Restoration is for addicts

Discussion in 'Wooden Boat Building and Restoration' started by pungolee, Sep 12, 2004.

  1. pungolee
    Joined: Jun 2004
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    Location: north carolina

    pungolee Senior Member

    Fellow forum friend Ilian Voyager said it best in a recent discussion concerning the merit of restoration versus building new,"Restoration is for addicts".When I began looking for my first boat to restore I ignored my fathers advise,"you cant take something old and make it new again"I dismissed the fellow wearing the "Just say no to wooden boats" T-shirt.Men who made their living on the water had no further use for wooden boats,they had seen too many of their friends drown,or struggle to keep the thing afloat with yearly maintenance.They burned Barbours and Chris Crafts at parties for amusement.I ignored their advice too,they must be ignorant,I thought,there is nothing more beautiful than a wooden boat.And that may be true,but in hindsight,after struggling to restore boneyard hulls to Museum condition,exposing myself to every toxic substance known to man,wasting thousands of hours (and dollars)I could have spent with family instead of in a cold shed,I find now it isn't worth it.You are an addict,seeking the temporary high that comes when one is finished and your friends go ooh and ahh and you have the snootiest boat on the lake.But the high don't last,so you seek another and another until you have a yard full of priceless treasures that demand more work to upkeep them every year,even when you don't take them out.Wooden boats,no matter if you use the best,highest price materials and coatings,begin to deteriate the moment you lay down the brush.Cover them tightly and they rot from lack of ventilation.Don't cover them and wind,rain,bird droppings and the sun will quickly turn your show stopper into a mess.Curing Country Ham involves controlling the rot process enough to make the meat sweet.Restoration is merely prolonging the natural death of dead organic material,and you can go insane trying to keep up with the never ending maintenance.Wooden boat shows should pay you to exhibit,not the other way around.I joined this forum to give advice to aspiring young people who wished to have a wooden boat in their stable.I would now advise to run from these things.Get a fiberglass skiff with a good dependable outboard and enjoy the water.Have you ever wondered why wooden boat shows have so many snobby people walking around?The rich can afford to pay someone like me to do the nasty *** work so they can walk around looking yachty.If you are not rich stay away from wooden boats,new ones,old ones,classic ones.They are all slowly turning to dirt after the last high priced silicon bronze screw is sunk.Enjoy the ones in Museums,but get a real boat to take to the water in.Thank you IIlan Voyager, for helping me see the light.This whole quest has been driven by ego,and anything based on pride will surely prove to be a downfall.Wooden boats have seen their day,people who build and restore the things are like collectors of tube radios,Model A Fords,analog electronics,blackpowder guns,rope beds and Roy Underhill.Amusing stuff when you go to Williamsburg,or Clayton Museum,the proper venue for a dead trade.But if you want to enjoy the water without fighting cracks,dry rot,wet rot or swell times,get a fiberglass boat.Quit trying to fight father time and mother nature,it just ain't worth it.
     
  2. duluthboats
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Location: Minneapolis,MN, USA

    duluthboats Senior Dreamer

    LOL!!!!

    Go a head and spit the rest of it out. If it is your intent just to enjoy yourself on the water on the few good days a year then it is far better to hire a boat and forgo the responsibility of ownership all together. Don’t blame the material the boat is built from for the lack of enjoyment. If dependability and ease of maintenance was all that mattered then Harley Davison would have been out of business a long time ago.
    Gary

    PS don’t restore a wooden boat. ;-)
     
  3. Dutch Peter
    Joined: Aug 2004
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    Location: The Netherlands

    Dutch Peter Senior Member

    I'm just very glad that there are a lot of addicts!
    That way I don't feel so alone when trying to prevent my boat
    from falling apart, and getting it trhough yet an other season.
    Better to be a wood addict then a drug addict.
     
  4. bjl_sailor
    Joined: May 2004
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    Location: MASS

    bjl_sailor Junior Member

    I think that is why epoxy encapsulation has been invented... Wooden boat looks with glass reistence to rot...
     
