Last week I got to explore in Booth Bay, and hung out with a bunch of wooden boat builders. Unsurprisingly, wood is not the most coveted building material for ships any longer, for its upkeep costs keep synthetics like fiberglass and carbon fiber a more popular build. Yet still, people will wait the (at least) 5+ years it can take to build one of these things from start to finish. 

"To me, wood has a soul," Hodgdon Yacht employee Chip Haggett said. "Put me in a wooden boat, and I can feel that vessel's soul."