Any Old " WOOD BOATERS" Left out there ?

Love them old wooden boats. But I don't want to have to do the maintenance on them.
The boat yard where we keep our boat has been in business since 1938. The original owner just passed away, but his kids still do wood work on boats when needed. We have a lot of wooden shrimp boats around here.
They use a rail type lift to get them out of the water. They don't use a travel lift with straps.
The rail system they have was bought used way way back and is still in operation.
 
That is truly the way to go but the rail systems are falling by the way and are becoming fewer and farther between. It is A crying shame too, being there are still so many of these great old woodies out there, it just seems we are getting more and more lazy as time goes on going to the plastic boats you just turn the key and go. That really is not boating to me it seems to me there are more and more guys out there that have no clue about their boats they simply have "the marina guy" take care of any problems they might have which kinda scares me in A way knowing there are guys out there that don't know anything but key goes in there, gas goes in here, poop water comes out there, and there out on the open water with me.
 
Great story and photos! I winter stored my 30' Bayliner there for 3 years when we lived in Rochester, and I know what you mean about having to chase them around to get them to launch you.

Good luck with the old gal, she's a beaut.

-Ron
 
Jimmy, seeing that you have never owned or maintained a fiberglass cruiser, I take issue with your statements above. Those with "plastic" boats that just turn the key and go soon find that their boats aren't worth the fuel in the tanks. Many of us spend long hours maintaining and performing preventive maintenance so we don't encounter some of the problems you are haveing now.
 
Its not laziness, its technology and advancement. I'd rather drive my car than a horse and buggy. Time moves on.
Maybe the reason that wood boats are far and few between is because the original owners never took care of them.....
 
+1

Its not laziness at all. Though I do like working on my boats, but with my work schedule, I rather have a mechanic maintain my systems. Even though I dont do my mechanical work on my larger boat, doesnt mean I dont know how to do it. There are a lot of people on this forum, that perform there on mechanical work. My thought process is, is that where I boat, I only have 4 solid months of nice weather, I could either maximize the time I spend cruising or hanging out on the boat, or I could do my own mechanical work and delay the amount of time I have to use the boat..
 
First off I would like to apologize if I offended anyone with my plastic boat comment it was not meant to put down any one, second I have owned aluminum, fiberglass, and now A woody and just in my opinion would not go back to either of the later. I am happy with my woody I am just trying to make A point that no matter what your hull construction may be, all boats are A lot of work mechanically. Add A wood hull to the equation and everything multiplies by 3, I am A retired cabinet maker and enjoy working with it that is just simply my choice. I was just commenting in general on what I have seen around the area I dock, not A lot of guys know crap when it comes to their boat if something breaks they call the marina guy after they get towed back in from one of the other boaters. Yes I agree some of us only have the marina take care of to save time in A tight schedule but do stuff while in dock in our own time, what I am saying is out of the 75 boats in our marina there are only A small handful of guys that know our boats and do the work when and if we choose, the rest basically only know where the key goes, and forget the rest, some of them have the marina pump out the waste after they leave because they have no idea how to do it. Others never move theirs they have no idea how to drive them the marina splashes them in spring, pumps them out A few times during the season, cruises them back to the launch for haul out winterization and storage till spring, it' sad, some of them are so beautiful and never move.
 
Well Y'all,
Went up to the marina this past Friday night to spend one last night on the water and to haul her out Saturday afternoon. Yes we hauled out and,, oh yes A nightmare. I think I had 2 or 3 heart attacks, made up A few new words, and contemplated killing 1 or 2 people but changed my mind because I couldn't think of A place to dispose of the bodies. Here is A run down of events.

The weekend started off pretty good, after we got there it only took about 30 minutes to get fire to stbd engine and she fired right up,,good right,,ok it gets better,, checked out the water situation in stbd #8 cylinder, there was none no misses and purred like A kitten. We let both engines run for A bit to warm up then untied her and headed to the pump out,,still all good so far right,,,right.

Got her all pumped out then off to the launch, WOO HOO all still good.
I got her to the launch in one piece and tied her off.
They brought the truck over to the launch set it up and backed under her,,, and SHAZAM,, here is where things go bad. first attempt, they had the wrong pads on the bow and the steel on the pad pushed up through the hull planks on the stbd side broke 5 ribs started taking on some water etc,etc,etc. WELL as you could guess I FREAKED !!!!! Oh and yes I can still hear that horrid sound of crushing wood in my head 2 days later.

THEN they set her back in, put the right pads on and tried it again,, here we go again and THIS TIME she slid most of the way off the pads she was listed about 30 degrees to port...
At this point I couldn't feel my body,,, I was numb, my heart was pounding and I wanted to kill someone.

