Maroc - TIMBERBIZ.COM.AU - A La Une - 16/Jan 23:53

Wooden boats are healthier

Being on board a wooden boat certainly feels good, but is it true it’s better for our health? Since the noxious whiff of curing fibreglass first triggered alarm in a shipwright’s nose, protagonists of production boatbuilding have been dissing talk of wood’s better smell, feel or look as mere stick-in-the-mud nostalgia. But there is mounting scientific evidence that working and living with wood is actually better for our health. Source: Classic Boat UK Recent experiments monitoring brain activity, cardiovascular and endocrine functions have shown that volatile organic terpenes given off by resinous softwoods pass directly into the bloodstream leading to measurable reductions in stress, even enhancing immunity through increasing lymphocyte ‘killer cells’ active against disease. The sense of well-being commonly felt among fragrant conifers and their timbers being planed-up for spars or planking is real, not imagined. Below deck, where the compartmentalised interior of even a large yacht can stir unease, natural wood’s tactile and visual qualities are especially beneficial. Finger-tip touch experiments comparing furniture materials found that wood’s minutely ridged and furrowed texture has a significant and lasting calming effect after only brief exposure. Wood surfaces cut glare, reduce eye fatigue under artificial light and improve cognitive performance, but if the natural material is entombed beneath a glass-smooth finish these benefits are lost. A wooden boat’s intrinsic qualities pay forwards even to the future restorer working sympathetically with saw, plane and chisel, pausing to savour the forest fragrance built into her by a past generation.