Boatyards, where the real magic happens

Fork truck lifting a boat out in the yard

So, you have bought a boat, the salesperson or maybe the previous owner convinced you of the boating life, just know at some point  in the future you will have to visit a boatyard, and, picking the right one is one of the most important decisions to the boatowner´s sanity.

I have written quite a few posts, just look at the archives for tales from the boatyard, individual snippets of what goes on around the yards. Be in no doubt a good yard will be able to make your boating experience hassle free, pleasurable and smooth sailing or, on the contrary, it can make life utterly miserable.

Boatyard services

"Welcome to the boatyard, we got paint and cranes", a parody of the Guns N Roses song of Welcome to the jungle, but boatyards have a vast array of services, its important to understand what they may or may not offer, especially if you need to make the decision to use a yard that is a long way from your home berth.

Standard services

Not all services are offered by all yards for a myriad of reasons, the primary one being space, yards are located on the waters edge, premium real estate.

Bottom cleaning, Tales from the boatyard. Have you got a dirty bottom?, in its simplest terms, the boat is hauled, any growth on the hull is taken off, usually with a high powered jet wash machine, the boat is then put back in the water, not all boats have paints or coatings on the bottom to prevent growth, often if a trailered boat that might have been in for a few weeks, the bottom is cleaned before being loaded onto the trailer.

Hull antifouling in progress

Antifouling, Antifouling, what you need to know., this is typical work for yards, after bottom cleaning, the boat is chocked up and the area below the waterline is painted with antifouling paint, if you are lucky, the yard will find out what you do with your boat and offer you advice on which type of coating will work best, others will just paint it with whatever is cheapest. Some yards have tie ups with paint manufacturers, this can be a good thing, it ensures quality control from a known manufacturer.

Anode replacement, anodes are lumps of metal that get attached to parts of the hull and running gear below the waterline, they are sacrificial, they get eaten away before corrosion has a chance to start attacking more important things like props, shafts, rudders, thru hulls etc. As maintenance tasks go, its an easy one.

Enhanced services

As you can see the primary services for yards are straightforward, wo what happens when you need some other services, lets call them enhanced, nothing very difficult but perhaps more involved, a lot of yards will have staff in house or, boatyards often have marine engineers on site who might not work for the yard directly but have their premises and workshops there. If there is not an engineer on site then the boatyard should have the contact details of a local company who is mobile and will visit the yard to work, this is very common practice. Lets look at some examples of what a yard might sub contract out;

A video of cutless bearing removal using a special tool

Cutless bearing replacement, take a look at the video above, this shows a purpose made tool from Strut Pro removing a cutless bearing. The tools are expensive and require a certain level of skill to use, this replacement can become especially difficult if the whole shaft has to be removed, it really needs some special tools and an operator who has done it enough times to avoid causing damage.

Carpentry, teak repairs, decks, handrails, hinges, lots and lots of jobs come under the remit of the carpentry shop, they often do not just work with wood. At the other end of the scale, repairs to wooden hulls, some yards specialize in wooden boats.

A short video showing sandblasting

Bottom blasting, when you can see many coats of antifouling have built up on a hull, especially when the paint starts to look like the surface of the moon, it is time to have the all the antifouling removed and the hull taken back to bare gelcoat. Blasting or media blasting is where the paint is removed using sand or another media blasted at the hull under high pressure. Sometimes performed on the open yard, other times a barrier or "tent" is erected around the boat to keep the sand and paint in one area.

Glassfibre and gelcoat repairs, common for a yard to be asked to make repairs, bathing platforms banged against pontoons, scratches, right up to major repairs after accidents, bow thruster installations require the tunnel to glassed into place, some repairs are merely cosmetic and it takes a lot of practice to match gelcoat colours, other repairs can compromise the boat structure if not performed correctly, newer boats and boats undergoing restoration might use newer and more exotic materials other than standard the glass mats, carbon fibre, Kevlar and special exotic composite boards, they require specific techniques and controls to be used.

Painting & varnishing, requires a lot of space, controlled conditions such as erecting tents and temporary paint booths around the boat, dust must be kept to a minimum, paint fumes kept under control.

I have seen varnish applied with a brush to such a standard that it looked almost like glass, this kind of work is not learnt quickly and requires skill and patience to do.

Rigging, this is specialist work on sailboats, forestays, backstays, standing rigging, in my experience, quite a few yards seem split between mostly sailboats and mostly motorboats, if you need rigging services or sailmakers and its scheduled work rather than an emergency, often the yard you would go to is much more prepared for this type of work.

Powerboats stored in racks in a dry storage facility

Storage, many boats only get seasonal use, in the water for only a short time each year, some yards will offer storage services, this can range from simple out of the water storage in the yard itself right up to off premises warehousing with boats in racks. These sorts of installations are far more common in America than Europe.

Chandlery on site , I worked in a huge chandlery part time many years ago, it had everything from a screw and fuse to a rigging swaging machine on site, this type of shop is the exception rather than the rule, most sales are very small amounts, rope, nuts and bolts, bulbs, sealant, grease, lubricants & cleaning products, all those items that you usually need right away, having this service on site, either in the yard or adjacent makes a huge difference to the boatowner.

Specialist yards

The yard might not be right on the water, the boat might have to travel for work, these remote workshops are still called yards or boatyards. Specialist yards will cater to only one or two brands of boats, boatowners take the boats to the yards for everything from off season storage to full refits, often done by the same staff who built the boat originally, there are quite a number of these types of yards in the Genoa region of Italy.

These yards are self sufficient and do not cater to the general public, they will have all the qualified staff they need in house or often factory backed, they have all the machinery necessary to perform major projects. These yards will usually have hangars where the boats are put into, sometimes even controlled environments such as for painting.

Summary

At some point, a boatowner will have to visit a boatyard, after the salesperson has done their bit, the yard will be the place that can potentially make or break a boaters life, this is especially true when you travel away from home or abroad. Not all yards will be able to cater to all needs but, the good ones will be able to get people to perform whatever works are needed. Look after your boatyard as, it seems more and more yards are closing or being ousted to make way for waterside property developments.

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