Volga Hydrofoils Messageboard

Hi,
Showing here some pictures of one of the Volgas under restauration at the moment, our project called Volga 2000.
This is a hull from 1984 in very good condition. After soda blasting, the aluminium hull looks like new at outside.
At the moment we do the wood work, deck seats, hatches and so on.
Then hull will be painted with epoxy primer and polyuretan high gloss surface paint.
br
Flying Finn

Hi,

This is highy impressive! I got offers for doing something similar.
You seem to screw on the wood and then fill the bore holes with same wood to cover the screw.
You will probably also fill the gaps with the white elastic stuff. This is truly old style, old school!

The guys here explained to me that nowadays this is done in a different way. They are gluing
several wooden blocks of 50 mm Teak to 5 mm white wood (dont know the name now) and then
cut the pieces to slices or 5 mm thickness. The result you have a complete layer of prefabricated
teak flooring, you now only need to cut it for the and glue on the hull.

(P.S.: Don't be mistaken when looking at the photo. You are right! The layer has been torn. An indeed blond
girlfriend had to try how robust it was....?)

Off corse, yours is nicer due to the authentic woodwork being done.
Is this kind of woodwork prefered due to elongation differnces between wood and Aluminium or
is this just for eye?

Do you use the original engine or something else?

Wow, that looks really awesome! Great craftsmanship..

All that woodwork, it reminds me of pictures of the 'Riva on Wings' that were sold for some time by a (US/Norwegian?) company named Jet Technologies. Does anyone know what happened to this company? I can't find their website anymore.
And then there is the beautifully crafted "Danish Volga", owned by Mike.

I did always wonder how much weight all that woodwork added to the boat. Robert, do you have any idea how much extra weight the wood will bring in? Are you using special light-weight wood types to keep the weight down, or will you put in a big fat engine that will pull the boat on it's wings now matter what the weight is?

Keep those pictures coming!

Maurits

Hi,
About the weight and materials, we use ordinary mahogany and teak.
The deck material is about 9 mm thick, and when sanded and finished about 8 mm.

Epoxy we use on the mahogany about 5 kg.
Teak will be only oiled or left grey.
Mahogany is at first darkened with brown coloured betz.Then epoxy one time by brush.
After that one layer of woven epoxy mat.Then two layer of epoxy again with brush. Light sanded between each layer.
After all epoxy layers it will be sanded to final finnish.
Then two layers of polyuretan 2 component lack, which is UV-resistant and gives it a deep shine and service free surface for 10 years at least.

Totally we have estimated 80- 90 kg of additional weight due to new wood construction.

Engine will be a 5,7 l with about 300 hp, so it will certainly lift that additional weight up on wings.
Gear will be a ZF V drive which only is about 60 kg.
We will try to make the engine as light as possible by alu exhausts...etc.
Anyway there will also be added 2 fueltanks more, 60 l each on both side V-gear. That means we will have on board totally 200 l of fuel when all tanks are full.

I am not afraid of more weight on the back of the boat,Volga will be ok with that with the power of the new engine.

The teak is now been off while prepairing the mahogany with epoxy.



BR

Flying Finn

Dear Robert,

Beautiful build, it will be fun to see how similar our boats will be.... Mine was build about 25 years ago, and i believe it was the first to have this appearance.

How are you going to configure the interior?

Merry X-MAS

/Mike

Dear Robert,

Thank you for that detailed answer. Clearly a well thought out plan to create lasting beauty. And yes, only 90 kilo's of extra weight should be nothing for a 300HP engine. Although there is this guy in the Netherlands who also owns a Volga, and I heard he put in a nice big Yanmar engine with plenty of HP's.

But I noticed that he welded on a couple of extra inches to the rear wings, apparently because, even though the engine was very powerful, it was also too heavy to pull itself and the rear out of the water. Now I didn't hear the full story, but I can imagine that if your engine is quite heavy, then even if you will quickly reach a speed where you will get enough lift on the front wings to pull the boat out of the water, you might need to have to reach much higher speeds than usual to also get the rear out of the water.

Your 5,7 liter sounds like a heavy block (petrol or diesel?). Even if the extra weight for the wood is negligible, do you foresee any issues getting the rear out of the water completely? Will you also weld some extra wing-area to your rear foil, or is your engine made of some light-weight aluminum? I read also about a special ultra-light Yanmar diesel engine, specifically created for boats where weight is an issue; I am considering this engine for my 'rescue-Volga'.

Would love to hear more about your decisions regarding engine choice. I still have this 'rescue' Volga in storage that needs a fresh engine (and a light-weight ZF V-drive, as I understand), so any info about the 'which' and the 'why' is greatly appreciated. And I can't wait to see pictures of the endresult of your Volga 2000!

Kind regards,

Maurits

Hello Gentlemen,

My "Danish Volga" Uses a big block 7,9 Ltr. V8 engine with a heavy duty crusader V-drive and the same mahogany / teak deck. I have considered extending the ruddder as well, for better maneuvrebility in the harbour, but i am afraid it will apply too much lateral force at higher speeds and bring the boat in an unsafe condition.
The bigger, heavier engine is absoltely no issue, the boat feels very light and is fully out of the water at 22-25 knots. I have not tried an original Volga, but this setup works very well. The big V8 engines have so much power and torque in excess that you can load the boat w 6 people and full fuel and cruise at very low rpm, enjoying the wonderful deep V8 music.
Lateral acceleration feels a bit like a car with good throttle respons. My engine is currently runnig with a "hot" cam and about 430HP. This is completely overkill and will be toned down this winter. With a 4-barrel carburetor, only two are in operation the majority of the time!
I am sure this is not the most fuel efficient solution, but the sound and feel is amazing.
I will shoot some video and post it this summer.

Merry X-mas

Mike

Hi,

I am sorry to ask very bluntly about the price of this work. I was just offered 7000 EUR for something similar and I can hardly believe it.
Only the material cost should not be more than 1.500 or max 2000 EUR and the endsume surprises me, if you take under consideration that
only 5 - 10 mm are covered with wood. I suppose that I can furnish my living room and maybe my house with parquette and it should be cheaper than that. Can you give some indications?

Hi Georg,
Just a short comment to the price of restauration of my Volga 2000.
The wood work will take for two men about 6 -7 weeks, which means around 500 h. Price / h 30- 35 € .... so we end up far over 15k€ for work only.
material 2-3 k€ and we are up over 20 k€ for that. Seats, engine ,gear and other new technic for same 20 k€ at least....

I just comment your comparation of prices with a few words - NEVER compaire real building of boats, to house building material or similar!
Each piece of wood on a boat is unik, hand made and fitted separately to its place with a high presicion, and treated to have a life allmost forewer.--- If its made the right way.. there are boat builders which build the boats just like doing a house for the dog in garden...thats an other thing, these boats are not worth anything when finished. Then it is better to keep the boat in original condition, it is worth more like that.

If y can get yr Volga fitted with a real teak/mahogany deck and interior for 7 k€...... it is really cheap...If it is made correct.

BR

Robert

Hi Robert,

The price was striking and most boatbuilders (friends) warned me. Labour is simply cheaper here in Turkey and knowing the price in Northwestern Europe where most boats are exported to, the carpenters try to bring their prices on such levels.

I am working now on a different concept for the interior but will have my deck wooded. Lets see... You can see some of my AutoCad drawings in other chapters. I will go for the 50'ties convertable cruiser type.

Hi,

Haven't seen anything since then from you. How are the things going? Do you have any progress to show? You should by now already be cruising in the water.

Best regards