How did boats made of wood cross the oceans?

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Why didn’t the wood rot or eventually absorb water and allow water to enter the boat?

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10 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Fresh water promotes rot. Rot is a fungus that consumes the wood fibers. Salt water does not promote rot. Exposed end grain allows water to enter the fibers of the wood. Boat builders take great care to seal end grain with water repellent materials.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Boats made of wood *still* cross the ocean.

When wood absorbs water it swells. Taking a wood boat out of water, letting it dry, then putting it back in will result in it leaking a lot until the wood swells up again.

Fresh water is the enemy of wood boats. Fresh water is what leads to dry rot. Salt water is good for wood, dry rot does not grow in salty water.

The main source of rot in wood boats is due to not being sailed much. Being regularly splashed and soaked with salt water is good for them. Sitting in a marine and being rained on, and that fresh water collecting in hard to reach areas is what leads to rot.

In tropical waters there is a type of worm that eats wood, this can be a big problem, but not if the bottom paint is maintained. Traditional bottom paint contains copper, which is poisonous to marine critters. Some boats actually use copper sheeting below the water line, but that is expensive and found only on some traditional style boats.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Pine tar, aka pitch was used a caulk. They used that on everything, filled the cracks between boards, coated inside/out…also coated the ropes. not sure about the sails. basically you boiled pine wood and collected the sap and continued cooking it down to a sticky ball.

fun fact: the caulk trades were everywhere in the colonies, ship building, ship maintenance, ship supplies were the biggest industries. And the caulk workers were everywhere since their work was mostly done on site. So when politics and revolution was discussed it was mostly the caulk workers spreading the news, collecting opinions and where we get the term caucus for parties to discuss issues.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The wood did rot and the hull on most ships typically almost always leaked water inside to some degree. There were several water proofing methods meant to prevent this as much as possible, most relying on the repeated and consistent application of various materials to the exterior of the hull, and also bilge pumps, pumps meant to remove water from inside a ship, have existed since antiquity, since it was basically expected that any ship would let in some amount of water. As others have pointed out since the wood inevitably soaked in some water this made it expand which helped seal gaps, although the movement and flexing of the ship often opened and closed gaps constantly.

Ships required constant upkeep and maintenance and repairs. Often large parts of the hull or other parts of the ship would be completely replaced up until the point where it was no longer profitable to do so. It’s also the reason why very few examples of ancient wooden ships exist since most of them were either scrapped for their wood or simply rotted away into nothing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

One thing I have not seen mentioned is caulking the boats. Wooden boat boards are beveled along the edge so a cotton strip is pushed into the gap created by the bevels. This will swell when wet and helps keep water from coming in through the gaps between boards. Along with the resins etc. that others have mentioned.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Wood rots in oxygen, so submerged wood will not rot — as evidence of this, we find sunken ships from thousands of years ago that remain intact. There were some areas that were vulnerable, and ships would require periodic repairs to replace damaged wood.

In terms of waterproofing, there are a variety of materials that were used over the years, with pine tar and oils being common options.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes, the wood would eventually rot and also become infested with water-bugs that would eat it and ruin the boat.

This is why boats are historically a *ton of work* to keep constantly repaired and functional.

As u/lekoli_at_work points out, yes, wood does swell when it’s wet, helping seal the leaky spots, but they also coating the wood in metric fucktons of oil, which repeals water.

Think of any old timey movie you’ve ever seen from that era, pirates or pilgrams, or whatever. Are the sailors just sitting around on the boat relaxing? No! They are constantly doing stuff like “Swabbing the decks” and working on shit, they weren’t doing that because sailors are neat freaks. They are removing as much water, dumping on oil, and repairing as much as they as quickly as they can. This is exactly why the sailors were always so young and beaten down, it was a ton of work.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A few reasons.

First, wood is not the only product that comes from trees. Pines and evergreens also produce waterproofing agents like tar, pitch and turpentine. These are excellent at acting as water-repellent glue. When you pound fibres such as those from coconut husks or shredded cedar bark into the gaps between wooden planks and then add this, it’s a very strong seal that takes a tremendous amount of stress to break.

Second, wood is not really absorbent of water until it’s been exposed to it for a very long time, or bugs or fungi get at it. It takes a while for properly dried wood to become “waterlogged” and heavier than the surrounding water so that it sinks. So if you ‘season’ your wood by air-drying it prior to using it to form your vessel, it’s naturally waterproof for some time.

Third, there’s maintenance. Got a timber that looks like it’s starting to rot? Replace it. If below the water line and holding the water out, beach your craft so it’s not going to let in water while you tear it out.

Later on in marine history, there’s paint, which is excellent at protecting wood from direct exposure to water until it eventually flakes off.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The same way you make a barrell that holds wine. When wood gets wet it expands, so when you build a ship together with all the seams already tight, when the wood gets wet, it has no where to expand to except it’s neighboring piece of wood. that creates a dam effect. once all the joints are sealed, it will be waterproof.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You can impregnate wood with wax or oil or other chemicals. And ships are not just cheap wood, the wood for ships is high quality wood that is processed on many different ways.