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Are wooden and fiberglass tops really that bad? - Boat buying


Foxtrot

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I've been told a few times to stay away from anything that doesn't have a steel top construction (the sides and roof of the cabin are made of something like wood and fiberglass instead, or something similar.)

 

Why are they so looked down on? Do they rot through over time or something?

 

Whats the advantages to a full steel top?

 

Are there any advantages to having a wood and fiberglass top?

 

- Foxy

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I've been told a few times to stay away from anything that doesn't have a steel top construction (the sides and roof of the cabin are made of something like wood and fiberglass instead, or something similar.)

 

Why are they so looked down on? Do they rot through over time or something?

Yes - they can and do; especially where the sides meet the hull

 

Whats the advantages to a full steel top?

Integrated into the whole structure making it more rigid (see the comments elsewhere about "bridge bars". Not so prone to leakage. Last a lot longer that wooden tops

 

Are there any advantages to having a wood and fiberglass top?

Used boats are cheap(er)

 

- Foxy

Really this has been discussed recently - is it so difficult to do a bit of research (I only ask because I'm getting the impression this is tedious to do on mobiles and tablets).

 

A further point often missed is that wooden topped boats stopped being manufactured many, many,, many years ago - probably in the late 1960's. A fully wooden boat might be an option if you wanted to be a truly traditional boater but can be a money pit - see what's happening to Doris - Fairstar.

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Steel and wood expand at different rates with temperature change and humidity change so it's always problematic to seal the metal to wood joint. sometimes you will see large amounts of mastic. Sometimes the metal hulls under a wooden top were already old when the top was put on, then called old now either called historic or trouble. Usually mixed material boats sell cheaply. Look carefully for signs of ply board failing.

  • Greenie 1
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Really this has been discussed recently - is it so difficult to do a bit of research (I only ask because I'm getting the impression this is tedious to do on mobiles and tablets).

 

As above, but also if you don't look at previous threads but simply rely on starting up new threads on topics not that long ago discussed, many won't type everything out again and you'll miss out on the wealth of advice available already on the forum.

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smiley_offtopic.gif

 

Search in google, nine times out of ten it will find it and it is usually in the first ten.

 

Back on topic

 

Why are they so looked down on? They are not looked down on, it is just that they are usually very, very old and all the inherent problems with age arise

 

Do they rot through over time or something? Yes, quicker than steel, especially if not maintained and there seems to be a lot of maintaining with them

 

What's the advantages to a full steel top? Reduced maintenance and it will not leak.

 

Are there any advantages to having a wood and fibreglass top? No

  • Greenie 1
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The only claim for an advantage of wooden construction over steel, that I have ever seen, was in a book about solo long distance cruising. There the suggestion was, that to do even fairly major repairs on a wooden boat you only needed a tree, some basic tools and time, whereas for steel you need civilisation.

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The only claim for an advantage of wooden construction over steel, that I have ever seen, was in a book about solo long distance cruising. There the suggestion was, that to do even fairly major repairs on a wooden boat you only needed a tree, some basic tools and time, whereas for steel you need civilisation.

. The other advantage, it's a lot easier to hang a picture up in your cabin
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As above, but also if you don't look at previous threads but simply rely on starting up new threads on topics not that long ago discussed, many won't type everything out again and you'll miss out on the wealth of advice available already on the forum.

 

 

Quite so - not only that it discourages some folks (me) from bothering to comment again...

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Really this has been discussed recently - is it so difficult to do a bit of research (I only ask because I'm getting the impression this is tedious to do on mobiles and tablets).

 

A further point often missed is that wooden topped boats stopped being manufactured many, many,, many years ago - probably in the late 1960's. A fully wooden boat might be an option if you wanted to be a truly traditional boater but can be a money pit - see what's happening to Doris - Fairstar.

I tried to look through the forum, but didn't find a right lot. Sorry for not trying harder, but hoping the straight forwards title of this thread will help other people find what they are looking for easier in the future.

 

I'll look up what happened to Doris.

I have never had much luck using the search engine.

Very frustrating sometimes when you know the thread exists, but the search engine won't pinpoint it.

 

I dont think people take this as a valid excuse (on any forum in my experience.) Makes these places feel pretty hostile at times, but I find it best to just nod and smile.

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I tried to look through the forum, but didn't find a right lot. Sorry for not trying harder, but hoping the straight forwards title of this thread will help other people find what they are looking for easier in the future.

 

I'll look up what happened to Doris.

 

I dont think people take this as a valid excuse (on any forum in my experience.) Makes these places feel pretty hostile at times, but I find it best to just nod and smile.

 

Apologies for the previous posting, and its not intended at all as a criticism of you - the search function provided on the forum is pretty rubbish, partly because it seems to decide that 3 letter words are "too short" and doesn't do searches on them - so any searches on popular topics such as CRT, EOG or BCN never work properly. The using Google to search within a site is a good one, I can never remember how to do it though so I've not tried it much. Sometimes if it jobs my memory I'll scroll through pages and pages of previous posts. Its definitely an issue which is worth addressing by the moderator/tech team, though I'm not sure how pragmatically it can be improved (unless they permanently stuck a link to the google search thing).

 

Another suggestion is to use and keep up-to-date a FAQ area, of popular topics which come up.

 

On a previous forum I worked on, after similar issues I decided that previous threads aren't that good as a historical document resource because as well as containing useful information, there's a lot of other posts which arrive in there too. So I wrote a bunch of articles and put them on the website (using its CMS - content management system) and this also meant they could be laid out a bit better with pictures put in the logical place etc too. Then when threads of a similar topic came up, it was easy to put a link to one of the nicely-formatted articles.

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the search function provided on the forum is pretty rubbish, partly because it seems to decide that 3 letter words are "too short" and doesn't do searches on them - so any searches on popular topics such as CRT, EOG or BCN never work properly. The using Google to search within a site is a good one, I can never remember how to do it though so I've not tried it much.

If you use the search site I posted above it does it for you.

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I've been told a few times to stay away from anything that doesn't have a steel top construction (the sides and roof of the cabin are made of something like wood and fiberglass instead, or something similar.)

 

Why are they so looked down on? Do they rot through over time or something?

 

Whats the advantages to a full steel top?

 

Are there any advantages to having a wood and fiberglass top?

 

- Foxy

 

OK, as somebody who had a wooden top boat first time round, let me say;

 

Stay away!

 

The wooden upper will rot. Water will get in at the wood/metal join

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On the other hand, despite the occasional leak, the annual painting and touching up, I love our wooden top. I've not been in many boats that didn't feel like a stretched plywood caravan in comparison.

On the other hand, despite the occasional leak, the annual painting and touching up, I love our wooden top. I've not been in many boats that didn't feel like a stretched plywood caravan in comparison.

Plus, who could say no to an extra 6 inches of cabin girth ;-)

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Another thing about threads is that they sometimes end up being about something quite different from the original question eg I was looking for advice on how best to moor, but just found a whole lot of people making fun of someone who had moored badly. Who has the patience to scroll through all that stuff just to find out nothing of use?

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Another thing about threads is that they sometimes end up being about something quite different from the original question eg I was looking for advice on how best to moor, but just found a whole lot of people making fun of someone who had moored badly. Who has the patience to scroll through all that stuff just to find out nothing of use?

Those whom have learned that there are often grains of knowledge amongst the chaff

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