New bow sprit

[John Stone]

This is typed on my iphone. So, I apologize up front for typing errors as the screen is hard to see. Like I mentioned, not an expert. I spent a lot of time gathering info though when I built my sprit, which is a traditional design—completely different than the original plank style. I chose a nice piece of Doug Fir that Larry Pardey found for me. A guy built a new bowsprit for his Hess 30 (a sister ship to Taleisin) and Larry had seen the off-cut. He connected me to this person and I bought it based only on a picture he sent. I think it was a 6x6 maybe 8’ long. All vertical grain with tight rings. Just beautiful. $100.

What I took off the Far Reach was a Teak platform style sprit. It was laminated. About 2” thick. Varnished as I recall. Transverse rods. Still in very good shape. Heavy. Strong as hell. I sold it to another CD 36 owner. It’s still out there doing it’s job nearly 40 years later.

So what wood do I recommend? Depends. There are a lot of woods out there many of which I am unfamiliar with. My preference would be teak for a platform style sprit, glued with aerodux, and leave it bare. Sprits get beat up. But what I have now is DF and varnished. Why? I chose it because it is not heavy and it is very strong, especially in compression. ( I read US Forrest Service reports and analysis on various wood species to learn about the characteristics of various woods under strain, tension, compression). My sprit is not hard to maintain though because the anchor chain never touches it so easier to keep varnished and protected. There is no glue to fail. The challenge you have is because it is a platform style sprit by design it makes contact with the deck—mine is raised above the deck—no contact. A platform style will have to be well bedded in something that gives a little. like 3m 4000 or Sikaflex 291. On the FR the deck is slightly raised by design so the water ran down to the deck proper which was maybe a 1/4” lower than the FG the original plank bowsprit sat on, so it worked to keep the sprit mostly out of the water.

It’s important for me to mention I did not guess at any of this. I read a lot of boat building books to understand what I was doing. I read through Skene’s elements of yacht design and a couple books by Howard Chapelle. I think he might have worked for Alden for a time (don’t remember now)...same as Alberg. I read a book by Bud Macintosh on building wood boats. I called a respected old school New England boat builder of old bow sprit designs and got some advice. I got some advice from Larry Pardey. There are themes here. What I am getting at here is you have to gather the info best you can and make the best decision you can based on what your end state is. There is no one design or one way to do it. But getting advice on the WoodenBoat forum (or any forum) is tricky cause you don’t know their level of experience or the context in which they are basing their recommendations. Plus they don’t know the boat...which is why I am explaining myself so you can better understand the context of my thinking and then decide for yourself.

Ipe is very hard. In the ironwood family. Maybe a little heavier than teak. So it might be a good choice. But you need to find out how well it glues. Also easily as rot resistant as teak. And if you change your mind and go with teak only use Burmese teak. No Philippine teak or plantation grown fake teak. Vastly inferior. I have used it. Even smells fake. Iroko might work. Very rot resistant. I use it as a substitute for teak but I don’t know how strong it is compared to Burmese teak. The famous Laurent Giles designed Wander III, which is still sailing 70 years after being built, and with five circumnavigations to her credit, was planked with Iroko. I think she still has most of her original planking. Purple heart is rot resistant but ridiculously heavy. Ash is inexpensive strong, glues well, and hard but not particularly rot resistant. So probably not a good choice.

I don’t think spruce would be a good choice for a “platform” style sprit. It’s light but brittle. It’s not rot resistant. Taleisen has a sitka spruce sprit but it’s round, elevated off the deck, well protected and built by a master shipwright. Definitely not a good wood for a plank style sprit. I don’t think it could take the beating it would experience. Old growth long leaf pine is supposed to be as rot resistant as teak. It’s available in NC and in the SE US through wood sources that sell recovered logs. They pull the old logs that sank when floated down the coastal rivers during harvesting over 150 years ago. I think it’s about half the price of teak. You might google it. Maybe southern yellow pine would work if it did not have knots snd had tight growth rings.... It would not cost much.

I personally would not use white oak...unless you changed the design and did not use glue. It’s not to say it will not work. But white oak does not glue well and is prone to checking.

In my long winded circuitous way what I am suggesting is what kind of wood you pick all depends on the design, intent, vision, budget, time available to build, etc. The original sprit on a 28 can’t be that big. Maybe $250-$300 for teak (I’m guessing). Use Aerodux 185 which you can get from CP adhesive. Maybe $50. You could try Ipe. Or Maybe doug fir if you protect it. Put a good bang strip on it to protect it from the anchor chain. Jim Walsh installed a nice one on Orion. You might also reach out to Steve L. He has a lot of experience with wood and is very practical. His solutions are often different than mine because we have slightly different philosophies but I always respect his experienced opinion. There is no one right way.

I mentioned once before, there is always SS tubing. Done right it is strong, practical, reasonable in cost. and can look good if designed to look good. Very little maintenance if the right materials are used and you have a skilled fabricator build it.

None of this is to say you can’t build it out of...whatever. Plenty of people do. But it probably won’t last and might fail. I also can’t help you there as it is not the way I do things.

If you pick the right wood you dramatically improved your odds for achieving good results. I hope this helps.

[John Stone]

I reread my post this morning. What a rambling response. Sorry.

