More timber hulls are damaged standing still than moving. Support is not a matter of getting the boat off the ground; it is a matter of routing the vessel’s weight into structure designed to carry it. Get that wrong and the hull deforms slowly, invisibly, and permanently.
The principle: load into structure
A timber hull carries its weight through frames, floors and the keel. Planking is a skin — strong in its plane, but not intended to act as a support pad. Every block, wedge and shore should therefore be positioned so that load passes into a frame or a floor rather than into the middle of a plank span. Where a hull has known soft areas, load is deliberately routed away from them, which is why the blocking plan is drawn from the survey and not from habit.
Keel blocks, bilge support and the ends
Keel blocks
Carry the bulk of the weight. Spaced to land under floors where possible, level along the whole length, and set on ground that will not settle unevenly.
Bilge blocks and cradle
Share the load and stop the hull rolling. Shaped or padded to the hull’s curve so contact is a bearing area, not a point.
Bow and stern support
Heavy overhangs need dedicated support. Without it, the ends load the middle of the hull in a way the structure was never designed for.
Why point loading is the enemy
A block with a small contact area concentrates weight onto a few square centimetres of planking. Over days that produces a local depression; over weeks it can crush timber fibres and open the plank seams either side. Padding, shaping and increasing the bearing area cost almost nothing and eliminate the problem. On an older hull whose planking is already thin from previous fairing, this is not fussiness — it is the difference between a clean haul and a repair bill.
Never block over a known repair
Graving pieces, scarphed plank ends and sistered frames are sound but not necessarily as strong as original structure. Support goes either side of them, not on them.
Shoring the topsides
Shores hold the hull upright and stop it moving; they are not there to squeeze it into shape. A shore driven hard applies a permanent side load that the planking must carry for the entire time on the hard, and on a hull that is then opened up for plank work, that load has nothing to react against. Shores are set snug, checked, and adjusted as conditions change.
Placement follows the same rule as blocking: shore heads land against frames or reinforced areas, with pads to spread the load. Shores are angled to work in compression along their length and are footed on ground that will not sink under them.
What changes over time
A support arrangement is not a static thing. Three processes act on it continuously:
- Ground settlement. Loaded blocks sink into sand, unevenly, especially after rain.
- Timber shrinkage. Blocks, wedges and shores dry in the sun and lose length, and the load redistributes onto whichever supports remain tight.
- Hull change. As the vessel dries out, the hull itself moves slightly and the fit against the supports alters.
The response is routine inspection and adjustment. This is unglamorous work that no owner ever sees on a photograph, and it is among the highest-value things a yard does during a long stay.
Moving support to work under it
Sooner or later a plank needs replacing exactly where a block is sitting. That is a planned operation: temporary support established first, load transferred and verified, then the original support removed. It is never a matter of knocking a block out and working quickly. Where a scope is known in advance to involve garboard or lower plank work, the initial blocking plan is drawn to keep those areas clear from the outset — one of several reasons the haul-out plan is built around the scope rather than the other way round.
Signs the support was wrong
Distortion is rarely obvious while the vessel is on the hard. It announces itself afterwards: seams that will not stay tight in one area, doors and hatches that no longer sit true, a sheerline that looks subtly wrong in photographs taken from the beam. By then the low-cost fix has passed. Owners commissioning a long stay should ask to see the blocking plan and the shoring schedule — and should treat a yard that has neither as a yard that is improvising with their hull. The reporting discipline that covers this sits under yard project management, and the structural consequences are covered in hull repair and caulking.