Boat builders over the last ten thousand years have developed boat structures which use the unique characteristics of wood to advantage. What works great for trees works equally well for your boat. Wood bends in beautiful fair curves, and flexes and returns to shape as strains are distributed throughout the structure. Wood naturally takes the fair forms that make a boat functional and beautiful. The complex structural engineering behind the shape is itself beautiful in the classic wooden boat.
Wood is uniquely resilient, insulating, dampening and workable.
Different species of wood exhibit different characteristics. Heavy, strong White Oak is used for primary structure such as keels. We use light and resilient Cedar for planks and decks. There are woods like teak and locust that excel in rot resistance and have other properties which make them useful in boats. All the scores of woods used in boats are beautiful in their own right and great variety is possible on inboard joinery as in all elements of wooden boats.