I was thinking of buying a 70 year old wooden halvorson cruiser boat in good condition for $50,000. But know nothing about boats or how to repair them. This is what i needed to hear. Its the nice shiny interior wood and beams that appeal to me. But to be honest i i am not skilled at boat repairing and cannot afford to maintain an 70 year old wooden boat. Not to mention trying to insure it. thanks for explaining things in a way i could understand. Lucky for you that you have the slills to repair your boat, and enjoy doing it.
Thank you for this video! It was extremely informative and detailed. I was really interested in a '60s era wooden motor yacht, but due to the fact that we want to live aboard, it seems more feasible to wait until I retire to enjoy the beauty of a wooden boat and just suck it up and stick with fiberglass for now!!
Wooden boats have their attractions, but they can have maintenance issues. That said, if you buy a solid wooden boat with a sound hull and no deck leaks the maintenance will not be a lot greater than with a fiberglass boat. It will be different and require different skills. That said, a fiberglass hull can go for many years with minimal maintenance and then only need cosmetics. The same can not be said for wooden hull.
This is great information. I had conidered buying an old wooden trawler, but this confirms what others are telling me. I may have to reconsider. Thanks for sharing this.
You are welcome Lorne. One thing to note is that I keep my boat in more or less Bristol condition. My boat is also 81 years old and likely needs more work than a newer boat.
I have owned a number of small wooden sailing dinghies over the years which I've managed to maintain myself including complete deck replacement on one. I'm considering a classic 60's built wooden sailboat at the moment that has been very well maintained. At 68 years of age my wife thinks I've lost the plot! Your video was very interesting and a reality check. Will I still buy one? Probably, because there is nothing quite like a wooden boat.
You are very welcome. No one should buy a wooden boat without an understanding of what is involved in maintaining a wooden boat. There is one exception, the very rich who don't care about the cost of hiring the work done.
Can't argue with you Todd having owned my " high maintenance" motor sailer now for over 17 years. Though my reason for purchase was cost at the time against fiberglass boats ( what I have spent since on maintaining her would have given me a fleet of grp boats LoL ). I do nearly all the work myself and had to learn along the way but must say Google and RU-vid have assisted me a lot along with some good wooden boat books . Agree with you that fresh water / rain is the main bane of my life especially deck leaks and been blessed with a teak deck laid over marine ply, though washing down the decks with sea water seems to help. You make no mention of backake and the tole on the body from going up and down the ladder when on the hard lol. Are there compensations ? yes .
Thanks for the comment. Going up and down the ladder onto the boat on the hard doesn't bother me, but working on a step ladder messed my back up last year. What I hate is working on the bottom under the boat. I am getting too old though (70) and just put Tortuga up for sale. Is it worth the aches and pains? Well I had a great afternoon cruise today (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bcBkWKU26vU.html), so yes.
Great video. Having owned three wooden boats during 47 years I fully agree the points you make. If one skips the mandatory spring work, he may have an exponential amount of work next spring. Decks leaking fresh water are a big worry. The yacht I am sailing today is an example where this potential problem has been avoided. The yacht is a 40 feet mahogany ketch, built in 1957. Though the hull is wood, deck and superstructure have originally been made of aluminium, which has stayed 100 % watertight through the 65 years now. The wooden deck structures below are still as new. I have not come across any other boat with this kind of structure. You can see some pictures of the yacht if you google s/y Vesterviking.
Thanks for the comment. That sounds like a good design. I have been fighting the effects of old deck leaks now for 10 years. I removed my side and aft decks, rebuilt them with rot resistant cedar than epoxied down marine plywood and put fiberglass over that. My decks don't leak now, but you pay for deck leaks for many years when planks rot out from the inside. Thanks for the comment.
@@beliver468 Tortuga is currently under contract with a closing set for sometime in April. The Yachtworld listing is still up at: www.yachtworld.com/yacht/1936-custom-nunes-brothers-raised--deck-cruiser-7973833/ The broker will take the listing down when the sale closes.
Such an important reality check. I'm waiting to get back a survey on a 26' Skiff Kraft. The boat appears beautiful, but I'll soon find out more. I wish there was some place that would show me hands on how to perform my own repairs should this outrageous cash purchase take place.
