Wooden hulled antique tug/yacht questions

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Captain Jeff

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Mar 28, 2023
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5
Greetings,
I hope this is in the correct place, if not please delete.
I am considering to purchase one of two antique tug for charters but do not have much experience with the wooden hull design vs. the more "normal" fiberglass designed hull.
I am wondering what are some of the major warning signs that I should be looking for during a survey.
The two vessels I am considering have been used as charters and "seem" well maintained, but no telling the real condition until I can walk the decks.
Since they are both in cold waters, what might be the deterioration rate/concerns by taking them to the the Caribbean or Mexico?
Thank you for any and all suggestions.
Safe Cruising!
 
Captain Jeff said:
Greetings,
I hope this is in the correct place, if not please delete.
I am considering to purchase one of two antique tug for charters but do not have much experience with the wooden hull design vs. the more "normal" fiberglass designed hull.
I am wondering what are some of the major warning signs that I should be looking for during a survey.
The two vessels I am considering have been used as charters and "seem" well maintained, but no telling the real condition until I can walk the decks.
Since they are both in cold waters, what might be the deterioration rate/concerns by taking them to the the Caribbean or Mexico?
Thank you for any and all suggestions.
Safe Cruising!
Click to expand...

A good surveyor will tell you the warning signs. I would hire someone well versed with surveying wood boats.

IMHO, I wouldn't buy a wooden boat, I wouldn't put a wooden boat into charter, and I sure as heck wouldn't take one to warm waters.
 
Yes I will have an experienced surveyor go over but I was hoping for more detailed explanations.
Just saying "I wouldn't and don't take it south does not help without better context.
Why would you not?
Thanks.
 
I basically agree with Shrew.

It is my opinion that if you don't already know these answers and your abilities as they relate to wood boats then you have no business being involved with wood boats.

Should you proceed with this then higher a NAMS accredited surveyor.
 
Captain Jeff said:
Yes I will have an experienced surveyor go over but I was hoping for more detailed explanations.
Just saying "I wouldn't and don't take it south does not help without better context.
Why would you not?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Because wood boats require a tremendous amount of maintenance and labor. Your questions indicate that you know very little about wood boats. This will make maintenance very expensive.

Because wood boats are typically old and fragile. This, along with the maintenance makes them difficult to insure, difficult to find storage for (some marinas won't even allow wooden boats), and difficult to haul out (many marinas will not lift a wooden boat).

Because chartering a wooden boat is a liability IMHO. I am confident most insurance underwriters will agree.

Because warm salt water increases chances of Teredo worms and wood rot.
 
Greetings,
Mr. CJ. Re-read comments as noted above. Most if not all of the above negatives CAN be overcome with enough patience and $$$$$. Aside from work that most probably will have to be done, finding a boat yard willing to take on the repairs WITH skilled workers will be a job in itself. IF you happen to have some spare MILLION$$$ to play around with, sure.
 
tiltrider1 said:
I basically agree with Shrew.

It is my opinion that if you don't already know these answers and your abilities as they relate to wood boats then you have no business being involved with wood boats.

Should you proceed with this then higher a NAMS accredited surveyor.
Click to expand...
Agree....

For the OP: You will have to travel long and hard to find a good wooden boat surveyor. Sure some will have the reputation but to get wooden boats for passenger service...better hire the best. The USCG can be hard on wooden boats for passenger hire. Do some research on the El Torro II sinking. I was the USCG operations officer responsible for the USCG helo dispatch and intimately involved with some of the aftermath so I tried to stay in the loop. This incident almost abolished wooden boats for passengers in the USA. If operating outside the USA, you can ignore all my input, but better check the country where you are headed. This was the last straw why I would never own a large wooden boat....plus the sinking in just a few years of nearly all the wooden eastern rigged trawlers I used to patrol in the Mid-Atlantic states.

One thing I leaned along the way from my childhood start of 3 wooden boats, wooden boats are not necessarily a bad thing, but neglected ones can be. There are old wooden boats that were built up north, but once in the tropics were maintenance nightmares. Old wooden boats built from southern/native woods used in the tropics seem to do better.

In addition to the rare qualified surveyor to make sure what you are buying is OK, also they need to point out what the USCG will nitpick. Then even before that, you had better have insurance already lined up...again with a broker/company that insures passenger carrying wooden vessels in the area you want to operate.
 
Last edited:
You need to be prepared for the surveyor to demand that several of the hull planks be removed to ensure that the planking is solid, and all of the screws are not rusted out. The seller may not like this!
 
It's all been said, but to try to put a copper nail into the plank of the coffin of your dream: don't do it. I've been boating for over 60 years, owned 6, 3 were wooden. I started in wood and did and still do love wooden boats. But they are extremely demanding of time, skill and money to maintain properly. You do not sound like you have the base of experience to take this on without entering the nightmare of rot and decay that can be found under the surface of most wooden boats.
 
Captain Jeff said:
Greetings,
I hope this is in the correct place, if not please delete.
I am considering to purchase one of two antique tug for charters but do not have much experience with the wooden hull design vs. the more "normal" fiberglass designed hull.
I am wondering what are some of the major warning signs that I should be looking for during a survey.
The two vessels I am considering have been used as charters and "seem" well maintained, but no telling the real condition until I can walk the decks.
Since they are both in cold waters, what might be the deterioration rate/concerns by taking them to the the Caribbean or Mexico?
Thank you for any and all suggestions.
Safe Cruising!
Click to expand...
before we purchased our fiberglass trawler, we looked into a nice wooden 70 foot boat at less than half cost of the 40 foot fiberglass one we settled on.
i am glad we engaged a specialist surveyor; he sat me down and went thru all the various points of lovely wooden old girl ,(and till this day still believe she is lovely) but rose tinted glasses fell off and i saw her as a high Maintenace girl she was.
 