  5. Ilan Voyager
    Joined: May 2004
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    Location: Cancun Mexico

    Ilan Voyager Senior Member

    It's too much honor...

    It's to much honor for me, but Pungolee, you draw conclusions from my statement that I do not agree.

    First all boating is for addicts! pleasure boats (either sail or power) are the most expensive, wet and unconfortable (sea-sickness, coffee spilling, cramped amenities etc...) means of transportation from one point where you had nothing to do to other point where you'll have nothing to do.

    It's far more confortable to watch a movie at the TV eating some crispies sit in confortable sofa. Maybe boaters have a masochistic component; after all some guys love to be whipped by big girls in black leather clothes so in matter of human behaviour you can expect all even the most exotic, like going to the museums or listening to Bach's music.

    It's an economic trade between the pleasure you get and the price you have to pay for this pleasure. So there are degrees of addiction, and different addictions among the boating people.

    As you know, all the good things in life are expensive, dangerous and bad for the health; you can maybe get a long life if you do not drink Monthelie 1er Cru, smoke Montecristo cigars, see the girls, eat bad foods like "poularde truffée en crème d'asperges" (full of cholesterol, absolutely delicious), risk your life on car, bikes, boats but it would be so boring!

    I do know boat restorers who are not interested by navigating (we can compare them with the maquettists, or model builders) but by the research and hard work to obtain a boat in its original state.

    About materials I do not agree also; all, absolutely all materials, want to return to their simplest state; wood to dirt, steel to iron oxyde, aluminiun to alumine, polyester to biphenol etc... I can affirm that steel "rots" as fast as wood, and polyester has blisters and rots also. Do you know that polyester sucks until 2% of its weight in water, and loses until 30 % of its strength in about 2 years of use on water by fatigue and chimical reactions? Many polyesters are junk after 10 years.

    It's a costly task that to keep the expensively built object in its pristine state. A whole industry is born from that.

    Everything staying on water, sunburnt, wetted by the rain, frozen and defrozen, and attacked by the salt needs a high maintenance to fight the high rate decay induced by the most aggressive common element on earth: seawater.

    What I meant in the former forum, answering to someone who stated that restoring was always easier than building, is that restoring is often a harder way to have a boat than building in the same size in modern technics. That applies strongly on simple work boats as the cheasapeake "generus".

    PS Harley Davidson are the worst motorcycles of the world in matter of technical design and reliability. Only some indian and chinese bikes can compete with Harleys in these fields. And the choice of the names! Fat Boy; you can imagine immediately the biker bodybuilt by Coors. Soft Tail; we are in a decent forum, so no comment.
     
  6. duluthboats
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Location: Minneapolis,MN, USA

    duluthboats Senior Dreamer

    LOL!!!!

    Ilan, you said it so much better than me. :)

    Gary
     
  7. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    Location: Eustis, FL

    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    The nature of restoration is solely reliant on the owner's desires and budget. Personally, I think restoration should only be performed on worth while subjects, craft of some history or interest, but most restorations are the hope of the owner in bringing back years well past or a better investment.

    The better investment is a difficult loop to make meet. I see yachts, where it's elegance is based on the return it gets after the show circuit gets old and the owner wants another toy (read investment boat) to play with, make surprising returns from near death. In the end, when the miles and road dues are accounted for, the trailered beauty that has won show after show has very little real time on the gauge, and much more then she's worth poured into her, in the hope someone will "just fall in love" upon seeing her for the first time (and have the bucks and desire to buy)

    When I'm asked to bring back years well past, is when I get some enjoyment out of this work. The owner has to make some difficult decisions about the next 40 years of this boat and what they want from them. The honest owner soon realizes they want a nice boat, but not necessarily the exact same craft, maybe better, maybe more reliable, maybe more resilient to neglect. This is when the big goo between our ears gets a workout. Fixing flaws in the design, changing the layout of systems and controls, insuring a longer and easier to care for life all make for very satisfying work.