There are several boat schools around the US, but they are expensive and not exactly geared toward the boat owner. Wooden Boat runs classes in the summer, but they are short and very expensive. Personally, I am self taught. Boat repair is not hard if you take your time and think things through. Thanks for watching my video.
@@todddunn945 I'm going to watch all your videos and learn what I can. Some of the best channels on wooden boats are too advanced for a beginner. So far, I've purchased a bad boat and thrown it away (made my losses back on the motor and trailer), then watched almost every timber boat repair/build video, read countless forums, investing several hundred hours into learning from mistakes, questions, discussions, etc. Looking forward to seeing what you've learned. I'm not above buying a plane ticket and flying out to pick your brain on everything you've learned. This sort of thing gets in your blood more than almost anything I've experienced before.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I want a antique wooden boat but was worried salt water would be bad for it. It seems most wooden boats for sale are in the north around the great lakes. I was thinking fresh water was better on the hulls.
No, just the opposite, although rain water is what is really bad because of the rot spores it carries. What saves great lakes boats is the fact that they are only used seasonally. Also smaller boats, like Chris Craft and Garwood runabouts have quite different construction than larger boats like what I had.
Hello Todd, I’m looking at possibly buying a 1929 50 foot Elco. I’m trying to educate myself about the costs involved. I would rather get a boat that is in good shape rather than a project boat. I have an ocean front home in Cutler, however my frontage is too unprotected to keep a boat in my vicinity. Can you recommend a boatyard on the bold coast that is knowledgeable about maintenance and repair of a wood boat?
The only yard I know of in that area is Jonesport. I have no idea what their wooden boat experience is. Search Jonesport Shipyard. A 50' boat may be an issue depending on how they haul/launch boats. Here on Mount Desert Island we have several yards that do wooden boats, but a 50' boat might have to be hauled by travel lift at a yard like Hinckley and then trucked to the storage yard (extra $).
Like any boat a wooden boat can get pretty warm inside. The hull below the waterline stays pretty close to the water temperature. I am not sure exactly what you are asking.
@@todddunn945 I was trying to ask how humidity effect the room temperature in the hull of a wooden ship and not how hot the temperature below the water level in the hull of a wooden ship gets? But did not ask the question correctly.
That boat, now sold, was 33'. How much time it takes depends a lot on the boat's age and history as well as your feelings about cosmetics. My boat had a mahogany cabin house that got 2-3 coats of varnish every year. I also painted the topsides and decks every year. My boat had very leaky decks when I bought it which led to quite a bit of topsides rot that I was gradually getting ahead of by replacing several planks every year. That work plus interior maintenance (painting/varnishing cabin soles, cleaning after winter storage, engine maintenance, and annual upgraded added up to a lot of hours. My boat was 85 years old when I sold it which was also a factor. A newer boat might take less time. On my boat, exterior paint and varnish alone took about 50 hours.
Thank you for this video. I'm curious if your boat is always in the northeast and, if so, do you think that contributes to having to replace so many planks? My assumption being that the harsher, colder weather could/would have an effect. Or, more broadly, do you believe location has anything to do with boat issues? I heard someone else talk about a kind of worm that can attack wooden boat hulls, and for that reason, it's better if the boat lives in cold water: Northwest versus southwest. I'm hoping to become a liveaboard before long, but there is SO much to learn about boats -- sale and trawler -- that it's a bit overwhelming.
The location in the northeast is not an issue, particularly since my boat spent nearly 70 years in San Francisco Bay before it was moved to Maine. The issue on my boat was deck leaks. Those leaks are now eliminated, but the damage was done by years of leaky decks before I got the boat. Worms are also not an issue here because the water is too cold and we haul the boats out for the winter. There is a lot to learn. Frankly, if I was looking for a liveaboard, I would go fiberglass. .
@@todddunn945 I have a limited budget and would like to have a low maintanance boat if there is such a thing, to go cruising most of the time instead of working on the boat. So you probably would not agree with this guy about Ferroboats? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EQlz9GgWOv4.html
