Looking for advice regarding Trident Voyager30

[cavitation]

I am planning to view a Trident Voyager but I am a bit concerned over the condition of the interior woodwork in that it is very stained with black damp patches. To be honest, it looks to be beyond recovery as the amount of sanding required will break through the veneer so it will require to be painted which is not too much of a worry as I quite like light cream interior. The worry is, why has it got this way as I have seen a number of pics of different Voyagers all with the same problem. Any other advice on these yachts would be apreciated such as water ingress, structural defects etc.

 

[Iliade]

Oxalic acid may remove blackening of the woodwork.

 

[Tranona]

Pretty standard for boats of that era and age - not just that model. Leaky windows and sealing. leaking chain plates, stanchion bases, through deck fittings are common on older boats (and some new ones) and if not dealt with lead to water getting under the varnish. Many of Trident boats were home completed which may or may not be good.

 

[doug748]

Those flat panels really seem to suffer with the UV through the large windows. Does yours look like this one :

http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/archives/voyager-30/voyager-30.htm

With luck and a factory boat you may well be able to resurrect the finish, provided the builder used good quality materials. Older veneered panels have much thicker veneers than is common today so it should be possible to give it plenty of vim before problems emerge.
Its worth a try, with white as the fall back position if you like. There is plenty of solid trim there to set if off nicely.

 

[jwilson]

Those flat panels really seem to suffer with the UV through the large windows. Does yours look like this one :

http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/archives/voyager-30/voyager-30.htm

With luck and a factory boat you may well be able to resurrect the finish, provided the builder used good quality materials. Older veneered panels have much thicker veneers than is common today so it should be possible to give it plenty of vim before problems emerge.
Its worth a try, with white as the fall back position if you like. There is plenty of solid trim there to set if off nicely.

I took the photos on Yachtsnet, and remember the boat. Some of the blackening in the veneers was probably due to long-term minor deck leaks, but in other places I suspect that sunlight may have contributed to he problem, as some of the blackening is in places you would not expect water leakage. What I think may have happened is that sunlight degraded the original varnish finish making it slightly porous, and generally humid salty air (rather than any specific leak) let areas of veneer get slightly damp and then mould grows in it - under the varnish.

We see similar effects of blackening in the grain of veneer surprisingly often in 1980s era Moodys - I have a feeling that there was never enough thickness of varnish or lacquer put on when when the boats were built.

 

[cavitation]

Those flat panels really seem to suffer with the UV through the large windows. Does yours look like this one :

http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/archives/voyager-30/voyager-30.htm

With luck and a factory boat you may well be able to resurrect the finish, provided the builder used good quality materials. Older veneered panels have much thicker veneers than is common today so it should be possible to give it plenty of vim before problems emerge.
Its worth a try, with white as the fall back position if you like. There is plenty of solid trim there to set if off nicely.

Exactly the same as in the link. I was even wondering if it was the same yacht taken some years earlier but it is a different yacht as there are some differences.

 

[cavitation]

I took the photos on Yachtsnet, and remember the boat. Some of the blackening in the veneers was probably due to long-term minor deck leaks, but in other places I suspect that sunlight may have contributed to he problem, as some of the blackening is in places you would not expect water leakage. What I think may have happened is that sunlight degraded the original varnish finish making it slightly porous, and generally humid salty air (rather than any specific leak) let areas of veneer get slightly damp and then mould grows in it - under the varnish.

We see similar effects of blackening in the grain of veneer surprisingly often in 1980s era Moodys - I have a feeling that there was never enough thickness of varnish or lacquer put on when when the boats were built.

I did notice that there were black marks on galley doors which are not connected to areas which could be subject to water ingress so that would support the cause as being due to breakdown of the varnish. If I blow up the pics, the grain of the blackened wood looks very open so I think it is beyond treatment with oxalic acid so filling and painting will be the way forward but I will take a timber moisture meter with me. My real concern is that there is/was some underlying generic issue with these boats. Thanks for all the input.

 

[jwilson]

I did notice that there were black marks on galley doors which are not connected to areas which could be subject to water ingress so that would support the cause as being due to breakdown of the varnish. If I blow up the pics, the grain of the blackened wood looks very open so I think it is beyond treatment with oxalic acid so filling and painting will be the way forward but I will take a timber moisture meter with me. My real concern is that there is/was some underlying generic issue with these boats. Thanks for all the input.

Apart from water leaks, or as I suspect sometimes inadequate varnish/lacquer sealing the wood, you can occasionally have builders using plywood that has been stored damp, possibly next to an already mouldy piece. It can look fine when first varnished, but if mould spores are already in the wood sooner or later in the environment of most cabins they will grow and go black.

I once bought a boat that when built some years earlier had had the build in progress surveyed by an independent surveyor. The surveyors build report was about 30 pages and was essentially the story of a running battle between the surveyor and the builder: the builder kept trying to cut corners, and hide the evidence. Things like "the main bulkhead had been fitted, but the scrap corners of plywood with the makers mark had been lost so I was unable to confirm that what had been fitted was Bruynzeel or an equivalent to BS....." or "the drums of resin were marked 'Scott Bader', but there were only opened and quite old drums in evidence, so I cannot confirm the resin used...." were Years later I found some pretty rubbish timber deep inside the structure, under beautiful teak cappings. The survey carried through to sea trials, when the boat was found to be too tender, and more ballast added as there was a suspicion that the amount of lead cast into the encapsulated keel was not as designed. This was not a small company: they turned out hundreds of boats a year.