    I'm about 6 weeks from just that type of project being finished. A 45 year old Sea Skiff, needing a new bottom, skeg, frame repairs, deck, sole support structure, sole, rudder redesign and refastening. The owner is the second to have this craft, and it's been cared for reasonably. The original engine has been rebuilt, but has a different, cam, electronic ignition, and carb. All features to improve reliably and drivability. The planking is the same as is the attachment, but I scarfed full length planks using epoxy, sealed the end grain and edges and encapsulated the underwater strakes. All the fasteners are bonded with epoxy as is all the hardware on deck. The original duck deck is now dynel set in epoxy, the frame repairs are laminations, the sole support structure and sole have been redesigned to meet the requirements of the owner. Many changes to the original design have been made, to ease maintenance, ownership, usability, durability and looks.

    The boat,that will be slipped back into the wet this fall, will be a better boat in most regards and the owner is happy. It would have been easier or cheaper to do some things as was done originally, but issues cropped up and were addressed. Now I've made this classic boat something other then what it was, basically ruined it's maximum resale value as a "Skiff" but as most Chris Craft Sea Skiff owners would admit (some secretly) the changes are a much better option for the issue they address. Screw the purists . . . I'll put a fighting chair on the stern of my 23' sailboat if I want to . . .
     
  8. Ilan Voyager
    Joined: May 2004
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    Location: Cancun Mexico

    Ilan Voyager Senior Member

    I agree with you PAR, restoration is a matter of love, bucks and faith. For a show guy you've been a criminal while restoring the Sea Skiff.

    Personnaly I'm not in the restoration group unless the boat has a special historical or "archeological" interest. The show restored boats (generally too glossy and too varnished...these guys varnish everything even the work boats) are a north american phenomenon which doesn't raise interest in me.

    Often it's cheaper, safer and simpler to salvage a maximum from the old sick boat and to build a new hull. I take the risk to be considered as an old stupid, when I repeat that the bare hull price is a small part of the total cost of a boat.
     
  9. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    Location: Eustis, FL

    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Yes, I'm a ****. This is a friend's boat, his convertible utility. I redid his just as old hardtop from a little known builder in TX last year. I have his little White's transom to replace when I have some of the other projects out of here.

    What can I do, he loves the lines of this boat and it was deteriorating quickly, with the deck letting in all the sweet water we get here in the summers.

    I just put polyurethane in the seams of a lap boat this season, that had only varnish in them before. I poly'ized the scarf joints too. Hey, so I'm a pig, but these boats float again and are dryer and stronger then original. You have to scrape away some paint to tell the difference in the methods. Just let me catch someone trying to scratch off some paint in a seam to see the construction technique. Hell, skip me, I have 4 dogs over 80 pounds that don't think I feed them enough (judging buy the bodies of raccoons, snakes of several types, moles, squirrels, birds and the like I find scattered about the yard weekly)
     
  10. Ilan Voyager
    Joined: May 2004
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    Location: Cancun Mexico

    Ilan Voyager Senior Member

    You're not a ****. You saved a nice boat from the garbage.
    (your dogs seem pretty dangerous, one day you'll find just the shoes of a thieft...)
     

  11. Corpus Skipper
    Joined: Oct 2003
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    Location: Corpus Christi TX

    Corpus Skipper Hopeless Boataholic

    "restoration" of another sort, more like repair/ updating, is what allows poor slobs like me to go chase gamefish offshore, when I couldn't otherwise. My Dad's old 22' walkaround didn't have enough range to venture too far offshore, maybe 35 miles on a typical day, 50 if it was calm, and we still carried 2 extra 6 gallon jugs with us (no fun trying to pour gas while the boat's rockin'!). Now with our 26' Chris Craft we can go 60 miles out, without toting fuel jugs, and get a shot at the bills. If we had to buy a new equivalent boat, it would run at least $120,000. We have a grand total of $25,000 in the old Chris, plus a little blood and sweat. For that, we went from a cuddy cabin to a flybridge that sleeps 4, has a real galley, head, dinette, lots more room for gear, and a HUGE cockpit. All made possible due to restoration. :D
     
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