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Life Span of a Boat

21K views 102 replies 28 participants last post by  Brent Swain 
#1 ·
Looking at 1960 through 1970's photos of Marinas around the world show large sailing and motor yachts. These were large yachts of 50 feet or more. If you look at a recent picture of these same marinas all the boats have been replaced with much newer yachts.

What is the life span of a yacht? Where did the yachts go? Were they cut up and landfilled?
 
#2 ·
Particularly in the 60's there were still a lot of wooden hulled boats around. I suspect many of them have met an unhappy end, either rotting on the hard or stripped and cut up.

It takes a special mindset and lots of $$$$ to pursue the love and care of a large wooden-hulled vessel today.

Mobnets
1973 Paceship Chance 32/28 Westwind
 
#21 · (Edited)
Yes, like anything that its worth preserving. Like a car or an airplane with time parts and pieces degrade and after many years little or nothing will remain from the original boat/car/airplane.

The question here is: It will deserve to be preserved for posterity as a part of human naval patrimony? If so costs are not taking into consideration if not all things, between them boats reach a point where the value of what you invest to maintain them is bigger than the resale value they have and maintain them it will no longer be a logical operation.

That's why cars are dumped away. Most of them would not have any problem to keep going if repaired. It is just not worth it.

I guess that one of the reasons that will lead to the disappearance of many old boats on the US will be the raise of costs to maintain a boat, I mean raising costs in Marinas restrictions to having a boat permanently moored on public waters. That has already happened in Europe and I guess it is happening in the US.

If you pay a significant amount of money to have a boat at the marina it makes no sense having a boat with almost no commercial value and one where you have to invest regularly considerable amounts of money to maintain it seaworthy. Lot's of money anyway for having an old boat that will perform poorly if compared with a modern one.

The exception, like in the cars or airplanes it will be the ones that are maintained almost exclusively by their owners but that implies a huge knowledge in many areas and they have to pay for the materials anyway and the spaces were they are allowed to work on the boats are becoming scarce.

Also, some can do it, but while they are doing it, they are not sailing and that has also a value since boats can live forever but not us:D

Regards

Paulo
 
#4 ·
Still too early to say... if it turns out that 75/80 years after construction fiberglass turns to dust, another decade or so and a bunch of Pearson Tritons might be floating dustclouds... ;) :)
 
#5 ·
Not likely, Plenty of FG boats aproaching 60 and still going strong. The real problem is all the systems will age and fail and unless someone keeps up with the boat it will end up being abandoned and subsequentially crushed. My storage yard typically crushes 3 or more boats on average every year. The fiberglass was fine, the systems and cosmetics had deteriated beyond the economic sense of restoration. My boat is 44 years old and I can see still owning her 25 years from now if I'm still breathing!
 
#10 ·
This is my response from a similar discussion:

I would not think that a well- constructed fiberglass has a life span per se. Neither concrete nor fiberglass inherently breaks down or loses strength simply on their own without other factors coming into play. They require other causes. In the case of fiberglass loss of strength can result from one or more of the following,

-The surface resins will UV degrade.
-Prolonged saturation with water will affect the byproducts formed in the hardening process turning some into acids. These acids can break down the bond between the glass reinforcing and the resin.
-Fiberglass is prone to fatigue in areas repetitively loaded and unloaded at the point where it is repetitively deflected. High load concentration areas such as at bulkheads, hull/deck joints and keel joints are particularly prone.
-Salts suspended in water will move through some of the larger capillaries within the matrix. Salts have larger molecules than water. At some point these salts cannot move further and are deposited as the water keeps moving toward an area with lower moisture content. Once dried these salt turn into a crystalline form and exert great pressure on the adjacent matrix.
-Poor construction techniques with poorly handled cloth, poorly mixed or over accelerated resins, and poor resin to fiber ratios were very typical in early fiberglass boats. These weaker areas can be actually subjected to higher stresses that result from much heavier boats. It’s not all that unusual to see small spider cracking and/or small fractures in early glass boats.
-Of course beyond the simple fiberglass degradation there is core deterioration, and the deterioration of such things as the plywood bulkheads and flats that form a part of the boat’s structure.

