Dear readers,

​Wooden boats … a tricky subject. At least, when you’re talking to boat owners. Actually, in my immediate circle, I only know one person left who owns a wooden boat. To be precise, he actually has two wooden boats. But why, exactly?

The answer is obvious: wood means work. Painting, sanding, touching up, replacing a strip here and there or a whole plank. Anyone who can’t do this themselves will quickly rack up bills that, on paper, look almost like a total financial write-off. So it’s only sensible to a limited extent. And yet there remains something about it that’s hard to explain.

Because however well a GRP surface may be varnished, to me it will never match the depth and character of a perfectly varnished mahogany plank. Wood is a living material. It changes over the years, sometimes tells stories and develops character. Perhaps that is precisely why wooden boats never cease to fascinate me. At the same time, however, I’m also a huge fan of modern designs.

These days, owning a wooden boat no longer means spending weeks on end every winter with sandpaper and a paintbrush. Glued-laminated boats, often using fibreglass and epoxy, combine the best of both worlds. The wood remains protected from the elements, maintenance requirements are significantly reduced, and yet exactly what matters to me personally is preserved: the distinctive look – even if I might thereby ruffle the feathers of the odd die-hard wood enthusiast.

Add modern yacht design to the mix, and I’m completely sold. Flat decks, wide sterns, hulls with a modern lateral layout and a touch of carbon fibre here and there in just the right places. To be honest: as far as I’m concerned, you could hardly combine tradition and modernity any better. But are they still proper wooden boats?

As part of my work for BOOTE magazine, I had the opportunity last year to visit the Ilensee Boote shipyard in Schleswig. They build the Ilensee 16, a small motorboat that is practically produced by a CNC machine and is reminiscent of a Riva. The boat is definitely worth a visit to their website, even if you’re a sailor. Here, the boat is fully mould-glued. After the hull, a layer of fibreglass is applied, followed by a final layer of deck veneer.

Anyone who looks into this subject will, sooner or later, come across names such as Elida, Daniel Baum’s 48-foot sports boat; Jan Brügge and his Woy 26, 28 and Woy 35; or the LA28 and modern 15-foot dinghy cruisers. Of course, Spirit Yachts – and to some extent Biga and Scalar – also belong in this category, even though their hulls are made of fibreglass. Here, too, the question arises: are these still proper wooden boats? For many purists, probably not. For me, however, they certainly are. Because what matters is not whether there’s fibreglass or epoxy hidden somewhere beneath the paintwork. What matters is that the boat is defined by its wood.

Three people in particular stand out for me: Jan Brügge, Martin Menzner and Juliane Hempel. Through their work, they demonstrate that wood is by no means a relic of a bygone era in modern yacht building. To me, they are at the forefront of a material that deserves far more attention.

Perhaps I see it that way partly because I spent many years building sailing boats myself. At Knierim Yachtbau, I had the opportunity to work on a number of modern yachts. Most of the boats built there were made of carbon fibre – light, rigid and technically impressive. That’s exactly what modern high-performance boatbuilding looks like today.

But every now and then, there was a wooden boat in the hall after all. And whenever work was being done on it, it just felt different. To this day, I can’t quite explain why that is. Perhaps it’s the smell of the wood. Perhaps it’s the craftsmanship on display.

Wood seems to possess a certain honesty. It does not forgive carelessness, but it does reward care and dedication. Do wooden boats really have a soul? That’s probably a question that can’t be answered definitively, even after the third beer in the cockpit. But I keep catching myself thinking that they certainly have far more personality than many of their white neighbours in the harbour.

And to be perfectly honest – to put it a bit dramatically – for me there’s hardly a more beautiful sight than a modern wooden yacht, its mahogany glistening in the evening sun. It’s simply beautiful. And sometimes that, in itself, is the strongest argument.

So my answer is: yes, they are still proper wooden boats. But they are the sort that have moved with the times and combine the materials and craftsmanship of a new era. There will be many who disagree with me, but: are wooden boats with steel frames still proper wooden boats?

Jan-Ole Puls

YACHT editor

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