Cost Of Traditional Wood Build Vs Various Modern Techniques

Sorry I somehow offended you, Daniel.

Clearly there are a handful of very old boats. But there were thousands and thousands of Chris Craft planked boats built, and very very few still exist. Those that are not derelict tend to have been restored and/or maintained at great expense.

Yes, wood planked boats ALWAYS leak. This is a simple fact. I'm shocked anyone would challenge this.

Yes, cheap production fiberglass boats usually leak in bad weather. But they rarely leak sitting at the dock. I found dry sawdust in the bilge of a decade old Swan 65 after it had sailed from Finland to California, California to the South Pacific and back, and then back to Europe: dry sawdust from construction! Several other captains over the years have shared similar stories. On a custom built Rogers 39 race boat, all water in the boat was always attributable to wet sails being brought below: we never had a drop otherwise regardless of weather conditions, for years. So yes, boats do not need to leak, and quality ones don't.

I never mentioned polyester. All the builders I contacted intended to use epoxy (almost all of them) or vinyl ester (the few others). True, climate controlled construction is far, far better regardless of the medium. Vinyl ester requires the most care for environmental conditions during construction, but everything is better with better environmental conditions.

Poor quality foam can have problems over time. Balsa core can rot. But high quality cores, laminated well, do hold up. I can't see how a claim of "the worst construction for long term" could ever be justified.

On the smell, I'm not really making a point about the smell of the material -- wood boats don't keep smelling like wood any more than plastic boats keep smelling like plastic. The point I'm making is that bad smells develop in boats due to mildew, mold, fuel, etc. If the boat can't be kept clean and very dry, smells develop. Lots of nooks and crannies, as with wood boats, results in lots of places for smells to develop. The common practice of lining fiberglass hulls with carpet is another source of bad smells. So a male molded boat is far easier to keep clean and dry, and therefore free from smells.

 

I don't believe that for a second.......

We don't know what question was asked of these boatbuilders....nor what provisos and restrictions were put on their answers. Was lofting included or not? How about tooling, paint, filling and fairing, is the deck edge bonded or mechanically fastened, and on and on........

If foam core is cheap then timber core will be less...labour the same....so?

People....and boatbuilder's are people too...will answer any question based on their experience.....if you ask fiberglass builder's to build a boat in wood....they will say it's too difficult and expensive. If you ask a wooden boat builder to build in fiberglass he will say that's expensive and difficult.....and so it goes....

I'd really like to see someone do a real serious comparison....I think good fasteners have become expensive enough that epoxy can compete...cost of materials wise...labour (experienced traditional builders against experienced cold-molders) will still be less for the traditional build. But it will not be less for the inexperienced builder. And the well built cold-molded boat will always be more valuable long term.

 

Whether this type of construction or that one is cheaper will vary according to who you are. A person building one boat for personal use will have a different opinion to a professional builder doing custom one-offs and the feedback from an industrial builder with one or more production lines is going to be different from either. Somewhere in the forum you can find people defending plastic, glass, wood and epoxy, Carvel and lapstrake, skin on frame, concrete steel, aluminum, and marine ply - which is the best by far to anyone with an ounce of sense

Life and boats would both be less interesting if we all agreed! All the posters are likely to be correct in their opinions within their particular backgrounds.

What's important on this thread is what is best for you, Boston. Whatever you choose, and whether or not it seems the right choice to the rest of us, we all wish you the best of luck.

 

I've no reason to lie to you Ted. That was the result of my survey to build a $5M 85 foot cruising catamaran. Displacement was between 45000 and 90000 lbs, depending on material, so no extreme build technologies were required.

We allowed the builders some latitude in details. But they all worked to the same design package (multiple scantlings for different materials). Displacement was somewhat flexible -- for example, aluminum was heavier, but we'd need to make the hulls fatter due to the frames anyway. All CAD files. Finish quality to yacht standards, so the Aluminum boat needed to be painted, not left to degrade into looking like a barge.

We intentionally and explicitly allowed each builder to propose using materials, details and techniques they found effective.

Nope, the timber core was higher. The builder who explored this option had tremendous experience with this technique, yet the price did not compete with the foam core. The difference was labor -- their estimate was more labor to do the timber core than the foam core.

Not what we did. We approached a set of very experienced, well known builders. They were allowed to bid in whatever THEY thought would be best. Some of the builders favored aluminum, or cold molded, or carbon/nomex, or carbon/foam/glass, etc. I am pretty sure that all the builders had experience with multiple build technologies. However, the foam-glass option won every time (some builders did only offer to build in Aluminum or wood core, but their costs could not approach the glass-foam costs).

I do agree that a different design or different requirements may have favored a different building material.

I am just sharing what I discovered. It was not what I expected either.

We let the experienced builders do the best they could.

I expect this is pretty typical, and what we did: put a bid package together, with the design, scantlings for several materials, systems, inventory, etc. Present these to a range of builders. Compare the results.

