Who has actually owned a Wooden boat.

Have you owned a wood boat.

  • Total voters
    119
  • Poll closed .
Yes, 1948 Dragon, built by Camper & Nicholsons.

Was great fun, but a VERY wet boat. Also a bit hairy as mainsail either up or down, with no reefing points. Sold her many years ago as too much upkeep required, and I and the mate who owned her didn't get enough use out if her in the final couple of years.
 
Never owned anything other than wooden boats. In fact, only ever bought 2 boats, and still have them both!

I bought an old GP14 when I was 17: 30 years on, she's still going strong. Interestingly, she incurred a couple of battle scars when I was racing her. The original ply and timber (now 56 years old) is still in fine fettle, but the more recent plywood used in repairs (only about 20 years old) has just had to be replaced again.

Got myself a little 24ft cutter (pitch pine on oak) about 15 years ago. Only bit of structure not original is the aft 2' of the port sheer strake. Decks were cascover sheathed from build: she's never had a deck leak, which goes a long way to keeping the structure sound.

At the time of purchase, I saw each boat as an initial stab, thinking that I would probably move on to something bigger or better. Actually both have turned out to be absolutely ideal for what I wanted to do. Not perfect by any means, but you build up a relationship with a wooden boat, so that you tend to overlook its faults. Both are now very much part of the family: I wouldn't part with either now, unless I was swallowing the anchor.

I'm sure if I had bought GRP boats, I would have changed them a lot more often!
 
40 feet of tired pine and oak, Fife design tho and sailed like a wet dream ( see wot I did there)..Could out point a Sunfizz, pure class and elegance and effortless speed
In the end it was too much boat, money, skill and work and time for me as a 23yr old, realistically, horrible to part with too.
 
2002 owned a WAARSCHIP 570 http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=5287
left Tayport, Dundee > Caledonian Canal > Crinan Canal > Forth & Clyde Canal
(keel whacked something hard in the middle of fields in F&C canal ?)
Sold when back at Tayport and new guys used a pressure washer to clean her and the deck washed off.

Built 2 Mirror dignys. Various dinghys including an old Yaching World catamaran.
Numerous people mention E-boats - I built them, rigging and fixtures, in Glenrothes, Fife
Saw one on the top of a wave with only the bottom of the keel in the water.
They are prone to sinking I believe.
 
My parents had a lot of wooden boats including Debutante, Eventide, Fairey Fisherman, a big 40' 1930's motor sailer and a Peter Duck were the wooden ones but Dad eventually went plastic, I have owned, 6 ton Hillyard, Lymington Slipway 5 tonner, Hillyard 13 tonner and now a Hillyard 2.5 tonner (which fits in my workshop, as thats where it is) I have also owned an Arden 4 tonner in GRP and have to say. I just prefer wood and spending the time with wood.
 
Way too late for the poll, but for completions sake, my first boat wqas a Loch Long, bought from McGruers as a freshly re-decked hull, I replaced the keel bolts, had the coamings and coachroof manufactured, mast repaired, hull re-caulked and then sailed her for a few years. Last seen in somebodies garden in Kilcreggan, half full of water, deck rotted to pieces and apparently left to rot, brought tears to my eyes! Anyone know where Loch Long No. 24 has gone now? she used to be called Zoe.
Second boat was Troll, a wooden Dragon. sailed nicely but really needed re-caulked, launching it was very exiting, involving lots of saw-dust, buckets and bilge pumps. I had her for a few years as well, she was number 240, wonder where she is lying now?

Now on boat number 3, my Verl 27, plastic is so much easier to keep going, I couldn't afford to run a wooden boat, I enjoyed working on the Dragon, but pleasurable as it is painting, sanding and varnishing, I would rather just throw anti-fouling onto a GRP hull and get it in the water where I can actually use it! I don't have the hours it takes for keeping a wooden boat in decent condition. Not while I am working anyway.
 
Yes, I owned a wooden boat in the Solent from 1969-1980-ish, she was called Tugra and was clinker built of Honduras mahogany on an oak frame (always varnished, not painted). She was 28ft LOA, twin Sutton Merak 56HP diesel engines, was designed by Reg Freeman and built in Poole by F C Mitchell & Sons for the previous owner on the lines of a Nelson. Semi-displacement hull but at full throttle she would try to plane! She was Lloyds registered for the time we owned her and I have her entry in our name in the big green Lloyd's Registry for 1974.
She was always a Lymington boat, originally moored on the now forgotten Bill Smith's (latterly Fortuna) pontoon and nestled into the mud at low tide, so we had to time our arrivals from Leicestershire according to tides so we could dinghy aboard! We were members of the Royal Lymington Yacht Club during the time we owned her.
Owning a wooden boat is a great commitment, you turn it into a seasonal routine which becomes part of your social and holiday life if you do it yourself and turns a chore into a pleasure. We valued our time in Lymington whilst working on our wooden boat and made many friends there, which we wouldn't have done if we had just had a "plastic boat" which didn't require such intensive care and maintenance. We had watchers while we worked, would stop and chat "boat-talk", which all added enjoyment to our stays, sometimes aboard if we couldn't find a B&B in town, and climbing up the ladder in the dark after leaving "The Ship" when your boat is laid up on chocs isn't recommended!
After laying her up ashore every year on the town quay (now a carpark, ugh!) and after much sanding/varnishing/engine maintenance etc (interspersed with local hospitality beer/food-wise etc..) we would launch her on her own Tollbridge trailer down the slipway outside "The Ship" pub in the spring, all newly fitted out with her bronze cleats and fairleads gleaming and her teak-laid decking all scrubbed and caulked.
The joy of owning a wooden boat with all its needs and hard work was always rewarded by the reception we got on mooring up outside the "Royal" in early April, going in for a beer and looking down on a happy gleaming boat ready for another season. (I have since owned, for many years now, a GRP Nic 30. She is much loved and is now in the Med, but I never get the same feeling of achievement after fitting out in the spring that I did with dear old Tugra!)
 
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