Andy McCutcheon100 Years of Wooden Glory - Dolvik Boatbuilders
September 7th 2007 00:01
Dolvik 30'
Dolvik Boat Builders
Northern Scandinavians have had a longstanding history with navigating the sea and a boat building lineage that dates back centuries to the voyages of the Vikings.
The history of Dolvik, Norway’s leading wooden runabout and classic boat building company headquartered in Strusshamn, located near Norway’s largest west coast city of Bergen, has a family boat building heritage that spans 150 years.
Current owners Steinar Savland and his two sons Trond and Stein Erik are the latest in the Savland succession to perpetuate their passions for wooden boats.
Steinar’s grandfather had been building boats in Norway since before the turn of the century however, his son, Steinars father, left Norway and immigrated to Australia, working in the Halvorsen yard in Sydney NSW during the height of their production between 1945 and 1955.
Upon his return to Europe, there remained a gap of nearly ten years before the Savland name would once again be associated with quality built wooden boats.
Started in the 1980’s, Dolvik Boat Builders of Norway began with a vision that embraced an ideology that they could build boats that had the classic lines of yesteryear, constructed from today’s technology, with the promises of tomorrow.
They felt that the early designs of Hacker’s, Garwood’s and Chris-Crafts while beautiful aesthetically, were frozen in time in the 1930’s and were unlike most European classic boats of that era that exuded a rich sense of style and beauty that was ahead of it’s time even in the 1950’s.
Additionally, early American designs were built predominantly for the inland lakes and protected waterways and therefore lacked the seaworthiness inherent in the Europeans pronounced bow flare and deep V hulls.
The build parameters that enable Dolviks vessels in the 20-50’ range to be operated in the harsh conditions of the North Atlantic Ocean at speeds up to 70kts is a metamorphosis of several design inspirations, including those of Carlos Riva from the famed Italian yard in Sarnico.
Dolviks first build was a 28’ timber cruiser whose beauty was more than skin deep.
With all the charm and ambiance of a bygone era, this 28’ masterpiece was engineered to have a perfect weight and balance with an optimized performance ratio to operate at 60mph. Drafted from an in house design, the vessel underwent between 6000 and 8000 man hours of meticulous craftsmanship before being delivered almost a year later, testament to the Savland’s deign philosophy of building boats for life.
They aren’t interested in mass produced volumes of boats, they are all about a quality of craftsmanship rarely seen in today’s disposable world. Clients of Dolvik do not simply order their boats from a catalogue, each one is custom designed and crafted to the exacting requirements of its owners needs.
The process begins with a consultation and a sketch pad and while Dolvik has produced enough boats to have a range of designs to choose from, individuality within the design parameters are what sets this builder apart from other manufacturers.
Ultimately though, there are limitations in the scope of how dramatically a design can be altered before it’s in danger of losing the performance characteristics that may have drawn you to it in the first place.
The Savlands will be quick to point out that almost any modification can be effected from an interior design perspective, but the hull designs are at the apex of the performance curve and therefore should not be altered.
Employed to assist with design and performance calculations is naval architect Bo Zolland.
Bo was born in 1952 and was bitten by the wooden boat bug early while sitting in his uncles Caravelle that was powered by an in-line 6 cylinder mercury engine. He has since been designing wooden boats for as long as he can remember and lives with his family in Umea, north of Sweden. Several years ago Bo acquired a 1937 Chris-Craft from America and restored it to its original condition.
Construction of his double mahogany planked Chris-Craft is vastly different from the way the Dolvik boats are constructed today.
Dolviks in employing modern technology to mirror classic style make use of the west system of epoxy saturation. Developed in the 1940’s and improved during the 1960’s, this system has been largely responsible for the resurgence of wooden boat restoration and construction in recent times.
It involves a process of cold moulding layers of mahogany ply and epoxy to form a sandwich of materials that is extremely safe, provides for a rigid hull and has an incredible strength to weight ratio.
While the finished vessel looks and feels like its mahogany predecessors – and to a certain extent it is, its bullet-proof impenetrable two-part epoxy coatings addresses the age old dilemma of moisture penetration and dry rot, providing an extension in the overall life of the vessel.
Many of the boats in the early chapters of this book are over 100 years old, built only from technologies available in the past century. It is conceivable therefore, that by employing the method of cold moulding to boats being built today, these boats with the style of a century’s worth of history and proper care and maintenance, will be enjoyed by our great grandchildren when perhaps wood will no longer be available as a boat construction material.
When Steinar Savland says he builds boats for a lifetime – it’s not just for your lifetime.
Cost is perhaps the biggest stumbling block that most classic boat manufacturers face. When compared against their mass produced, fiberglass counterparts, the beauty of wooden boats by comparison is stunning – but so is their price.
The difference is that in 100 or so years you will still have your wooden boat - long after the faded photos and memories of the fibreglass runabout you bought on price.
Andy McCutcheon, 100 Years of Wooden Glory. Copyright 2006
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