Again they backed her back in to try again,,,,FINALLY! Success!! they got her out and up on the jacks,
once they got her set they power washed her up nice and I went into damage seeking mode,, well here it is folks.

9 broken ribs total,, 4 on port, 5 on stbd. good thing is I can get to all of them port side they are all behind the A/C unit, and stbd are all behind the generator.

Transom is shot and needs to be replaced, I blew out the aft fender somewhere between the last time I was up there last week and Friday when I got there this week and the corner bashed against the dock and beat it up pretty good, tore out some chunks etc,etc,etc.that is pretty much it so far for the wood repairs but I am sure I will find more as I go on with what I got. Other then that we winterized her this morning and headed home for A brief break before I go back hit it hard till spring.
Here are the last few pictures I took for the 2010 season before I start A new set for the 2011 run.

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Cliff cooking steaks on the grill for our last breakfast on the water, you just cant beat steak on charcoal, Ray was inside doing up the scrambled eggs with chunks of sausage and cheese,, awesome breakfast.

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Bill & Bob pictured left to right, started out as A joke but I ended up leaving them there when I noticed they scared the crap out of the other birds and they stayed away from her. I never had to clean one bird turd off of her all year.

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Last out !!!

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Yard worker Adam power washing the crap off, I wanted to do it but it was part of the haul out deal.
 
Those broken ribs have to pi$$ you off! Sorry to hear.
Congrats on a finished season. You've come a long way.
 
a bueatiful old boat was ruined here because the yard launced it and it sank before swelling. It is just darn near impossible to find yards that can deal with a wood boat.
 
Definitely get a survey if you are not versed in wooden hulls.
In the pic of the port side i saw at least 2 planks standing proud.
This indicates there is something bad going on behind those butts.

Also in the bow on shot i see damage or a bad repair of the stbd. bow
just below the gunwale.
 
a little late for a survey. He already owns and is restoring the boat.
 
He must have a survey to get it insured.......better to wait until only cosmetic issues remain or they may refuse to insure the boat.

Jimmy, I really admire all you are doing for her! I actually moaned out loud when I read about the damage by the yard!!!!

I used to have a neighbor with a Pacemaker. She was turned into a beauty by the couple who bought her. Later they got newer, larger plastic boat and often said they still missed their old woody..... Last I saw, she was on the water being enjoyed by her owners. Fond memories.

When can afford it, replace that plastic furniture in the cockpit with some nice wooden pieces to go with your nice wooden boat! Thanks for all the postings and pictures. I look forward to your 2011 chapter!
 
Hopefully it is already insured as he had it in the water last summer at a marina around other boats. At least liability insurance I would hope. I would imagine it would be tough to obtain other insurance in this case.
 
Jimmy,

I just came across this story and loved it. You got your boat about the same time I got mine. One thing I did was SURVEY at the start and watched and asked a zillion questions over the 5 hours. This raised my awareness. I joined a forum that covered my brand, got a number of books and found some great websites for wooden boats. The key is to gather the info and TRY to stay one step ahead of the repairs and preventive maintenance.

I hope you continue to keep us updated and keep the pictures coming. It would be great to see the rib repairs.

As I write this I have to take mine to the boat yard so they can replace the shaft packing. It was out of the water in April and I told them the shaft packing was last replaced 5 years ago and asked them to replace both. They talked me out of it - if it was not leaking - don't mess with it. Now one drips very three seconds sitting in the slip.

Remember, you can make the down and monthly payments on a newer boat or own a wood one and make the monthly repairs, either way it costs, but the wooden way feels better.

Hang in there, you have a great boat, best of luck.

Mike
 
Did you try to tighten the packing gland before you decided it was time to re-pack?
 
yeap, cannot budge them and did not want to take a chance damaging the hose. The leak cause the clamps to rust. The last repack was five years ago so I thought is was about time.
 
Clamps? Do you mean the clamps on the shaft log? It's the packing nut that you would adjust. You shouldn't have to do anything with the clamps on the shaft log.
 
OMG!- Yzer, your picture of the 26' Chris just blew me away. It's the same boat we had back in the 60's. At the time we were moored in Pt Jefferson and then later in Montauk, LI and the boat's name was "Nauti-Four."

Lady C
 
WELL Y'ALL 2011 HAS BEGUN !!!
The boys and I have been up to the boat now every weekend in March so far except this one, it was our 10th anniversary and thought it would be wise not to go. We will hit it hard from here on out. Here's what we got so far, port side, cosmetic damage aft and amid ship, 4 broken ribs forward. Stbd, 5 broken ribs, broken hull planking forward, bashed up transom. There is some other stuff too but minor. Here are the first pictures of the year to go with "the rest of the story"

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