"The oldest boats are gonna be wood boats, when all is said and done."

Abrazo under sail near Puerto Montt, Chile ~~ February 14, 2017: 

Photos courtesy of a pair of Finnish sailors, Hannu and Auli (sp? sounds like Owlie) of S/V Manta.  Richard hosted a couple of U.S. friends, John and Christine, for a week-long sail across the Bay of Ancud to the rocks outside Cohuelme.  As it turned out, the crew didn't take orders all that well, and the rain and wind were too miserable for a dinghy trip in to the hot springs.  But the boat performed well.  Many thanks to the Finns for these pix. 

Now, a year later, 2-14-18:  Saludos from your long-absent Scribe.  All’s well for S/V Abrazo.  Captain Baila is enjoying living aboard during Chile’s summer season.  I visited him there during the month of January.  He’s sailing out of Puerto Montt on Seno Reloncavi and nearby waters, demonstrating Abrazo’s charms and powers for interested parties. 
By mid-March he will be decommissioning the boat for the cold season, and returning to the spring and summer in the northern hemisphere.  So if you want to go for a trial sail, now’s your chance.  Email him at captain.sawdust@yahoo.com.

As your Humble Scribe, I apologize for the long hiatus.  No excuses.  Life interferes with intentions.  Then there are those occasional bouts of laziness. 

Onward with today’s topic:  The lasting quality of a well-made wooden boat.  Have you seen the movie, Dunkirk, yet?  A powerful bit of history, it inspired me to notice some amazing bits about the longevity of the well-maintained wooden boat. 

 “The Little Ships of Dunkirk were about 850 private boats that sailed from Ramsgate in England to Dunkirk in France between 26 May and 4 June 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo, helping to rescue more than 338,000 British and French soldiers who were trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk during the Second World War.”  Ships of Dunkirk

In the movie, twelve of the original boats appear; most of them built of wood.  More than 100 of those original boats continue to sail even now, every five years, back to Dunkirk, according to the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships.  “Considering the youngest Little Ship is now over 75 years old, this is no small undertaking.”

The point is, of course, that a wooden boat has a generous life-expectancy when well-maintained.  S/V Abrazo, launched in 1981, is barely beyond her adolescence!

Richard has hauled the boat for bottom-painting and zinc replacement every year, checking fastenings, and seams.  As he explains, “This includes a haul out, scrub and blocking. The total cost including paint, blocking and zincs has been around $600 USD with me doing the painting.  This operation takes three days.” 

He was a diesel mechanic during his Coast Guard days long ago, and has been a faithful caretaker to Abrazo’s Volvo diesel engine. 

The decks, though never “holystoned” as described by Richard Dana in Two Years Before the Mast, are regularly washed clean with salt water, and carefully monitored. Richard has diligently recaulked, and repitched as needed. 

He believes the cost of maintaining Abrazo to be about 5% of the value per year all inclusive.   In November of 2016 he painted the topsides which were last painted in 2010.   In 2015 he replaced one of the 8D batteries, having replaced the other in 2013.  He figures an average of eleven years for a set of batteries.

In 2015, as detailed in this blog, he had the mast out, and inspected all wire and wood.  After sanding down to bare wood, he refinished the spruce mast with many coats of varnish beneath the final coats of paint.  This was the third time since launch for the mast work - around a 16 year average. 

Richard adds that “All these things depend on how hard one uses a boat and how diligent one is at identifying chafe early and taking precautions.  There is also sail maintenance: keeping them covered or inside when not in use.  The current sails are serviceable. The Genoa is due for replacement as well as the stay sail.”

In discussion with a potential buyer last month, Richard wrote:  “One of my reasons for building a new wooden boat was to prove that a wood boat of comparable age to any other material is comparable in maintenance or no more then 5% more.  First let me say that most people when talking about boats or boat maintenance refer to length and not displacement.  A more accurate measure of any boat is the displacement.  So when we talk about the maintenance of a 23,000 lb boat made of wood, steel, fiberglass, or aluminum and compare notes we find very similar numbers. Boats made of every type of material have the same sail maintenance, the same running rigging, the same standing rigging, and the same systems maintenance. Most fiberglass boat owners polish out the topsides of the hull each year and paint the anti-fouling at least every three years as well as change the zincs.  Steel and aluminum both require similar efforts. With wood the work may be slightly different, however it is essentially the same amount of effort.”

Well, all this talk of work has inspired me to return to recording the history of Abrazo’s construction.  Stay tuned.