Wooden Yachts: Is Wood Practical Today?

What unites everyone

Probably the majority of people who currently call themselves yachtsmen came to the sea because of a dream. This dream usually has several mandatory attributes: freedom, salty sea wind, a sail and... A boat. Or a yacht. Try to visualize this picture: freedom, sea wind, snow-white sail, the setting fiery orange sun over the horizon... And a yacht. What kind of yacht is this?

Despite the fact that our memory gives us quite real pictures of fiberglass yachts and catamarans, deep down most yachtsmen associate yachting with wooden boats. Even in popular culture, if we talk about “boats for everyone,” and not just for stars and celebrities, then most likely, an ordinary person who is not knowledgeable in the sea will describe the most ordinary wooden yacht with a painted hull and mast.

The image of a wooden sailing vessel is firmly entrenched in our collective unconscious – and for good reason. The wooden tradition of seafaring dates back to ancient times, when the world was limited to the Mediterranean Sea, even the Vikings did not know about America, and the icy poles of our planet were the limit of fantasy.

The craft of creating a fully-fledged vehicle from pieces of wood has its roots in the distant past, and therefore it is completely normal that the sea, despite the presence of huge tankers and warships made of metal, is still associated on some subconscious level with the sailboats of bygone eras. However, neither time, nor traditions, nor technology stand still. Wood has been replaced by fusible metal and durable fiberglass, glues and epoxy have been replaced by high-tech artificial resins, and we no longer need to look at the night sky to plot a route.

Is it good? Definitely yes, because the level of shipping safety has increased significantly over the last century, not to mention the millennium. On the other hand, the wooden tradition is gradually becoming a thing of the past, despite attempts to revive it. Or is it not as bad as interested individuals are trying to convince us?

Wood has gone out of fashion… 

Indeed, since the 1960s, the production of wooden yachts has been losing popularity. There are many objective and weighty reasons for this, such as:

• Cost: Using several mature large trees to produce one small yacht is not cheap. In addition, trees, unfortunately, do not grow fast enough to cover the demand of the entire market. Add to this the fact that woodworking requires experience and knowledge that not every carpenter has. Simply making a boat and making a well-balanced and controllable boat are two different things.
• Production speed: molding a fiberglass hull is a much less labor- and time-consuming task. In a fast-growing market, order fulfillment speed is important. In the case of wooden boats, you can’t just cut down a tree and start working – the wood must dry out, which can take more than one or two years.
• Difficulties with care: a wooden boat requires special care. This problem is well known to any guitarist - due to inconstant humidity and temperature, the wood deforms. Sudden changes in temperature and humidity are also detrimental to any type of wood. Special care products come to the rescue, but this is not enough. In order for a wooden boat to "feel" normal, it is necessary that the wood itself is of high quality and pre-treated with special compounds. 
• Design features: look at the hull of any wooden yacht and see that curved shapes are not a normal "aggregate" state for wood. To create such a hull, not only the knowledge of a shipbuilder is needed, but also a number of special technologies, which also affect the final cost of the boat. At the same time, fiberglass gives the opportunity to create the most incredible shapes with a minimum of effort.

In this article, we will do without moralizing about the harm of fiberglass to the environment, we will simply state the fact: this material is simply more convenient, more durable and cheaper. These three main advantages outweigh any of its possible disadvantages. 

Since the advent of this engineering marvel, wood has gradually faded into the background. The most ironic thing is that the history of yachting has made a complete turn around its axis. Once upon a time, even medium-sized wooden yachts were only available to very wealthy people. Then, with the advent of plywood, OSB, chipboard and cheaper types of wood, yachting became more accessible and wooden boats ceased to be so expensive. 

And so, by the 1980s, the vast majority of yachtsmen had switched to yachts made of cheap fiberglass, and wooden yachts once again became synonymous with the "rich" life, because a yacht made of real wood is not such a cheap pleasure. However, it is not quite as it looks.

…And received a second life

At some point, yacht building finally split: a separate branch of conditionally "modern" yachts and a separate branch of classic boats appeared. Modern yachts (1970-present) are actively developing to this day. New hull shapes, resin compositions for bonding yacht components are being invented, more environmentally friendly materials are being synthesized, etc. Modern yachts keep up with not only the times, but also with technologies and trends. 

At the same time, there is a “classic branch” of yachting. Fans of classic yachting are mostly busy preserving relics of the past. These people perform an important task – they give people of the 21st century the opportunity to touch long-lost knowledge and forgotten approaches to shipbuilding. Some yachtsmen are engaged in the restoration of old yachts from the “pre-fiberglass” era. Restoration is hard work that does not always pay off, but it is this that allows us to see old yachts in all their glory.

Other classic enthusiasts are busy recreating old boats, spending millions of dollars to create replicas of yachts that were, for example, scrapped or sunk long ago. 

A few words from the author of the article: I am especially impressed by people who build “non-existent” replicas. This is the rare case when they find the plans of a classic yacht from the 20-30s of the last century, which was never built. Those who find such plans arm themselves with the help of professionals and yacht historians and go to build these yachts. Thus, 90-100 years after the creation of the original plan, the boat is finally built and gets its chance to take its place among other classic yachts. One such example is the yacht J-class Svea.

