Wonderboats

The Good Ol’ Days Are Now

Today in our age of predominantly fiberglass marine craft, people take the stuff for granted.  Only those who have lived with and provided ministration to wooden boats can truly appreciate today’s wonderboats for fiberglass truly is a miracle material. It is seamless, strong, can be molded to virtually any shape, has an infinite life span if properly built, absorbs very little water and, finally, is chemically inert (which, I guess, makes metal boats chemically “ert”).  

The “Joy” of Woodies

Let me tell you about wooden boats. Most were “flexible fliers” (I once remember watching an old wooden Pacemaker being hauled out and set on blocks. When the weight on the Travelift belts was relaxed, it looked like the poor boat exhaled). Wooden boats usually leaked – some more than others. Some leaked so badly that little fish found their way up through the seams and set up housekeeping in the bilges! 

Bad leakers had to be anchored in shallows so they would be high and dry when low tide came letting the water in the bilge run out by gravity (the first automatic bilge pump?). Because decks and superstructures were put together with thousands of separate pieces of wood, they usually leaked and, oh yeah, after the water had its way with the beautiful mahogany or pine or oak, the wood rotted and your lovely decks turned into something that looked like cheap canned cat food.  

Knowing what we know today, if somebody came forth with a grand new invention called the “planked wooden boat,” he would be laughed off the planet. After setting up the keel, you take some wooden sticks and put them in a steam box and bend them over a mold or saw them to shape. Then you take these flat boards, plane them to shape and screw them to the sticks. The problem is that there are gaps between the boards that would let water pour in (the average 30-footer might have a thousand feet of underwater gaps between the boards). So, the gaps have to be stuffed with cotton and then gooped over to keep them from leaking.  

Another little problem: the boards shrink when they are dry and swell when they are wet – but every year they shrink a little more and swell a little less, so that, over time, the gaps between the boards become wider and wider.  Then, of course, you must paint the thing every year to have it looking right. And so, here we have a rather flexible, high maintenance structure composed of a zillion little pieces of wood held together by two zillion little screws with miles of holes stuffed with cotton and goop that’s supposed to float and keep the water out. If there is a worse way to build a watertight vessel, I can’t imagine it. Great invention – for a masochist. 

There have been variations to the theme over the years including batten seam construction, and double planking in an effort to keep the water from coming through the holes between the boards but, as those hulls got older, they leaked too.  Of course, modern materials such as epoxy have been applied to wooden construction and have eliminated most of the problems. But these are recent developments. I am talking about vintage wooden boats built the traditional way – the way they have been for the last thousand years until the sixties when fiberglass came into widespread use.

Siren Song

Yes, anyone owning or aspiring to own a traditional wooden boat has to be a glutton for marine punishment. And yet… and yet knowing all of this there is still nothing smarter today then a well-maintained wooden boat swinging at anchor or parting the waves cruising the sound. There is something about a wooden boat that simply cannot be captured in fiberglass no matter how much wood is slathered over the plastic.  Believe me, the siren song of a wooden boat is very strong.  I should certainly know better. We have been designing and building fiberglass boats since the early 70’s. 

I grew up on wooden boats and I am intimately aware of all the hassles. A few years back, I owned a 47-foot wonderboat.  Then, one day in Classic Boating magazine, I saw an ad for a 40-foot 1950 Chris-Craft Challenger. I had grown up ogling ‘50’s Chris-Crafts: the smart rounded shapes, the acres of varnished mahogany, the beautiful hardware and the sound of the exhausts. Her owner told me the boat was all original, used her whole life in a fresh water lake in Minnesota (natives pronounce it “Minnesooota”) and hauled out and put in a boathouse after every use on a private marine railway (this is, by the way is the equivalent of that used car driven only Sundays to revival meetings by a little old lady). 

Before I knew what I was doing, my wife and I where on a plane like damn fools heading for Minnesooota – in March for God’s sake.  When we finally found the boat, she was, indeed, a beauty and completely original down to the upholstery.  She was as sound as any boat I had seen that had not been rebuilt. She needed a lot of refinishing work but she was so dammed beautiful. I call boats like this “bimbo boats” – great to look at but once they are yours, just what in the hell do you do with them? Unable to control myself, I offered the owner $30,000 figuring I would have to put another $60,000 into her to make her right. Afterwards, I might be able to sell her for $40,000. Great investment, eh? Luckily, for me, the owner turned down my offer and I returned home to my plastic fantastic with visions of varnish farms dancing in my head.

Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

Today, I have a gorgeous 43-foot wonderboat that is much more than I ever could have dreamed of back in my wooden boat days. She is fast, beautiful, virtually maintenance free and it is packed full of amenities.  But, still, there imbedded deep in my psyche is this “thing” for wooden boats. So, any of you out there who might have old wooden boats for sale such as an absolutely pristine Elco that was purchased new in 1947 and immediately entombed in a time capsule, please do not call me. And you up there in the Thousand Islands with that gorgeous 38-foot 1956 Chris-Craft “Connie”: if she comes on the market, do not call me either. And whoever owns the magnificent ‘20’s commuter “Pam” moored in Newport, RI: absolutely don’t call me if she is for sale. 

Finally, to Mr. Ted Volpey (who’s card reads something like “Wooden Boat Owner, Former Millionaire”) owner of the magnificent Consolidated Commuter boat “Jessica”: please, please, never ever call me.  It would be like offering matches to a pyromaniac or a martini to a wino.

(Reprinted with permission of Regina Fexas.)

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