Earlier boats had heavier hulls for a lot of reasons beyond the myth that designers did not know how strong fiberglass was. Designers knew exactly how strong the fiberglass of that era actually was. The US government had spent a fortune developing fiberglass information during WWII and by the early 1950’s designers had easy access to the design characteristics of fiberglass. (Alberg, for example, was working for the US Government designing F.G. composite items when he designed the Triton and Alberg 35) The reason that the hulls on the early boats were as thick as they were had more to do with the early approach to the design of fiberglass boats and the limitations of the materials and handling methods used in early fiberglass boats. Early designers and builders had hoped to use fiberglass as a monocoque structure using an absolute minimal amount (if any) framing which they felt occupied otherwise usable interior space.

On its own, fiberglass laminate does not develop much stiffness (by which I mean resistance to flexure) and it is very dense. If you try to create the kind of stiffness in fiberglass that designers had experienced in wooden boats, it takes a whole lot of thickness which in turn means a whole lot of weight. Early fiberglass boat designers tried to simply use the skin of the boat for stiffness with wide spread supports from bulkheads and bunk flats. This lead to incredibly heavy boats and boats that were still comparably flexible compared to earlier wooden boats or more modern designs. (In early designs that were built in both wood and fiberglass, the wooden boats typically weighed the same as the fiberglass boats but were stiffer, stronger, and had higher ballast ratios)

The large amount of flexure in these old boats was a real problem over the life of the boat. Fiberglass hates to be flexed. Fiberglass is a highly fatigue prone material and over time it looses strength through flexing cycles. A flexible boat may have plenty of reserve strength when new but over time through flexure fiberglass loses this reserve. There are really several things that determine the overall strength of the hull itself. In simple terms it is the strength of the unsupported hull panel itself (by 'panel' I mean the area of the hull or deck between supporting structures), the size of the unsupported panel, the connections to supporting structures and the strength of the supporting structures. These early boats had huge panel sizes compared to those seen as appropriate today and the connections were often lightly done.

This fatigue issue is not a minor one. In a study performed by the marine insurance industry looking at the high cost of claims made on older boats relative to newer boats and actually doing destructive testing on actual portions of older hulls, it was found that many of these earlier boats have suffered a significant loss of ductility and impact resistance. This problem is especially prevalent in heavier uncored boats constructed even as late as the 1980's before internal structural framing systems became the norm. The study noted that boats built during the early years of boat building tended to use a lot more resin accelerators than are used today. Boat builders would bulk up the matrix with resin rich laminations (approaching 50/50 ratios rather than the idea 30/70), and typically used proportionately high ratios of non-directional fabrics (mat or chopped glass) in order to achieve a desired hull thickness. Resin rich laminates and non-directional materials have been shown to reduce impact resistance and to further increase the tendency towards fatigue. The absence of internal framing means that there is greater flexure in these older boats and that this flexure increases fatigue further. Apparently, there are an increasing number of marine insurance underwriters refusing to insure older boats because of these issues.

I have been looking at a lot of older fiberglass boats in the past few years. One thing that has struck me is the sheer amount of noticeable flexure cracking in areas of high stress, such as bulkheads, chainplate attachment points, hull to deck joints, cabin to deck lines, engine beds and rudder posts, and other high load hardware positions.

There are probably other forms of hull degradation that I have not mentioned but I think that the real end of the life of a boat is going to be economic. In other words the cost to maintain and repair an old boat will get to be far beyond what it is worth in the marketplace. I would guess this was the end of more wooden boats than rot.

