The 'never launch' brigade

[Poecheng]

We need a system to pair up the "sailors" with the "boatyarders"

I want first dibs at a "boatyarder" in Brightlingsea please

 

[Poecheng]

Remembering our time in Walton reminds me of another branch of the "never launch brigade"

We became friendly with another young couple- we on our very old gaffer and they on their German built, "war-rescued", oak planked, double-ender. There was a slight credibility gap as we had been up and down the Wallet in our boat and they had sailed to the Caribbean and Cuba and back in theirs!

Time came when they sold their boat (and bought a Sonata for them and their three children !).

Said oak planked boat bought by chap (IIRC from up north) who kept her hauled out at Bedwells for years and to the best of my knowledge, never went near her after buying her. Bizarre to see a boat like that go to wrack and ruin (as I am sure she must have done). Why do people do it?

 

[Seajet]

I know several boats whose owners a lot of people would like to meet down a dark alley - on behalf of the boat !

 

[sailorman]

We need a system to pair up the "sailors" with the "boatyarders"

I want first dibs at a "boatyarder" in Brightlingsea please

Most Boaryarders are not sailors,have little practical experience of sailing & that reflects in how they fit the boats out

 

[Ravi]

We need a system to pair up the "sailors" with the "boatyarders"

I want first dibs at a "boatyarder" in Brightlingsea please

+1
Anyone who fancies a few weeks in Greece helping make sense of my amateur attempts to sort my boat out would be most welcome!

 

[mjcoon]

Anyone who fancies a few weeks in Greece helping make sense of my amateur attempts to sort my boat out would be most welcome!

Sounds interesting; what's the deal?

Mike.

 

[snowleopard]

There was a sad case in a boatyard where I spent a lot of time working on my boat. There was a home build ferro ketch (big, 50'+). She had been built in North Wales somewhere and the guy who built her ignored the designers plans and added an extra layer of concete which resulted in her floating well down on her lines - I believe there was only a few inches of freeboard. Anyway, another guy bought her, probably very cheap and moved her to our yard. He spent years grinding down inside the hull and refurbishing her. A local naval architect had advised against this course of action but the new owner carried on regardless. Launch day came, after maybe 5+ years work and sadly the architect was proved correct. There was a small increase in freeboard but not very much. Never got to know the owner but apparently he was not (or appeared not to be) overly concerned and sailed off into the distance.

One big factor in the everlasting boatyard tinkerers is crazy ideas. People who know better than the rest of the boating world and try to put their wacky ideas into practise.

When I built my tri in the 1970s I rented a space at Andrew's boatyard - now Thornham marina - when the rest of the yard was just storage. Seeing me building a row of 40-foot hulls obviously triggered something in people and before long there were DIY projects all over the yard. The one that shocked me most was a guy building a Wharram. He was a laminator by trade with apparently little knowledge of boats. He had made a male mould out of pine and hardboard and had laminated the first hull over it. He had watched me laying up the PVC foam core and laminating both sides and decided this was the way to go. He proudly told me he was going to make his into a 'hardboard sandwich'. I told him that moisture would get in and the hardboard would swell and disintegrate but he assured me he would laminate the inside up to the waterline and paint the rest and it would be fine. By the time I launched and sailed away he was still in the early stages so I never found out what happened to him. The best result would have been for the hardboard to start breaking down before he finished.

 

[snowleopard]

It seemed that having got as far as Brittany, he'd decided that a few things on his yacht 'weren't quite right', so he'd sold it and returned to build a new one without said faults.

Remember Nigel Calder who wrote a series of articles in YM a few years ago? He had a big Malo built and wrote a lot about the special equipment he had ordered for it. It had finally been launched only a very short time when he decided that he should have had diesel-electric propulsion and a new single-bus electrical system so he sold it and started again.

When I built mine I spent a huge amount of time on the details of the design and the equipment. Some worked, some were less successful. If I built another it would be much better but no way am I spending another 3.5 years not sailing and covered in resin.