One thing we discovered was yards with experienced staff beat the yards with inexperienced staff, because the overall labor costs were LOWER: skill (augmented by the tools and processes that accumulate over the years) is more productive than lots of cheap hands.

Again, I think Boston simply wants a wooden boat, and that choice is valid.

I mean, ANY boat is simply a dream made real.

 

From a rocket scientist, it spkeaks volume
Just kidding.
I am like you, very opinioneted. It goes with the teritory I suppose.
And I still think you wrong
Daniel

 

Oh: I forgot something. Forgive me, we did this two and three years ago.

There were performance requirements!

Heavier construction meant higher loads and higher risk that the performance requirement could not be met.

The heavier material did not just mean more material had to be purchased and handled, but there was a secondary effect: more stability, more strength, more power, all of which increase cost quite a lot beyond the cost of the hull and deck.

 

Frames, stringers ,bottom battens, and side battens, chine and keel and floor joist and more in my 9' x 30' build out of 2x4 and 2x6 KD, SS. Yellow pine comes in at under $ 250.00 No plywood, and no epoxy and no 3/8" bolts no 7oz. glass and no topsides- not finished with topside design yet. So I figure the complete hull to cost $1,200 to $1,500.00 or $50.00 LF. Make that $1,800.00 or $ 60.00 LF

 

silly as it sounds I want to spend about $20,000 on my hull including topsides and deck houses triple laminated glass
the works
I am specking out cherry for the deck houses and interior trim,a
bunch of black walnut for the transom and a few other key areas as well as white oak for the major structural components and marine ply for the bulk heads and i'm
still a bit up in the air about the planking
was thinking curly maple or rock elm for the floors and white cedar for the cielings

 

So your boat is 47'6" or so....

Planking thickness is 1 1/2", so 3" #20 screws. Framing is spaced 10", 23 strakes per side, 2 screws per crossing. Silicon Bronze #18 3" are $4.62 each at Jamestown Distributors, you need roughly 5500, so that's something over $25k in planking fasteners.......I guess that's not happening......

 

I was thinking 20" spacing on stringers rather than frames or at least I was when I was thinking cold molded
now Im thinking double diagonal
so roughly half the screws or ~2800 ( did you include the transom decks and floors ? )
that and I built a machine shop a while back for a friend who pounds out specialty fasteners and robotics stuff all day long
he said if I babysit the machine and buy my own feed stock he would cut me a huge deal
I plan on taking him up on it asap

ps
yikes

 

Tad you are absolutely right.
I have tendency to take the fasteners for granted, and when I do the precise number, I see that it is one of the very expensive post in the estimate.
I often suggest galvanized, but they are difficult to come by in good quality.
I used extensively galvanized while building in Spain. Bronze was not an option at the time. We always put the screw first in a paste of zinc, and for the bolts we fill up the hole with more liquid zinc and then put the bolt.
And the option fastening with passive stainless steel is almost as expensive as bronze.
The boat I am building, since it is on a budget (mine ) I am using galvanized all thru.
Daniel

 

Ok here I think we can say we have two school. I am for super heavy, but it is a choice, not because I think all boat should be heavy. Some light boat did wonders.
I like heavy because I like the smooth motion, I like to have a lot underwater, I like fat scantling, and I like do be not bother by the cargo needed for a long cruise.
I like to be IN my boat not ON my boat. I don't know if I explain right.
I use to design, built and race IOR, so I know pretty well light and powerful, I took my boat from Malmoe Sweden to Barcelona. Interesting but close to the nightmare.
I did the reverse on a Colin Archer type, displacement length almost 600!
I was in heaven. (It took twice the time, but what a good time)
Then my life turned that I designed and built a lot of fishing boat for long range fishing, we built super heavy. I did some campaign, it make me so accustomed to heavy, that I have this thing: heavy is good.
Finaly, performance, I don't bother to much.
But as always it is my two cents.
Daniel

 

Well everything is relative. Buying from Jamestown is truely not in the cards though for a boat of that size. And I subscribe to family and local businesses for just about every single thing that I buy these days.

 

ya I just started a new thread specifically concerning fasteners

 

I built a strip plank 16ft canoe 3 years ago.
(9th may 2005) - the strip planks cost $350

The epoxy and 6 oz cloth was about $150

The cost of the finishing paint - 2 X 1 litre ($100 per litre) for 2 part undercoat/sealer with thinners, 1 litre of two part finish paint with thinners $130. Add up epoxy with filler for fairing, sandpaper , spray mask filters, Acetone for cleaning the spray gun etc the finishing coats cost more than the wood for the entire canoe ! Approx $400

As has been said so often in the past - the hull material is the least expensive component.

I remember seeing an ad for a 40 ft motor cruiser - and the caption was "It costs more to paint a boat now than to build the hull"

You must own a sawmill to get the timber for $250, and to do a whole 30' hull for 3 times the price of a canoe is ..... amazing ??