Revival of the wooden tradition in yacht building

Glorious past...

WITH ancient times boats were made of wood. This material was one of the most common and for a long time - until the middle of the last century - remained extremely popular. And although large expedition yachts and ships at the beginning of the 20th century could have metal plating, boats for the “common people” remained wooden.

Then, in the 1960s, fiberglass was invented. It is one of many composites that are in widespread use today. As it turned out, fiberglass together with resin is very well suited for molding yacht hulls. 

Carbon fiber also appeared under the auspices of preserving the environment and a brighter future - and indeed had a number of advantages over its predecessors. Carbon can be described as a strong, lightweight, durable material. 

And yet, some shipyards and yacht designers, even with the advent of a whole range of assorted materials, still remained true to wood. Someone called them hopelessly lagging behind progress, someone - retro lovers. And now, quite recently, “wooden traditions” began to return little by little, but now in a new guise.

… And a bright future

A number of start-ups and small shipyards have recently begun to produce a new generation of wooden yachts. But there is a nuance - the tree in these boats is not quite ordinary. If earlier it was literally possible to spend more than one tree on a medium-sized yacht, now everything is a little trickier. 

For the production of new yachts, shipyards like Spirit Yachts use the so-called. wood composites. It can be either full-fledged wooden boards impregnated with special compounds and adhesives, or the so-called. “sandwiches” (several boards of different types of wood or wood and plywood glued together with epoxy resin), and exclusively plywood, chipboard and / or fiberboard.

One of the main advantages of boats made of this type of wood is environmental friendliness. Bye fiberglass and aluminum boats rot in landfills due to the lack of recycling equipment, new wooden boats are easily recycled. Unlike complex composites and metals, wood, even in the form of fiberboard or chipboard, can be used after secondary processing. Furniture, toys, interior decor - this is not a complete list of how you can use recycled wood. And now let's move on to other advantages of the “new” wood.

Benefits of using wood

Wood-epoxy materials, in addition to the mentioned environmental friendliness, have a number of other advantages. Firstly, these materials are well studied - engineers have decades of observation of more modern types of wood-epoxy materials, as well as centuries of study of ordinary wood. And this is not just knowledge of how this or that wood interacts with water, but also how different types of wood can be combined to obtain the optimal boat hull for certain purposes.

Secondly, with the right selection of wood and glue, the resulting material will be an order of magnitude stiffer than fiberglass. An important role in creating a strong and durable case is played not only by glue (various resins), but also by a laminate, which opens the inner and outer surface of the case. With due attention to the choice of wood, you can create not only a strong, but also a very light boat.

Thirdly, technology does not stand still. For some reason, many are sure that the technology for creating wooden boats has remained at the level of the 1900s, but this is absolutely not true. Today there are many types of wood processing and gluing. Modern wooden boats, in terms of the number and complexity of technologies used in production, are closer to modern fiberglass boats than to their classic counterparts.

Economic problems

Today, many potential buyers will prefer to buy a fiberglass boat, rather than a modern wooden one. This is due to people's ideas that a wooden boat is something outdated, out of date and requiring some very special care. Yes, maintenance is needed and it really is different from fiberglass, but not so much as to deny yourself the pleasure of owning a wooden boat.

But one of the main problems of wooden boats is not even maintenance, but their cost. Although such shipyards as Spirit yachts try not to raise prices to astronomical heights, the production of wooden boats remains an expensive business. Today there are a number of projects that are trying to bring something new and create affordable yachting on wooden boats for everyone, but so far these are only projects that are starting their work.

However, even if accessibility for ordinary yachtsmen is still a little tight, the wooden traditions of shipbuilding continue to live. When will the benefits of modern wood composites be felt by everyone? It's a matter of time, but we hope as soon as possible. 

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15.06.2023