Beautiful old boats rotting in Maldon

[Tranona]

What happens to cut up GRP? Is it recycled in any way?

Lakesailor will be along soon with his sequence of cutting up an old hull and sending to landfill. Recycling is a potentially big issue and there have been a number of projects looking at methods. However, although there is a potential for the base material - for example it has been used to make decking for marina walkways - it is uneconomic to collect up old boats, strip them of non GRP and recycle. Most of the recycling currently uses relatively clean waste from fabrication processes.

 

[DanTribe]

Lakesailor will be along soon with his sequence of cutting up an old hull and sending to landfill. Recycling is a potentially big issue and there have been a number of projects looking at methods. However, although there is a potential for the base material - for example it has been used to make decking for marina walkways - it is uneconomic to collect up old boats, strip them of non GRP and recycle. Most of the recycling currently uses relatively clean waste from fabrication processes.

I took this picture at the weekend. The last journey of a Guy Thompson T24. You can just make out the skeg and transom. What a sad end.

 

[Supine Being]

I took this picture at the weekend. The last journey of a Guy Thompson T24. You can just make out the skeg and transom. What a sad end.

Look familiar... that's in Burnham, right? I spotted it at the weekend.

Some people would put that on eBay and call it a project.

 

[ffiill]

Biggest problem with traditional wooden boats is no one really wants them/idiots come along to look because they are going for a song-i have still yet to get anyone interested in my old boat which just needs some TLC-may try e baying it starting at 99p and will just have to bite my lip if it sells to one of those idiots!
I used to really care for it but no longer have the time or spare money so it sits on its mooring peeling paint!

 

[PhillM]

Its not true to say that nobody wants an old wooden boat. I did and I bourght one 18 months ago. 1961 Cheverton Caravelle.

I paid £2750 for her. Previous owner was still sailing her, although there was a lot that needed to be done.

I took the view that I could go for a £3k 21 footer and clean it up a bit. end result a 21 foot AWB.

Or take a 1961 OWB and restore her to her former glory - hoping for a lovely classic at the end of the process.

OK so I have proababaly spent £9k on yard bills and put in over 1000 hours myself - so you could argue that for £12K I could have had a bigger / newer boat.

I am not (well was not) at all practicle DIY sort of chap - i'm not allowed to do DIy at home SWIMBO does it all.

I have found winter restoration / repair fasinating.

I never have x£K spare but can always find £500 to put in.

I now know so much more about boats. its been a steep learning curve.

I feel more confident that should somthing break at sea, I will have a some idea how to go about repairing it.

I am taking the view that my boat and I will be together for the next 10 years. Any money spent is an investment. Skills learned now by working alongside experts will help keep bills down in future.

I doubt I will ever get my money back, but that's not the point. Everytime I improve somthing, I can stand back and feel satisified. One day, I will look from the pontoon and be proud that my boat looks like a well looked after and truly loved classic.

 

[Clyde_Wanderer]

Its not true to say that nobody wants an old wooden boat. I did and I bourght one 18 months ago. 1961 Cheverton Caravelle.

I paid £2750 for her. Previous owner was still sailing her, although there was a lot that needed to be done.

I took the view that I could go for a £3k 21 footer and clean it up a bit. end result a 21 foot AWB.

Or take a 1961 OWB and restore her to her former glory - hoping for a lovely classic at the end of the process.

OK so I have proababaly spent £9k on yard bills and put in over 1000 hours myself - so you could argue that for £12K I could have had a bigger / newer boat.

I am not (well was not) at all practicle DIY sort of chap - i'm not allowed to do DIy at home SWIMBO does it all.

I have found winter restoration / repair fasinating.

I never have x£K spare but can always find £500 to put in.

I now know so much more about boats. its been a steep learning curve.

I feel more confident that should somthing break at sea, I will have a some idea how to go about repairing it.

I am taking the view that my boat and I will be together for the next 10 years. Any money spent is an investment. Skills learned now by working alongside experts will help keep bills down in future.

I doubt I will ever get my money back, but that's not the point. Everytime I improve somthing, I can stand back and feel satisified. One day, I will look from the pontoon and be proud that my boat looks like a well looked after and truly loved classic.

No project pics?
C_W

 

[onesea]

I am slowly posting all the KTL films up for free now that the subscription idea has pretty much fallen apart

My tip is post for a limited time OLD Stuff so those that want to see them again or keep really up todate then have to pay!

You might get money from me that way.

Sadly Laptop does not have DVD so that's my excuse for now...

 

[PhillM]

My tip is post for a limited time OLD Stuff so those that want to see them again or keep really up todate then have to pay!

You might get money from me that way.

Sadly Laptop does not have DVD so that's my excuse for now...

For what its worth here's my suggestion:

Sell a licence to a yachting mag so that their online subscribers to their mag get a free subscription to KTL as part of their offer. You could charge the magazine a few pounds per user per year and if you are clever you could licence to a few different magazinees in different countries (UK / US / AUS?). A few pounds per user, soon adds up when you get thousands of them.

 

[Colt]

Biggest problem with traditional wooden boats is no one really wants them/idiots come along to look because they are going for a song-i have still yet to get anyone interested in my old boat which just needs some TLC-may try e baying it starting at 99p and will just have to bite my lip if it sells to one of those idiots!
I used to really care for it but no longer have the time or spare money so it sits on its mooring peeling paint!

I thought the Thompson was GRP hull and only wooden deck. Some were all grp. I've got a T31 with grp hull and wooden deck.

