H
ere at the CB office, we’ve learned a bit about restoring boats over the years – a 30ft (9.1m) Scarborough Sloop, a 31ft (9.4m) FBR Brown sloop, two Hillyard cutters (an 8-Ton and a 9-Ton), an 8-Ton
Gauntlet, a Folkboat, a Harrison Butler Z4 – and a string of dinghies. And none of us would call ourselves an expert in the restoration or ownership of old, wooden boats. But the restorations we’ve heard of, written up or otherwise known about? We lose count. In fact, reading Classic Boat every month, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a deep restoration or even a complete rebuild of a small to mid-sized wooden yacht is an everyday occurrence. Don’t let your eyes, or us, deceive you. Anything more than a tidy-up on anything more than a 20-footer (6.1m) usually turns out to be the single biggest challenge of the boat owner’s life. For
every one of them, there are five abandoned projects and another five limping on year to year on a diet of epoxy, plywood and hope. TLC means exactly what it says on the tin: time, labour and cash. The misconceptions about buying and restoring a wooden boat are rife, and they start long before you arrive at a yard and fall in love with a mouldering, but still beautiful, little yacht propped up on stilts and waiting for a saviour. The first thing to do is to arm yourself with your own all-round guru. This might be a broker, a boatbuilder, a friend – anyone who really knows his onions about boats and the sea. Once you’ve seen the boat you think you want, take this person with you for a second opinion before you even think of making an offer. Then, depending on the boat in question and how much you’re prepared to spend on her, bring a surveyor in to conduct a full survey before talking about money.
CLASSIC BOAT JUNE 2012 53
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