Svea today

In general, wood, although it has lost its popularity as a building material, has literally received a second wind. Today, wooden boats are not so popular, but it is precisely at that moment when the "hype" passes that the time for real art comes.

About the context of wooden yachting

Most of today's attempts to create, repair or recreate a classic wooden yacht are not aimed at simply preserving the yacht. Any boat itself is just a piece of wood, fiberglass or metal. In order for the inanimate material to gain life and "breathe", it is necessary - its majesty context.

The context of wooden yachts is the craftsmanship of designing them. John Wilson, editor of WoodenBoat magazine, one of the oldest yachting publications, sums it up very well. In an interview with the Island Institute website, John was asked why he wanted to cover the history of wooden yachts in the first place. His answer was: “[In the early 1970s] wooden boats were going out of fashion, fiberglass was rapidly gaining popularity. I just wanted to make sure that wooden yachts didn’t disappear so quickly that we forgot about the art and science of designing and building wooden boats. They deserve to be remembered in history.”

John Wilson

Today, Wilson is known to Western readers as a true legend – the founder of the legendary WoodenBoat, Professional BoatBuilder and Small Boats magazines, the WoodenBoat school and the store of the same name, as well as the WoodenBoat Show. But in the 1970s, John was only about 25 years old and he went into print with literally two people who had subscribed to the then unknown magazine.

Important names

Since 1974, John Wilson and many other enthusiasts have been doing something important: educating and educating the public about the art of wooden yacht building. As John rightly noted, today's wooden yacht building is first and foremost about skill and true art in wood, and only secondly and thirdly about yachting itself.

Thanks to the efforts of the WoodenBoat team, wooden yachts are still popular. In the 21st century, it is easy to assume that even without the team of enthusiasts John Wilson, the wooden tradition would have continued to live. That is true, but another important task of WoodenBoat was to attract public attention. And the team did a great job.

John Wilson is one of those people who created the context of the entire era of classic yachting for the modern yachtsman. Among other not the most famous, but extremely important names:

• Maynard Bray is an author, photographer and historian, and the technical editor of WoodenBoat.
• Steve White, owner of Brooklyn Boat Yard, has been involved in popularizing the wooden tradition in yachting.
• Tim Snyder is the organizer of the Wooden Boat Festival and a promoter of the wooden tradition in yachting.

The number of important names is much larger. All these people are united by one goal – to prevent the craft of creating wooden boats from sinking into oblivion. John Wilson describes his mission this way: “All I was trying to do was slow down the process of wooden yachts dying out.”

Why is this important?

Preserving the wooden tradition in yachting is not only cultural and historical in nature. The roots of this issue lie in several planes at once, which must be considered separately.

Legacy of the era

Wooden yachts are a unique part of maritime history. Classic yachts are important not only because they are part of the archaic era, but also because they are a living monument to the art, technology and aesthetics of past eras. 

An important aspect of preserving the wooden tradition is the transfer of skills. It is important not only to store old yachts, but also to learn how to make new ones. This requires craftsmen and students who can pass on the customs of the wooden tradition to their descendants.

Aesthetics and individuality

Unlike serial production, wooden yachts are almost never the same. Even twin yachts, built according to the same project, are rarely identical. And it's not even about the layout itself. 

A hand-made yacht differs from exactly the same yacht that came out of the workshop of the same craftsman. In addition, wood itself is a very "living" material, the condition of which directly depends on weather conditions. Even if two yachts, roughly speaking, are built from the same wood, they will still differ from each other.

Each wooden boat has its own individual characteristics, which makes it a small, but still a work of art.

Inspiration for new technologies

The old saying goes, "Everything new is well forgotten old." Learning woodworking skills is a fun enough activity in itself, but it, like any other kind of fine work, can serve as inspiration for something new. 

Thus, thanks to wooden yachts, the so-called cold molding method appeared. Today, this method is used to create super-strong composites, but it was once intended specifically for wood. In addition, modern marine architects often borrow successful design elements from sea yachts.

The next time you leaf through a fashion brochure or a new yacht brochure, pay attention to how many times the shipyard refers to “old traditions,” “the heritage of the past,” or “the spirit of those same yachts.”

So how practical is wood today?

In conclusion, we will try to answer the question in detail, which is located in the title of the text. Hand on heart, it is worth noting that the practicality of wood at sea today is extremely questionable. Yes, many boats and yacht projects appear, allegedly using "those same craft methods" to create "those same boats". 

However, if you dig a little deeper and study the specifications of these boats, you realize that these are still the same fiberglass or composite boats with careful use of wood in the interior or cockpit. Is this sad? Only if you look at it from the point of view of marketing deception.

The wooden tradition lives on. Much quieter and more modest than it once was, but the skill and craftsmanship are gradually passed on from generation to generation. For us, yachtsmen, this is the most important thing – because our history lives on.

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26.10.2024