In most cases the prices of these older boats are somewhat constrained by their obsolescence. Sailors who buy modern boats have certain expectations that these older boats cannot or do not deliver. These factors can be fadish or fashion, but many are simple functional matters. Newer designs potentially offer more space, better performance and ease of handling, bigger engines and more robust electrical systems to power all the conveniences of home. While there are clearly people out there who prefer the older styled boats, for better or worse, in the marketplace there is a sense that they are simply worth less. And it is that market value which sets a ceiling on how much a boat is worth, no matter how perfect a condition it is in.

I can give you a bit of an example of how this works with land structures. When I was doing my thesis in college, I came across a government statistic, which if I remember it correctly suggested that in the years between 1948 and 1973 more houses had been built in America than in all of history before that time. In another study these houses were estimated to have a useful life span of 35 years or so. As an architect today I see a lot of thirty-five year old houses that need new bathrooms, kitchens, heating systems, modern insulation, floor finishes, etc.

But beyond the physical problems of these houses, tastes have changes so that today these houses in perfect shape still has proportionately small market value. With such a small market value it often does not make sense from a resale point of view to rebuild and these houses are therefore often sold for little more than land value. At some level, this drives me crazy, since we are tearing down perfectly solid structures that 35 years ago was perfectly adequate for the people who built it, but today does not meet the “modern” standards.

The same thing happens in boats. You may find a boat that has a perfectly sound hull. Perhaps it needs sails, standing and running rigging, a bit of galley updating, some minor electronics, a bit of rewiring, new plumbing, upholstery, a little deck core work, an engine rebuild, or for the big spender, replacement. Pretty soon you can buy a much newer boat with all relatively new gear for less than you’d have in the old girl. Its not hard for an old boat to suddenly be worth more as salvage than as a boat. A couple years ago a couple friends of mine were given a Rainbow in reasonable shape. She just needed sails and they wanted a newer auxiliary, but even buying everything used the boat was worth a lot less than the cost of the “new” parts. When they couldn’t afford the slip fees, the Rainbow was disposed of. She now graces a landfill and the cast iron keel was sold for scrap for more than they could sell the whole boat for.

Then there is the issue of maintainable vs. durable/low maintenance design concepts. Wooden boats for example represent the difference between a maintainable construction method versus a low maintenance/ durable method. A wooden boat can be rebuilt for a nearly infinite period of time until it becomes a sailing equivalent of ‘George Washington’s axe’ (as in “that’s George Washington’s axe. It’s had a few new handles and a few new heads but that is still George Washington’s axe”.) The main structure of a fiberglass hull is reasonably durable and low maintenance but once it has begun to lose strength, there is nothing that you can do.

The best deals on older used boats are the ones that someone has lovingly restored, upgraded, and maintained. Over the years they have poured lots of money and lavished lots of time into maintaining the boat in reasonably up to date condition. No matter how much they have spent the boat will never be worth anything near what they have in it because as mentioned, there is a real ceiling to how much an older boat will ever be worth and they will often have several times that ceiling invested.

And finally if you buy an old fiberglass boat, paint the bilges white. It does nothing for the boat, but if you ever have to sell the boat, then someone may look in your bilge and say “Lets buy her because any owner who would love a boat so much that he went through the trouble to paint the bilges white must have enjoyed this boat and taken great care of her no matter what her age.”

Jeff
 
#13 ·
With the advent of the FG boat.. a lot of wooden boats were discarded and junked. Back in the money days of the 80s and 90s.. a lot of old boats were traded in on new ones. Rather than reselling the older boats.. they were stripped and crushed.

basically attrition through changing tastes. Look at older homes.. not too many survive compared to the strange things that archetecture is called now. Same with cars. People want better, faster, newer, and now.. and most people do not care about "old" things. To them, a 30 year old boat is just "old"
 
#14 ·
We plan on sailing the Glenn E until we rot into the ground. He'll still be around for the kids. 1970 Newport 27.
Sailing Water transportation Sail Sailing Boat
 
#15 ·
I have yet to figure out how to post BIG pics! A bit off the string but can you advise? Hopefully I'm a bit better at sailing than posting or I'm in big trouble!
 
