Monthly Archives: February 2009

Why use wood to build boats?

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Photo by rick rowland via Flickr Creative Commons

Where lightweight and strength are needed wood is the best material to use.

Wood is stronger than than steel, most fiberglass and aluminium pound for pound.

Wood is stiffer than all fiberglass, kevlar and steel.

Wood absorbs vibrations and this includes sound, so wooden boats are quieter.

Wood does not fatigue with repeated loading,

Wood is a renewable resource and the growing of wood removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Wood is eco friendly in that it can be recycled, fiberglass cannot.

Wood looks good.

Wood allows economical, in both materials and cost, custom production of boats.

Wooden boats require similar maintenance to fiberglass boats. Gel coat is not the wonder material it was thought to be

So why are most boats for sale today made of fiberglass?

There is one reason most boats are built from fiberglass; that is cheap labour.

It requires skilled craftspeople to build a wooden boat, whereas semi-skilled and unskilled operatives with proper supervision can manufacture a fiberglass boat.

Fiberglass is not renewable and non-recyclable,

Fiberglass requires similar maintenance to a wooden boat. Gel coat is not the wonder material it was thought to be.

Update: 2-May-2010

I came across this article by Lawence W. Cheek in the Seattle Times today and he says exactly what I want to, but better.

“We willingly pour the considerable labor and love into building, maintaining and restoring wooden boats because they lead us to participating in something greater than ourselves. I have nothing against fiberglass, but a boat made of synthetic material simply reflects human culture back at us. It is purely a product of technology. A wooden boat is a partnership. It’s not literally a living thing, not quite, but it evinces respect for the life that exists outside the clubby circle of human intelligence.”

Photo by Botheredbybees

Photo by Botheredbybees via Flickr Creative Commons

West Cork Launch Sites. No. 1 Ballydehob

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bdhobbridge

Above: Ballydehob’s Iconic 12 Arch Tramway Bridge

I thought that I would do an occasional series on the launch sites and small piers around the West cork coast. Whenever I’m passing near one I usually check them out to see what they’re suitable for. Now I’m going to start photographing them. So that you can get a good idea of how much water there will be I’m going to aim to photograph them around low tide.

It is here.

And Here are some pictures.

ballydehobblogLooking north

As you can see the slip is in good condition and offers at least 5′ at high tide. It is obstructed by mooring lines but these could be moved when launching and retrieving.

bdhobblogLooking east

bdhobblog2Looking West

There is ample space for parking and the area is lit and safe at night. It’s a short 2-3 minute walk to the shop, small hardware shop, launderette, petrol station, restaurants and 7 of the best pubs in Ireland. Click here for information on Ballydehob.

bdchannelThe channel through Ballydehob bay a to Roaringwater bay is marked by bouys and is fairly straight forward. The great thing about Ballydehob is that diesel and petrol are available in the village; this is no longer so in neighboring Schull. Also it is much quieter and picturesque with better shelter than its more famous neighbor. It is restricted in draft and only accessible to smaller craft which is great.

Hope this info. is helpful to some one. And yes I know I should have taken an aerial shot from the bridge. I’ll add that next time.

Restoration of National 18

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I bought this National 18 from a friend of mine. Some friend you might say. It was to replace an old plywood wayfarer that had finally disintegrated ( I could push my finger through the bottom.) after more than 30 years or so. As you can see in the pictures it was in pretty rag order.

liamodonovanofficesuite0033All of the decking had delaminated after being left out uncovered for a good few years and the boat needed a full fitting out.

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Well it was early June and I wanted to go sailing a soon as possible before the summer ended. So I set to and two weeks later it looked like this.

18boatI redecked the boat, recyled some of the seats from the wayfarer and built new ones. They gave me some very funny looks when I bought a plank of iroko that looked like a boomerang but it was perfect for the rubrail at the gunwale. I was able to use the wayfarer rig, which was a little smaller than the National 18; because I would be single handing a lot. Repainted and varnished the whole lot. I filled in the transom hole as I wanted to keep my feet dry. I’ve been using the boat for 3 summers now and it has performed much better than the wyfarer the extra length and beam make it a lot sturdier and roomy. The design is a 1968 Ian Proctor design that replaced the sleek 1930’s Uffa Fox design of the National 18 which is very nice too. I apologise for the quaity of the photos when I took them I hadn’t intended to put them in blog.

Trip to St Kilda October 2007

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I came across these photos of a trip I did with a friend of mine on his Rival 38 to St Kilda a remote cluster of islands 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles. I have to say the sail north from Burtonport, Donegal was splendid considering the lateness of the season. Three days with the wind abaft spinnaker up and beautiful mild weather. The only rain we had was when I was off watch; luckily. We arrived at night and spent a rather awful night at anchor with strong gusts coming down off the mountains and blowing the boat in all directions. The view that greeted us in the morning was quite spectacular. At that time of year there are only the RAF members on the Island and the pub was closed. I know an island without a pub, what is the world coming too?

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This is one of the many stone cleitean that are dotted all over the islands. They were used as storage for animals and fodder and by the look of the place I’d say the St Kildians used to roll up the soil and put it inside to stop it blowing away during the winter. Spectacular and lonesome so lonesome in fact that the last inhabitants requested to be taken off in the 1930’s.

kildaup

Here’s another view the little dark smudge in the water if you can see it is our boat. There was bad weather coming in and the anchorage was untenable so all in all after 3 days at sea we only got to spent 2 or 3 hours on St Kilda. So we headed over to Carloway on the isle of Lewis; which is very close to the Callinish stones.

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Just look at the heads on these three and they were only away from home four days at this stage can you imagine what they looked like after two weeks. They nearly had to be put into quarantine when they got home. I have photos of the rest of this trip somewhere I’ll post when I find them.