Walrus was built there was an ample supply of good quality heart kauri available which will last for centuries if she was well built. According to the advert it is “triple planked” not carvel. If so it should be a good sound watertight hull, this building method was used back in the 1800’s and there are many examples still sailing today. It is basically cold moulding without the glue, but they would often use red lead between the skins.
Areas to check; Anywhere that fresh water can gain access and there is no ventilation, around the stem and at the stern (I was going to say quarters, but being a double ender it doesn’t have any), and the decks, carling etc. Check the stem and keelson as any deterioration there would be reason to walk away.
Can you post some photos of the inside of the hull?
Happy sailing.

Just a clarification, carvel planking does apply to single, double, and even triple planking. Multiple layers usually run diagonal to the final outer layer to give strength to the entire hull. Triple layers usually means the two diagonal layers go in opposite direction to each other. A very, very expensive way to build a hull. Only seen double planking but heard of triple. The hull basically does not flex or very little flex compared to single planking. If you want to go overboard, the final layer can be clinker which would give it additional strength.