#16 ·
Many are gone forever, no doubt. Wooden boats don't survive much neglect. But the popular designs survive today. Take the Concordia yawls. I think 100 were built starting in the 40's, and I think they all survive today(one or two may have been lost).

They endure because of their design in form and function. You can keep a wooden boat alive forever if you have the means to do it(they may one day be the equivalent of Washingtons ax....)

Glass boats seem to survive neglect better than wood, but unless the design is popular, I think we'll see many of them disappear as well.

My glass hulled Alden is now 52 years old, and I don't think the half way point of the life of a good glass hull has been determined yet.

Here's a Concordia in my harbor. 100 of them now in their 50's, 60's and 70's, and no end in sight for them.
 

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#19 ·
They endure because of their design in form and function.

Here's a Concordia in my harbor. 100 of them now in their 50's, 60's and 70's, and no end in sight for them.
To scrap this would be the equivalent of scrapping the Mona Lisa (or whatever work of art you like)

Total awesomeness :D
 
#20 ·
I agree completely.. but it is amazing how many people don't like "old boats"

Just look at all the new boats being launched today.. they are wide and spacious inside.. more like floating homes than boats. And that is what people want
 
#22 · (Edited)
I know here in NJ a lot of the marinas have been converted to Condos.. I understand that Florida is even worse.

Thankfully up here.. I have friends with waterside homes that rent out dockspace.. so I can get a good deal when I finally get my liveaboard.

your talk on cars is a good one though. I drive an older car. A 1987 Saab 900 Turbo to be exact. it is in near perfect shape (it could use a new coat of black paint) and is just as reliable as anything new (if not more) and is easily repairable if something were to break... but I have put several orders of purchase price into the car to get it to that stage. Not many people are willing to do that.. even the people that go.. "oh! I have not seen one of those on the road in ages!"
 
#23 ·
Like anything, a boat will last as long as someone is willing to pay for the upkeep. I have raced aboard a century old wooden boat and spent the night aboard a wooden ship built in the 1840s. In both cases the hulls were reinforced by laminating over them with epoxy-soaked wood strips.
IMHO the basic hull of a fiberglass boat will be good for a century or three or maybe forever if she is a solid glass boat. For a cored boat - YMMV.

Right now a lot of airplanes die because they end up being worth more as scrap and parts than airplanes.
 
#26 ·
yes and no.. something old and well kept is always going to have some value. Even the lowliest Cape Dory Typhoon will someday be worth a lot as they slowly disappear over the years.
 
#27 · (Edited)
A comparable modern boat would be something in Catalina's line

If you pay a significant amount of money to have a boat at the marina it makes no sense having a boat with almost no commercial value and one where you have to invest regularly considerable amounts of money to maintain it seaworthy. Lot's of money anyway for having an old boat that will perform poorly if compared with a modern one.

It could be a translation thing but I really do not understand your POV

My old boats performance is still comparative to any apples to apples modern boat and it keeps a value consistent with it cost of upkeep

To go faster is to just go faster it does not change the pleasure of time on the water





We collect plenty of top finishes by team work and good racing decisions rather than moden and on a really good day just plain win outright regardless of handicap and we have had many overall wins that have caused great dismay to modern boats
 
#31 · (Edited)
A comparable modern boat would be something in Catalina's line

....
My old boats performance is still comparative to any apples to apples modern boat ...
...
..
No, your boat was when it was designed a performance cruiser and a very good one, not diferent in design criteria from the Cal 39, its big sister:

Launched in 1978, the Cal 39..was a genuine performance cruiser before there really was such an animal.

Cal 39

Cal Yachts (aka Jensen Marine) was a manufacturer of performance oriented fiberglass sailboats from the 1960s to the 1980s. ..

Cal Yachts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was so advances to its time that it can still stand face to some slow 30ft cruisers like the Catalina 30. In fact the Catalina 30 is also an old design in what refers hull: It is a 1974 design.