 

[oldharry]

One big factor in the everlasting boatyard tinkerers is crazy ideas. People who know better than the rest of the boating world and try to put their wacky ideas into practise.

When I built my tri in the 1970s I rented a space at Andrew's boatyard - now Thornham marina - when the rest of the yard was just storage. Seeing me building a row of 40-foot hulls obviously triggered something in people and before long there were DIY projects all over the yard. The one that shocked me most was a guy building a Wharram. He was a laminator by trade with apparently little knowledge of boats. He had made a male mould out of pine and hardboard and had laminated the first hull over it. He had watched me laying up the PVC foam core and laminating both sides and decided this was the way to go. He proudly told me he was going to make his into a 'hardboard sandwich'. I told him that moisture would get in and the hardboard would swell and disintegrate but he assured me he would laminate the inside up to the waterline and paint the rest and it would be fine. By the time I launched and sailed away he was still in the early stages so I never found out what happened to him. The best result would have been for the hardboard to start breaking down before he finished.

Interesting. I know what happened to that Wharram: The guy eventually finished it and sailed it round the Solent for a number of years before ill health forced him to give up and he had to sell it. I viewed it at the time, and found amongst other 'crazy ideas' he had wall papered the cabins! It was, I was assured proper 'waterproof' bathroom wallpaper which was predictably disintegrating, like the rest of the boat. I bought it for £70 mainly because of the seagull engine that powered it ( Yes really - A Silver Century on a 30 ft Cruising Cat! It managed almost 2kts in calm water), and took it round to Dell Quay, where serious attempts to hold it together were beaten by the speed with which it was disintegrating. Still, it kept me afloat most of the time, (it had a large and very efficient bilge pump!) and gave me a lot of fun (and quite a few tears!) at a time when I was out of work and seriously broke. Eventually it sold again this time for £50, and the new owner to found he could not keep up with the 'essential maintenance vs deterioration' equation, and abandoned it. It was broken up a couple of years later after being seized by the HM for non payment. "Jons Wharram" is still remembered usually as the butt of more dubious jokes, locally.

But it strikes me going back to OP, there are three distinct types of boat owners, identified originally I think by Denny Desoutter in PBO many years ago: There are the enthusiasts: the world girdling blue water types, or racing types for whom the boat is a means to an end. There are the hobbyists who make up the bulk of owners - people who take it more or less seriously but as a leisure activity alongside careers, home and family, and the Builders. These are people whose main interest is in the building/ repairing or restoration of their boats. Once the job is finished they lose interest, and have no real intention of ever using it. It soon gets sold on and the next 'project' is started. As a sub branch of this species are the dreamers who start and never finish their projects. Only too many of these, sadly.

 

[Corribee Boy]

I think one of the earlier members of the 'never launch brigade', at least in literature, was the sculptor Henri, in Steinbeck's 'Cannery Row', (1945)

I believe Henri was building a boat but was afraid of the ocean, and seemed to have some sort of completion anxiety about the project - It sounds as if Steinbeck had come across the phenomenon himself though perhaps he stretched the comedic and presumably metaphorical side of it - interestingly few of the characters seem to develop their full potential in life! I don't know if that says anything about us?

Realising that launching wasn't going to happen, didn't Mac and the boys carry out a trick like put fresh seaweed around the boat, hinting it'd been launching itself, freaking Henri out in the process? I can't find my copy of the book.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Is anyone else reminded of the rather beautifully dreamy section in Racundra's First Cruise about the old man single handedly building a boat on a Baltic island? It had taken him so long that one end was green with moss while the other was under construction.

 

[prv]

One big factor in the everlasting boatyard tinkerers is crazy ideas. People who know better than the rest of the boating world and try to put their wacky ideas into practise.

The Mollymawks' book "How Not to Build A Boat" contains a few of these (to be clear, despite the title, most of the book is about their own more successful build). The only one I remember is the technically-precise but completely inexperienced German who calculated that a very narrow hull would be fast, and then added a sort of square balcony along each side above the water to increase living space. He had enough buoyancy in the hull to support the weight (in all it sounds like he'd swallowed a book on hydrodynamics but knew nothing else), but had completely overlooked the fact that sailing monohulls heel!