 

[reginaldon]

Pity we didn't meet a couple of years ago - I had one of them which I sold for very little money 'cos it was costing me a fortune in mooring charges.

Yep, as I was then repairing it after it had come off the mooring - long story, however now getting complimentary remarks on her appearance again.

 

[johnalison]

It is in the nature of boats to rot - that's what they do. I doubt if working wooden craft ever lasted more than a few decades and some ships in the India Trade would pay for themselves in one trip and be scrapped. What has changed is the expansion of yachting since the war and the lack of any organised way of disposing of boats in the way that happens with cars. It's sad to see an old yacht dying, but in the end it comes down to money and the need for someone to want to spend it. Many yachts start to rot when their owners do likewise.

 

[Downsman]

In the corner of a local boatyard was a little bilge keeler. Not a 'classic' wooden boat, but early 1970 fibreglass. She was green with algae and her mast was a roosting point for birds so her deck was inches deep in 'fertiliser'..
I went cruising and on my return to a berth in the yard 17 months later she was still there, slowly dying. I later found out she had stood for a few years.
I managed to find an owner and made a very modest offer. Buckets of water, bleach, and a basic (very basic) rewiring job, a few evenings reeving new running rigging and the little Sun Ray 21 lives again, hull and decks as sound as the day she first floated 40 years ago. I'm going creek crawling this summer..

 

[TSB240]

This post has come at a moment when a decision has to be made about a recent e bay purchase.

Basically for a very small sum we have bought an open day sailing boat built in the early days of GRP production to the same standard as many lifeboats at that time. (designed to survive on coral reefs!)

The boat has: a lead keel of approx 0.5 tons

an aluminium mast and boom of approx 120kgs

a 4 wheel galvanised trailer that has not moved for some time!

Our decision is cut up and scrap or pressure wash and sell on?

What does the forum reckon?

 

[penfold]

What is it? Pics will help. Economics says cut it up and haul the metal to the scrapman, but who goes sailing for the economics?

 

[dylanwinter]

well done

In the corner of a local boatyard was a little bilge keeler. Not a 'classic' wooden boat, but early 1970 fibreglass. She was green with algae and her mast was a roosting point for birds so her deck was inches deep in 'fertiliser'..
I went cruising and on my return to a berth in the yard 17 months later she was still there, slowly dying. I later found out she had stood for a few years.
I managed to find an owner and made a very modest offer. Buckets of water, bleach, and a basic (very basic) rewiring job, a few evenings reeving new running rigging and the little Sun Ray 21 lives again, hull and decks as sound as the day she first floated 40 years ago. I'm going creek crawling this summer..

there is one of these beside the slug

looks like a great ,little boat

make some films of the creeks

D

 

[xyachtdave]

I know someone who bought a boat that was sunk on a mooring as a first boat!

He was out canoeing around the Rainham marsh area (Mariners farm boatyard) on the Medway when he spotted it.

He is the partner of a friend and when I met him he told me the story of how he tracked the owner down, paid £50 for it, refloated it using a paddling pool (or something crazy..) and now sails it locally. Usually seen in all sorts of bother with his outboard, another bargain.

My favourite part is when he told me about this boat and I asked what it was, he said has no idea!

All in all I think he has spent less than £150 on the lot. Sails were in the garage of the owners, second hand outboard and he was off. Fair play to him.

 

[reginaldon]

In the corner of a local boatyard was a little bilge keeler. Not a 'classic' wooden boat, but early 1970 fibreglass. She was green with algae and her mast was a roosting point for birds so her deck was inches deep in 'fertiliser'..
I went cruising and on my return to a berth in the yard 17 months later she was still there, slowly dying. I later found out she had stood for a fewSS years.
I managed to find an owner and made a very modest offer. Buckets of water, bleach, and a basic (very basic) rewiring job, a few evenings reeving new running rigging and the little Sun Ray 21 lives again, hull and decks as sound as the day she first floated 40 years ago. I'm going creek crawling this summer..

You are to be heartily congratulated - a man after my own heart. So much more satisfying than an expensive purchase of a boat in pristine cojnfition.

 

[Downsman]

You are to be heartily congratulated - a man after my own heart. So much more satisfying than an expensive purchase of a boat in pristine cojnfition.

It's strange how perhaps fate lends a hand in cases like this. I obviously had a good look at her and could see beneath the cosmetic grime she was sound, so having found the owner and asked permission, I had to cut the padlock off her (keys lost long ago) and inside I found pages from a very early PBO and a sea trial report of a Sun Ray by one of my heroes, the late Des Sleightholme, and a very approving write up it was too. Basically she was sold from that moment..

 

[[23929]]

but to have a dream that is falling apart is such a sad thing.

And the end of the dream

 

[Gerry]

For a look at somebody who not only builds new wooden boats but restores old one have a look at this site http://www.butlers-wooden-boats.co.uk/

Ashley is one of the most inspirational guys I know in the boat industry, he truly has brains in his fingertips when it comes to boats...

This is what he has to say about restoration -
''For many the discovery of wooden boats is not one which is ‘new’ but the romance of the ruin, preserving of history, the re-creating, the saving, the love of labour, the vision of a dream.The modern day classic yacht revival and resurgence of restorations of classic yachts built during the era of elite new wooden yacht construction demonstrates the pinnacle of yacht preservation.


Preservation of traditional sail and the restoration of British working craft is central to maritime heritage.Ashley Butler’s experience of restoration work is extensive from his full structural restoration of the 1903 40ft Morcombe Bay Prawner, Ziska, to the fine joinery of the 1915 Hereschoff 115ft Schooner, Mariette.''