"The Catalina 30 .. first produced in 1974 by the Catalina Yachts Company in California.. has been through three revisions:
Mark I - Produced from 1975 to 1986
Mark II - Produced from September 1986 until 1993
Mark III - Produced from 1993 to 2006 (replaced by the C309).
All three revisions refer largely to revisions of the cockpit, rather than the hull itself..The Catalina 30 was the largest and longest continuous production keel boat in the world, with over 6,500 hulls produced. In 2001 it was inducted to the American Sailboat Hall of Fame."




No, your boat that was as when it was designed a very fast boat, a performance cruiser, should be compared with modern performance cruisers and not with slow cruisers with hulls designed 40 years ago. In what regards comparison with modern performance 30fts your boat is much slower, no doubt about that.

I have no doubt that you are a very good sailor and winning races on compensated time has to do with that. In what regards winning in real time it only means that you are not racing against modern performance 30fts. In fact it seems they don't exist in the US. I cannot find their PHRF racing, not a single one, except that A31 and that is quite amazing and reveals the American love for old boats:)

Regards

Paulo
 
#32 · (Edited)
It is a Cal 29 and as of 2011 was found to meet current safety standards and it is certainly going to last the rest of my life without issue

General Summary/Risk Assessment/Values: This boat was found to be well constructed originally, and it has not suffered any major damage or repairs. The basic structure of the boat - the hull, deck, and interior, is sound. The foredeck has been largely rebuilt to correct a delamination condition. The work has been well done. The standing rigging is all new., and the mast and sails are in good condition. The engine, fuel and exhaust systems have all been rebuilt or replaced. The hull has been repainted. There are still some cosmetic upgrades to be made to the interior. In general, the boat has benefited from a knowledgeable and conscientious owner. If the recommendation is followed I would consider it to be an acceptable risk. :



We have all kinds and i have friends with modern



And friends still sailing 6 meters both classic and modern

You don't really understand sailing in America as well kept old boats are held in high regard
 
#33 · (Edited)
It is a Cal 29 ..


....
You don't really understand sailing in America as well kept old boats are held in high regard
Yes, I understand Americans like more old boats than European, specially in what regards racing but I was only talking about performance regarding old and new designs.

The boat you posted (Cal 39) is certainly a great design and was a fast performance cruiser in its time but if we compare it with a modern performance cruiser, like the J 122 or the First 40 the difference is huge, like a PHRF of 108 to one of 36. In fact most modern mass production cruisers with 39/40ft are faster than the Cal (that was a performance cruiser) and some a lot faster. Maybe that's why Americans tend to call performance cruisers to all modern boats:rolleyes:.

I understand that sail performance it is not all in a sailboat but it is certainly a factor to consider when you chose an old one over a new one.

But that is not the point, the point is that the ones that are today new ones will in time be old ones and with a worst performance regarding future boats. For them it will also comes the the day where they would be ditched out too.

Regards

Paulo
 
#36 ·
Hey, Jeff, thanx for the very articulate info on old fiberglass ... sobering to realize how exactly you've described our 1980 CSY in that summary. This is supposed to be our 'forever' boat. Sigh.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Thank you for the kind words. I would not get discouraged.

Here is the thing about a boat like yours,she functions well for your needs and is structurally suitable for how you are likely to use her. Boats like yours will remain functional and useful long after the latest performance cruiser or race boat becomes relatively functionally obsolete.

The down side is that the market for boats like yours ( i.e. quite small, older, live aboard cruisers which sail half way decently) is comparatively small, and it is that alone would tend to hold the price down quite a bit. On the other hand, when you sell a boat, you are only looking for one buyer, and the right buyer may pay more than the average buyer for a well equipped small cruiser in decent shape since that is precisely what that particalar buyer is looking for.

