both share the same experiences around boats. My Dad, and I always liked the lines=shape for non boaters, of a wooden boat. The shapes and how built made them shallow draft, like Novie hulls, or bow shear, etc all made them beautiful to look at on the water and how they went. To me, fiberglass hulls lost a lot of the lines when they first started do to being able to get them off the molds. Today they can get about any line they want. I've always been attached to the Down East hulls.
We used to get our boats built in Nova Scotia, but once we started with the larger 45 footers, we ran in a problem with American Maritime shipping laws. We finally got tired of fighting them and had almost the same hull built in Eastport, Maine. We hauled bare hulls out of there for years. We would get just the hull, and stack them on the 45 foot trailer one inside the other, to we hit our load limit. Once we got them back to our marina, we would put the floor timbers in them for engines, bulkheads etc. I used to like that part. Scribe them in, then go free hand cut them on the band saws. I always like the smell of the workshop with the planers running etc. I got pretty good at putting engines and stuffing boxes in.
If I recall, we had to drop the planked keel from the Novie hulls when we had them built in Maine. Didn't bother me any as I never liked filling them with tar to keep them from rotting seeing as I was the little guy who could fit in there and come out looking like a tar baby candy "remember those"? We supplied the lobster boat guys with boats and had 3 of our own running plus a big dragger for the restaurant we had on the water plus we had a lobster pound. Now that was fun. We ended up selling it some fellas from Bristol. Not sure if in Maine or Mass.
We were still mostly wooden when we sold our Marina, but later 2 of my Ironworker friends had a big Marina in Clinton, CT and they had big waves, walking gantry crane, and they got dumped on one winter big time.
One was a Chinese junk. I liked it,and they tried to give it to me, but it sat to long on the waves, again, documented vessel, so lots of paper work, back to when it was a freaking tree....LOL.... I went and helped in finally when it sold it cut up a heck of a lot of wooden boats. He then moved to Big Pine Island in the Keys and ran a place there, plus he was a stone crabber. We used to go there pretty often just to fish the shallows with fly rods for tarpon and barracuda. He has since moved from there, make a bundle on that place and is now on Cedar Key. Royal would like that place, kayak heaven...Fact Royal, Google Cedar Key...you would love it there. My buddy lives there now, smack on the water again. He is and old salt, never leave it.
I enjoy your pictures also. All are familiar to me, and bring nice memories of life on the shore. I'm a light house freak so enjoy seeing those and save them here. Spend a lot of summers in Easport Maine on the Bay of Fundy with the 45 foot tide drops listening to the fog horn light there. Music to sleep by. LOL... Take care...
George-CT
[quote Ron J]boats are just as safe,as glass,as long as they are kept up! Heck a lot of them rode better. Its the constant upkeep,thats a pain,unless your a carpenter,with time on your hands,which i doubt. Growing up,my father had an old Novie lobsterboat,from the 1940's? Remember many times,him,and a neighbor,replacing a plank,recaulking the hull,or replacing a rib. I can really appreciate looking at any restored wooden boat,knowing the upkeep and workmanship that went into it. The area i live in is loaded with Marina's. There are only a couple that will store any wooden boats. Too many times,the owners will let them rot there. It is a shame. As i said earlier, the "best boat is a freinds boat!"[/quote]