Pete

 

[bluemoongaffer]

Some of us do get these projects finished! 8 years it took me and it was only a 20ft boat. Never again though. Enjoy the sailing too much to want to go back to building. Only one really important thing kept me going. The walk-in / walk-away factor. If what you're building isn't beautiful to you each day you work on her, then you're lost and you'll never finish it

 

[Davy_S]

It is far better to spend hours every Sunday afternoon, washing and polishing your car on the driveway, there are quite a few people who look forward to next Sunday. there are sad people in every walk of life, each to their own.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Some of us do get these projects finished! 8 years it took me and it was only a 20ft boat. Never again though. Enjoy the sailing too much to want to go back to building. Only one really important thing kept me going. The walk-in / walk-away factor. If what you're building isn't beautiful to you each day you work on her, then you're lost and you'll never finish it

The saying in aviation is "If you want to build, build. If you want to fly, buy." In general putting the time it takes to build a glider, light aircraft or boat into shifts at your local filling station will get you something far better than you could make yourself.

 

[FWB]

The saying in aviation is "If you want to build, build. If you want to fly, buy." In general putting the time it takes to build a glider, light aircraft or boat into shifts at your local filling station will get you something far better than you could make yourself.

There is another saying... "If it flies, f..ks or floats--Rent it !" A lot of wisdom in that.

 

[Koeketiene]

Most Boaryarders are not sailors,have little practical experience of sailing & that reflects in how they fit the boats out

Tend to agree with this.

In my experience, you need to sail and know how your boat handles in all conditions before you start your project.
When we bought Guapa, I had all sorts of plans regarding her refit and bits I would add/modify.
Only about half of them made it to reality. The rest were abandoned because they turned out to be impractical, too expensive or a combination of the two.

 

[Seajet]

Me too; I tried hard to convince my boatyard chum to sail her first for at least a season, even if a bit empty and rough below, then decide what needed doing and how.

Unfortunately all he wanted was to get his sleeves rolled up and start researching each bit of kit so he could ' improve ' it.

I've already heard of some things which he has taken huge trouble and expense over and he's very proud of as a project, which have me cringing from a sailor's point of view.

The absolutely golden rule, even for an experienced sailor, must be to give a boat a good few tries before commencing on a major refit.

 

[mjcoon]

In general putting the time it takes to build a glider, light aircraft or boat into shifts at your local filling station will get you something far better than you could make yourself.

Are you implying that those two activities might be equally enjoyable? I'm sure no builder is going to agree!

There's also the argument that if you have built it (assuming of course some competence) that you will know how it all works. If setting out on a real voyage (either actual or just anticipated) that knowledge could be useful...

Mike.

 

[Concerto]

I had all sorts of plans regarding her refit and bits I would add/modify.
Only about half of them made it to reality. The rest were abandoned because they turned out to be impractical, too expensive or a combination of the two.

The same has happened on Concerto. Many things like new instruments were planned, but the current B&G circa 1996 are still working fine, so did not need fixing. Certain worn out old fittings are being replaced like the original bunk cushions from 1981 and original stove enamal cooker.

Refering back to the op, there are plenty of dreamers with limited money and experience with boats in yards. Back in the late 1970's my father build a 30 ft racing yacht in fiberglass from plans using a male mould in 8 months, when only 5 months was planned. Well there were 5 of us working on it all hours possible, at home and outside working hours. It did mean we could not complete the RORC qualifying races to be able to compete in the Fastnet of 79, so may be that was a good thing.

I enjoy sailing and I enjoy working on my boat, in equal measures. You do need a good understanding of what needs to be done and how to do it, plus plenty of good tools. Experience is something you gain whilst doing something else. Ordinary household DIY skills are not really adequate to work on boats. There are so many things that require specialist knowledge to ensure you do not endanger the safety of those on board. All can be learnt if you are prepared to ask questions and read books, but ultimately some knowledge only comes from being out there in heavy weather.