Classic Boat — March 2018

TIMBER FOR NEW BUILDS

says Luke Powell who has used it to build eight pilot

cutters in the past 20 years: “You can’t beat it.”

But it is also available with straight grain and that, along

with its propensity to steam and bend well, makes it

suitable for smaller-section ribs too. Ash is similarly

suitable and Canadian rock elm was at one time, but its

availability is now limited. Another alternative is the

European hardwood, locust. The French have been using

this on small vessels for years. Touchwood describes it as

“more durable and harder than oak, and with superb

bending characteristics”.

It isn’t uncommon for new plank-on-frame boats to

have laminated frames, but again for these, many

boatbuilders might avoid oak for fear of gluing failures.

Duncan Walker of Fairlie Yachting would recommend

khaya, while Ben Harris turned some pitch pine that he

acquired from the beams and rafters of an old jute mill

in Scotland into laminated frames for his 30ft (9.1m)

gaff cutter Alva.

PLANKING

Both of Cockwells’ pilot cutters were almost completely

planked in larch – “it is pretty durable if you get the

right stuff, and is available in good lengths,” says Dave

Cockwell – but the gunwales and bilge wales were

opepe “to take the extra wear”. Luke Powell has also

used a combination of timbers on his pilot cutters: on

his first he used oak for the top four strakes and larch

below that, and on subsequent boats he increased the

proportion of oak, and on the last one he only used

larch below the waterline. “Larch is much better if it is

in salt water,” he says. He is now in the process of

building another pilot cutter, Pellew – at 68ft (20.7m) she

is considerably bigger than any of his others – and she

will have oak planking (up to 2^5 / 8 in thick) throughout.

“Oak bends beautifully,” he says. “None of these

planks had to be steamed but they would have been if

they were larch.” He would love to use teak for

planking – “a miracle wood” – if it weren’t so expensive;

but he doesn’t rate iroko, which is often referred to as

“poor man’s teak”, and he tells the story of French

fishermen being able to push their fingers through

rotten iroko planking which was just five years old.

Ben Harris is also using a combination of timbers

on the 23ft (7m) Ed Burnett-designed cutter he is

currently building. While most of the planking is larch,

for extra strength and durability, he is using oak for

the garboards and adjacent planks (because, as he says,

“they transfer so much load between the keel and the

frames”) and the top strake and bulwark plank.

The Fowey Troy class – the first of which was built in

1928 – has restrictions on permitted timber species. A

new rule was introduced in the early 1980s to allow any

planking material, as long as it had a minimum weight of

30lb per cubic foot. Brazilian cedar, which weighs

around 32lb per cubic foot, has been the timber of

choice ever since. “It is lovely to use, has very little

movement, and varnishes well,” says Marcus Lewis who

is currently building his fifth Troy.

Sipo (also known as utile) and khaya, both of which

are African mahoganies, are favoured by other builders

as topside timbers, especially the former because of its

Facing page,

clockwise from

top left: yellow

cedar deck on a

Freebody launch;

oak frames and

planking for Luke

Powell’s Pellew;

western red

cedar on a sailing

canoe from the

Boat Building

Academy, using

the natural

variation in

colour to good

effect; teak

brightwork on

White Rose of

Mevagissey;

Andrew

Nancarrow’s 17th

gig with elm

planking;

Brazilian

mahogany

topsides on the

Cockwells-built

tender to

Malahne; Ben

Harris uses oak

for the garboard

and the plank

above, larch for

the rest; Marcus

Lewis’ Demelza

with spruce

planking and

khaya

sheerstrake

L

ast year we ran an article about timber for

restorations (CB350), focusing on suitable

replacements for species which are no longer

available. This article will consider timber for

new builds, a very different subject. The choice is

sometimes limited by class rules – in the case of

one-design classes there may be no choice at all, while

timbers used in Metre boats built to the International

Rule have to comply with defined weight/density

requirements. Otherwise there is always a choice with

regard to the timber to use for every application on a

new boat, and the decisions will be based on

availability in the right sizes, durability, strength, cost,

appearance – or simply the personal preference of the

owner, designer or boatbuilder.

Hull building can be considered in two parts –

traditional plank-on-frame (carvel and clinker) and glued

construction (glued clinker, cold moulding and strip

planking). Over the next few pages we talk to

experienced builders and others in the timber industry to

find out what they use for each method and why.

TRADITIONAL HULL CONSTRUCTION:

CENTRELINE STRUCTURE

Perhaps the most popular, and obvious, timbers for

wood keels are opepe (also known as billinga) and oak.

Cockwells Modern and Classic Boatbuilding used opepe

on its two pilot cutters built between 2007 and 2010, as

Dave Cockwell was able to get it in 40ft (12.2m) lengths

and he likes the fact that it is, as he puts it, “heavy and

strong in a big section”. Timber merchant Stuart

Somerscales likes opepe for similar reasons, but he

slightly prefers oak – the timber that has been used more

than any other for many aspects of boat construction for

hundreds for years – because it “holds fastenings well

and is durable, especially in a saline environment”. Oak

is also often used for other centreline components such

as sternposts and stems. In the case of the latter, oak can

still be found in shapes to suit a boat’s bow profile, but

in the case of laminated stems, many boatbuilders would

shy away from oak for fear of gluing failures.

Not least because of its durability, teak would

probably be most boatbuilders’ first choice for the

backbone if it weren’t for its cost, while among the less

well known timbers used for keels are the west African

hardwood doussie, which Dutch timber outfit

Touchwood BV has supplied and, according to the

company’s proprietor John Lammerts van Bueren – also

known as Sitka John – is “stable and durable”.

In 2016 a team consisting mainly of volunteers at

the National Maritime Museum Cornwall completed

the build of a Cornish pilot gig. For the keel they used

the southeast Asian timber, Keruing, which Andrew

Nancarrow – who supervised the volunteers and

previously built 16 gigs himself – describes as “very

durable and hard-wearing, a little bit heavy but the

weight is in the right place”.

FRAMEWORK

Much the most popular species for hull framework –

both sawn frames and steamed timbers – is oak. “For

sawn frames it simply grows in nice shapes in the UK,”