I have a wooden sailboat and I use it for instruction and charters. There are a lot of positives about wooden boats and a lot of the negatives are from folks that might not have known the art of maintaining one. But one thing is very true - the maintenance has to be done in a timely fashion! Over the course of 50 or 75 years a well maintained wooden boat might actually take less work. But you can't let a wooden boat sit for more than...a week or two? without being checked. You can forget about a fiberglass / plastic boat for years and other than fading it will basically be okay. A wooden boat will be ready for a complete restoration or the dumpster after a few years of sitting.

The pros of wooden boat are fairly personal but there are some basic good things other than the 'look'. They are made of a natural material and generally feel a lot better underway. They also are warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. And even though you can't skip or put off maintenance you can do the maintenance in shorts and a t-shirt as opposed to looking like a hazmat worker.

I tell people to think of wooden boats like classic cars - they are beautiful and something about them has a lot of appeal. But they do take extra work and if you aren't doing that work yourself it will cost you an arm and a leg. If you like boating and want to get around safely then you get a newer boat - the equivalent of safe, modern car with good gas mileage. Then when it gets tired you sell it. Unless you are like me and/or not made of money that is when you buy it lol. It won't take so much to get it back in shape.

And like classic cars it is much cheaper to buy one that is already restored. But if you like that process and you want a boat that can last lifetimes and you have some combination of money, time and skill then wooden boats are great.
 
Although I know this is not the definitive truth, but very close.

Don't buy a wooden boat to go boating, buy it to mess around working on a wooden boat. If you want to go boating, get one built of a different material.

I personally built a 17' whitehall out of wood for fun and as a challenge. I subscribed to wooden boat for a couple of decades. The fun was working with wood. I have piles of teak and Honduras mahogany which I use to made doodads for my Camano Troll which has no wood to maintain.
 
For the flip side, I took a picture of Sandavore yesterday. I have seen her a couple of times in the last month and covet her. You can do a bit of Google work and see what it took to make her what she is. Stunning.

I also saw Blue Peter a week ago and spoke to some folks on board. Not a working boat but wow.

I understand the appeal. Those are labors of love.
 

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Andiamo2018 said:
I have a wooden sailboat and I use it for instruction and charters. There are a lot of positives about wooden boats and a lot of the negatives are from folks that might not have known the art of maintaining one. But one thing is very true - the maintenance has to be done in a timely fashion! Over the course of 50 or 75 years a well maintained wooden boat might actually take less work. But you can't let a wooden boat sit for more than...a week or two? without being checked. You can forget about a fiberglass / plastic boat for years and other than fading it will basically be okay. A wooden boat will be ready for a complete restoration or the dumpster after a few years of sitting.

The pros of wooden boat are fairly personal but there are some basic good things other than the 'look'. They are made of a natural material and generally feel a lot better underway. They also are warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. And even though you can't skip or put off maintenance you can do the maintenance in shorts and a t-shirt as opposed to looking like a hazmat worker.

I tell people to think of wooden boats like classic cars - they are beautiful and something about them has a lot of appeal. But they do take extra work and if you aren't doing that work yourself it will cost you an arm and a leg. If you like boating and want to get around safely then you get a newer boat - the equivalent of safe, modern car with good gas mileage. Then when it gets tired you sell it. Unless you are like me and/or not made of money that is when you buy it lol. It won't take so much to get it back in shape.

And like classic cars it is much cheaper to buy one that is already restored. But if you like that process and you want a boat that can last lifetimes and you have some combination of money, time and skill then wooden boats are great.
Click to expand...
I like honesty in this post.

I have a classic sports car. I love it. IT IS A TOY! It starts, most of the time, not all the time like my daily driver. I drive it 500 miles a year and pay double in maintenance over my daily driver that goes 10,000 miles a year. However, my daily driver is nowhere near as much fun to drive as the Toy Car. Unfortunately, I simply couldn't afford to drive the Toy Car 10,000 miles a year. The costs would simply kill me.
 
Captain Jeff said:
Greetings,
I hope this is in the correct place, if not please delete.
I am considering to purchase one of two antique tug for charters but do not have much experience with the wooden hull design vs. the more "normal" fiberglass designed hull.
I am wondering what are some of the major warning signs that I should be looking for during a survey.
The two vessels I am considering have been used as charters and "seem" well maintained, but no telling the real condition until I can walk the decks.
Since they are both in cold waters, what might be the deterioration rate/concerns by taking them to the the Caribbean or Mexico?
Thank you for any and all suggestions.
Safe Cruising!
Click to expand...
Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss anything further with this topic.
 
mgreen said:
For the flip side, I took a picture of Sandavore yesterday. I have seen her a couple of times in the last month and covet her. You can do a bit of Google work and see what it took to make her what she is. Stunning.

I also saw Blue Peter a week ago and spoke to some folks on board. Not a working boat but wow.

I understand the appeal. Those are labors of love.
Click to expand...
I have met and chatted with the owner of Sandavore. It's a continuous labor of love. You'll seldom see him simply relaxing on his boat. Always working away at something. And that is a boat that is fully restored.

I've built, repaired and owned wooden boats. The work never ends. Ever.
 
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