But in the end, like most things in life, it is how well your boat suits your needs. In the 1970's my dad and I owned an old wooden boat together. Most decent sailing days, I would get home from work, peel off my work clothes and run down to the boat for an evenings sail. We had bought that old girl for something like $2500. There was an older man in the next slip who sailed with me often. His boat was worth 30-40 times what Indian was worth.

One day he commented that for our meager investment, we enjoyed the water no less than he did. And that gets to the heart of this discussion. As long as your expectations are reasonable, then there is nothing wrong with owning an older boat

Where I often disagree with the court of public opinion is that not all used boats are made equal, nor are they always as good as the court portrays them, or sail as well as other, better designed, equal age boats, or for that matter, are seaworthy as better designed equal age boats. I my usual criticisms, I try to point out the relative merit of these boats and urge folk to make reasonably informed decisions and if they are going to go through the work to restore a boat, then buy the best design that they can, since it takes little or no more work to restore a junky design than a really nice one.

So enjoy your boat, take the value out of the joy she gives you, and do not worry about the rest.
 
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#38 ·
Thanx Jeff. I sincerely hope that the resale value of our boat will be of interest only to our heirs.
 
#42 ·
IMHP the Cal 29 is nothing at all like a Lazer 28

It is far more like a Catalina 28 in weight and interior accommodations or a comparable Hunter as they all have almost exactly the same weight of about 8000# and 24' LWL and it why they BOTh sell a LOT of sailboats

We are talking about small boats with standing headroom for a 6'1" person like myself and silly things like and enclosed head area and fairly nice woodwork





You have no IDEA how much at ease the fact a boat has and enclosed head puts people your introducing to sailing and its NOT and easy thing to find anymore on small boats



I can take a child out who has never BEEN on a sailboat and have them at ease and LOVING the experience on a large stable easy to sail platform which is what the 29 is all about
 
#44 ·


This is a classic 1970 35" boat and on the dead sea that is Long island sound



You need to make a good start and control the race as in typical 7 knots conditions that new fangled much faster 36.7 is STAYING right were he is BEHIND US unless we make a epic mistake



Thats pretty much were the spirit boat spent the rest of the day out of sight

ON the other hand on a different day with wind that favors there offwind speed they would kill us
 
#49 ·
One thing holding boats back from the kind of appreciation you see cars getting at Pebble Beach. The cars that are fetching gross sums of money are all restored to how they rolled out of the factory all those years ago. Boats tend to go through refits on a fairly regular basis.
 
#63 ·
Also, with a car you can moth ball and store in your garage for relatively low cost where as a boat it will cost you say 5-10% of purchase price per year to own even if you never sail (dock fees, insurance, dock lines, fenders, cleaning, waxing, bottom clean and paint). And there are a lot more car drivers than sailors in the world- bigger demand drives up price of historic cars.
 
#50 ·
Agree with Paulo any conveyance will have a "service life". Further agree that design,construction, maintenance and nature of use impact on service life. Finally agree that most of us would cry to see a Wlliam Fife hull put to the torch. But disagree that cost of ownership of a new boat is prohibitive if the boat is to be used voyaging or as liveaboard. Need to consider absence of need to replace many components ( haven't used a loran in some time) or need to upgrade or replace worn elements. With well constructed new boat one can expect those expenses will be mimimal for a decade or more. Also material costs can be expected to continue to rise. Glass re inforced plastic hulls are made of plastic from oil. Cost of a carbon fibre mast has doubled in my life time.In "real dollars" and annual expense it's not as bad as one would think at first blush. With sailboats going over 50kt+ and averaging over 20Kt in blue water the race crowd is on very different boats than the rest of us.Gone are the days when a boat could be both true racer and a cruiser. Following the service life thinking thinking maybe strip plank or cold molded wood epoxy boats are not such a bad deal or even traditional plank on frame. I say once you have educated your kids and seen them married go ahead and spend the inheritiance - just leave enough for a pleasant nursng home and to carry them throuh hard timesLOL.
 
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