There are some differences from the origonal. Firstly its 1/2" thicker, the old one broke twice (though second time it broke right at the repair of the first break). First break happened before I bought the boat, apparently due to a fouled anchor, second break happened when a spring line broke in a marina durring a squall and the bowsprit when under the dock. The anchoring issue is the main concern though, while i always use a snubber led through the chock aft of the bowsprit so no load is on it while anchored, there is the issue of retreiving the anchor and the load of a particularly well set anchor. So the extra thickness gives me peace of mind, its a bit more weight, but if building a new one, I figured why not.
It is also wider by 2". The origonal bowsprit never acommidated two proper sized anchors very well, the extra width helps with that. 2" does not add enough to make it very noticable, but much more then 2" and it would have looked horrid I think. Note the forward end of the bowsprit is staggered to allow two two anchor rollers to sit offset so the anchors play together nicer up there. Overall length of the bowsprit ended up longer as well due to this.
The laminates are also beefier. The primary board in the middle is 8" with the additional laminates being a full 2" each. I did not use the origonal CD method of fastening the laminates. CD used thread rod that went entirely through the sprit at 3 points. I always felt this signifigantly weakened the bowsprit at those points and was unnessisary. Instead each laminate was screwed together with silicone bronze wood screws at alternativing intervals for each laminate, in addition to epoxy and clamping.
Removing the old one was a nightmare, the bedding was very thick and ultimately the bowsprit wasnt coming off. So I cut off the portion forward of the bow with circular saw then chiseled the rest of it off, then a grider for the old bedding.
A big issue was with the primary bolts holding the old one down. Not only were they thru bolted with a nut on the interior, but they were also tapped into the steel plate inside the chain locker. They were frozen and after many hours of work not being able to get even one to budge, I gave up and cut the old bolts flush with the deck and the decided the new bowsprit will use a new bolt pattern to avoid the remains of the old bolts.
One other small detail, not very visible in the photos, that little triagle shaped spot between the chock and the bowsprit, which was always a nightmare to get varnish into and seemed to collect dirt and was a general pain in my ass, is now gone. With the wider bowsprit basicly touching the chock base now I decided to just fill those areas with plugs so the chock base basicly connects fully and directly to the bowsprit, no more annoying hard to get to spots now.
The bronze strips are 1/8" 220 bronze that a local shop cut to my specs for me. Note that on the starboard side there are peices to wrap over the edge of the bowsprit. I did have those peices made for the port side too but did not install them, as i do not use a windlass on that side and pulling an anchor up by hand does not allow for it to strike that part of the bowsprit.
I do have chain stoppers for both sides which are not yet installed, was trying to source bronze ones to replace my SS ones, but no luck there.
Anyway, the photos:
