grp v wood

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icepatrol

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both materials seem to be the most popular form of boat construction, both have advantages over the other. there appears to be a bias towards one over the other on this site. wood having been used for a long time.
so which would you consider best ?
 
I think wood is allright when it is in a tree, it looks after itself then, after that its downhill all the way.
 
Think the perceived bias is a result of volume production etc., and the fact that wood was seen as being "old fashioned" from some time in the 70's... and fibreglass mouldings represented more flexibilities and opportunities for boat builders etc.
Personally, I would love a wooden boat from the 70's and seriously considered a beautiful wooden Cantieri di Pisa Pegasus 21, but was she was too big to keep up here, so did choose GRP, newer and smaller for ease of handling, whilst still having the weight, waterline and seakeeping we wanted for the intended cruising grounds.

Well kept, wood may not be more work than GRP ... trouble starts when maintenance is not kept up.... from there on it is uphill.... as with all boats, but with GRP it is easier to recover..
 
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Wood stays warmer in the winter aswell and cooler in the summer and they dont get affected by currents as much as GRP and they are better at sea than GRP generally in my experience.
 
MIne is all wood, OK a lot of maintenance, but I enjoy it. Once you have it up to a standard, the work diminishes, not completely, but a lot. Yes and of course as long as you are handy, repairs are easy. If the boat was built properly in the first place and of the correct materials, then the old "rot" can be kept at bay easily. Englander was built or started in 1965, she has had no rot repaired and still has no rot.
 
you can go best of both worlds and go for a cold molded built used a lot in the US for custom sportfish boats, and also by some custom Italian builders
I think if you are a hands down type person wood can be better then fiberglass, but be prepared to put a lot of hands down to it....
 
Major Catastrophe said:
Tom's boat Little Ship is wood. Whenever he takes damage he gets out his saw and hey presto! It's fixed.
Click to expand...

Oooh ! you can be such a ...................

Actually the only reason that boats are now predominantly made of "PLASTIC" is the build cost. The skill base and therefore the cost of building wood boats is substantially higher than building in plastic.

Plastic boats were originally advertised as "maintenance free" we now all know that isnt true.

If I could afford to have a boat commissioned I would have a wood boat, mine is much drier inside stable and warmer than any of the plastic ones I have had in the past. That said when and if I move on I will have to go plastic as the boat I want isnt made of wood.

As Major said "he gets out his saw and hey presto! It's fixed" repairs are I feel much easier with wood but the cost of teak these days dosen't half make your eyes water.

Erm...... anybody looking for a good wood boat ??

Tom
 
Asd a youngster I well remember working in cold boatsheds EVERY weekend throughout the winter on the hull of my father's various wooden boats.

The GRP brigade wandered in in March and a month later they were in the water.

Mind you the varnished hull of our boat, 28' McGruer built in 1925, looked magnificent - for about a month - then it looked just like it did all the previous year !

Despite what my heart tells me, it has to be GRP for me, especially as the years move on.

Tom
 
Philiz said:
As that is a blatant advertisement I will give you the forum limit of £200, I'll have the keys on Sunday please. :D
Click to expand...

That is not an advertisement, that is a question.............. now this is how an advertisement sounds........

Wood boat for sale £00,000,00 contact the above ..O K !
icon11.gif


Tom
 
Copied from Wikipedia...

"Cold-Molding is a composite method of wooden boat building that uses many different layers of thin wood, called veneers, oriented in all different directions, resulting in a strong monoque structure, similar to a fibreglass hull. Usually composed of a base layer of strip planking followed then by multiple veneers.."
 
yes thats how it was started
todays method is a tad different
first of all many US custom sportfish builders dont use strip planking, but use a jig method, second the marine ply is then covered with epoxy and glass, some builders also would put two mats of glass depends who they are
Paul Mann from Carolina is a US builder who still offers the option of planking method
Jarret Bay uses the jig method but actually everyone nearly uses the method nowadays
if I am remember correct the modern method of cold molding was started by Buddy Davis who nowadays is no longer a custom builder, but he credits Rybovich and Merrit as the pioneers to the current cold molding building method
you can visit some sites as www.paulmanncustomboats.com or www.jarretbay.com and see the inbuild pictures and have an idea how it is done
here is a history on how coldmolding got out to be and exist http://www.buddydavis.com/info/news/carolina_boat.htm
 
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Go wood. Lovely to use, easy to repair. Just a bit more expensive to maintain. Plenty of GRP boats could do with some more maintenance though - even if it isn't as essential as with a wooden boat.
 
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