Thread: Newbie needs advice on bondwood boat

Before you purchase it, have it surveyed. Your questions suggest you're a novice and this is a great way to find you've bitten into something much less tasty then you'd have liked.

Any time someone says the hull is sound, but it just needs some ribs and a deck, you can rest assured it's not sound and the boat is probably falling apart. Have the boat professionally inspected.

Hi PAR,

Thanks for the good advice. I've been researching the pros and cons of boat restoration and have learned that once you start pulling the boat apart you find there is more that needs to be done to repair it. So I am expecting it to be worse than it looks.

However, our local boatbuilder/repairer has antifouled this boat each year for the owners and he tells me the hull is in good condition and it could be brought back to being a good boat without too much heartache. He is not the sort of bloke that would mislead anyone. It will be taken out of the water in a week or so for inspection so I will have a chance to have someone go over it thoroughly for me then.

I am a competent woodworker and furniture restorer but have not applied my skills to boat repair as yet. Being a novice at it, I decided to put my query on the forum because I don't know a great deal about the effects of air on marine ply once you take it out of the water. I know it is a durable and stable material but does it shrink or crack like a carvel or clinker hull if left to dry out?

Cheers.

Plywood is much more dimensionally stable the solid wood. It moves with environmental changes, but very little compared to solid wood. This is one of the advantages of plywood over solid lumber. If it cycles through soaked and dry a lot it can check and develop surface defects, but if reasonably cared for it holds up well.

Thanks for the information, much obliged. The other problem I need to sort out is how to get the boat into my yard, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Cheers.

Hauling a boat home isn't especially difficult, but doing it safely, without hurting the boat or people, can be a challenge to some. If you're not accustomed to lifting and moving large, heavy stuff, then bring some one that is. Naturally a boat trailer is handy, though you can make it work on a flat bed too. Blocking the hull up so it's well supported along it's keel and prevented from flopping over, without damaging the planking are the big concerns. Before you do anything in regard to dragging her home, decide on a lifting method. One of the best for small craft (like yours) is a back hoe or front end loader (earth movers). You can rig a sling from the bucket of these and they can easily toss it up onto a trailer. You can use jacks too, but this is much more difficult to do well, without something ugly happening, like it falls off a jack or two.

Thanks for your advice PAR,

I s'pose I should have explained myself a bit better with that last post. What I meant was I hope I can get it into my backyard because I only have laneway access and I think it will be a tight squeeze considering the length of the boat (nearly 7 meters) and vehicle towing it.

The backhoe is a good idea I know where I can get the use of one so that might not be a problem. I also have a backhoe ticket myself having operated a JCB for the past ten years before retiring. In my younger days I used to haul boats interstate from Melbourne to Sydney and Perth. Mostly Bertram cabin cruisers and the odd yacht. This was back in the 1970's when there was still dirt road on the Nullabor. The boats of course mainly had purpose built cradles for transportation but I still remember how we would prop and secure them so that should not be an issue.

The boat I am interested in is a private sale and has not been advertised. We are still in the negotiating stage but I might not even get it yet as I am told there is another party interested in it also. It will be interesting to see what happens when it is taken out of the water and everybody can have a good look at it.

Thanks again for the help.

Getting a boat that size out of a lane and into a backyard might be a problem. I recently tried to get a 5.5m boat from our rear laneway through the roller door into the 3.5m wide space behind our house and there just wasn't enough room to turn it in. You'd need quite a wide back entry.

Hi Andrew,

3.5 metres is cutting it a bit fine. My laneway is around 6 metres and I've plenty of room widthwise once I get it turned into the yard.

I've given the problem more thought and I think I will be able to get it in ok, it depends on the length of the trailer used to transport it. If I pull down a few sections of the back fence I should get enough room to maneouvre.

Cheers.