I thought about it some more. Short answer. If I needed to keep the cost down and wanted something that glues well and easy to work I would go with doug fir. Probably build it to the same dimensions as the teak it replaces. Do not slather it in epoxy. I would still use aerodux 185 or you could use Weldwood which is a urea formaldehyde based adhesive. It is super strong. Needs to be above 60°F when you clamp it. Requires tight joints and high clamp pressure. Larry Pardey used a similar glue to build the sitka spruce mast on Taleisen. It’s not “waterproof” so it has to be protected. I use a high quality varnish. I used it to glue up the laminations in my 5’ long curved white oak tiller. Yes, white oak. Why white oak? Because I didn’t know better. I didn’t learn about the trouble with white oak till after I built it. But it has not failed yet. It’s got 10 coats of varnish. and i have a sunbrella cover for it. Next one will be made of ash.

So there ya go. Douglass Fir.

[ghockaday]

Thank you very much for all the time you took for the reply. I don't want to do this but once, even though I enjoy wood work. I used this same oak for my current tiller except, it is all in one piece so no delamination or glue issues. I think I could use it to drive tent stakes. I do keep it varnished and a cover on it. I did use red oak for my companionway doors also. 6 coats of varnish and they stay covered as well. So I like oak. But understand the issues with one board (wide enough) like the one that is on there or a laminate. Oak will cup and it is so blooming strong it takes whatever it is fastened too up with it. SO.....I ramble as well, but you confirmed what I have read about oak, steams good, strong as iron but you need to bolt it where you want it.

I think I research fir, on this coast it will have to be mail order and shipping will be high. But if I only do it once that is really not an issue. As long as I get a usable board. I think it is much lighter than yellow pine.

I can get yellow pine and if careful I can get one with little or no knots if I pick through enough boards. Yellow pine from what I read is the strongest softwood in North America but heavy, not an issue for me. This may be my second option. Of course if I laminate I can insure NO knots.

I will also price teak, again it would be mail order as well.

So would all of these need to be laminated? Is this for strength or stability?

Is the yellow pine actually strong enough? Finding old growth pine I am sure will be harder to locate then the others. I have had steers break through 2 by 8 pine. This is not that kind of load though.

I would love to get it off the deck but lack the skills for making bronze hardware as you did.

Cost, to a point is not really an issue. This is not our only hobby so hobby money must be used wisely. LOL (sheep, horses, farm, vineyard, lever action, wood work, spinning weaving, leather work...)

[ghockaday]

Looking good! I'm doing exactly the same thing with a slab of teak to replace my bowsprit. In my case I'm adding three bronze threaded rods to hold it all together. Do you know if the oak bowsprit was original to the boat?

How thick of teak are you using or do you think you need?

[ghockaday]

More rambling, very old house flooring, old barn beams, stuff I have had over the years and don't now.

[John Stone]

Yellow pine from Lowe’s/Home Depot is not appropriate for boat related structural applications. It’s rapid growth wood and mostly sap wood at that. Wide growth rings equate to weakness and lack of stability. Avoid it like the plague.

Laminating allows you to take the inherent stress out of wood. When you run a piece of wood through a table saw and it springs apart or twist what you are seeing is internal tension in the wood being released. But another important advantage is it allows you to orient the grain vertically making it stronger in tension and compression which is what you’re dealing with primarily in this application.

Another very good wood which I failed to mention is black locust. It is super strong and more rot resistant than teak. I have never used it. I have read a fair bit about it though. Come to think of it, I ought to use that for the next tiller. I’m not sure how it glues though. I’ll read up on it. It’s native to the US.

I want to reiterate I am an expert...on my boat. Not anyone else’s boat. While I have a lifetime of sailing my personal boat building/modification/restoration experience comes comes from work I have researched and performed on my boat. But, I have also learned from reading and talking to experts who’s views are proven by decades of boat building snd offshore experience. I don’t take advice from sailors on the dock unless they have proven themselves (the vast majority have not) and then I carefully research through other trusted resources what they have suggested. It’s my life out there, not theirs.....

[John Stone]

Where are you located? You can find DF wood on the east coast. I purchase wood from Atlantic Veneer mill outlet in Beaufort NC and World Timber. Both are just up the road. You might have to drive a little ways but I would not think you would have to go too far. Do look into black locust as it grows all over the US. Here is a little tidbit on black locust.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livesc ... tates.html

[ghockaday]

My lowe's DOES have douglas fir. I am surprised. Only in 4 by 4, I could rip it. maybe an idea...., better than yellow pine for this?

[John Stone]

My lowe's DOES have douglas fir. I am surprised. Only in 4 by 4, I could rip it. maybe an idea...., better than yellow pine for this?

If it’s good wood. Look at the growth rings. I think I would want at least 10 per inch. If you are near Norfolk I think there are wood distributors in the area. I bet you can find the right wood there.

Here is a picture of some DF off-cuts I just pulled out of my stash bin in the shop. All DF. Look at the rings in the wide piece. In the center section I count about 35-40 rings per inch—gorgeous wood. Even in the wider rings there is 20 per inch. On the far left piece there are 9 per inch. You’re not going to find wood like this at Lowe’s. Now you might find a group of tight rings in part of the wood. What you can do is rip the wood down to recover the tightest rings of the group. Do that for different boards. Orient the rings vertically. Then laminate them together. That’s a smart effective way to do it.

The other issue we have not discussed is the wood at Lowe’s is not dried. It’s almost always freshly harvested. So it’s inherently unstable for that that reason alone.

The rule of thumb for air dried wood is a year per inch of thickness. That does not apply to kiln dried wood. But kilns require highly skilled operators to be effective. You don’t get that at Lowe’s.

These are just some things to think about. Do the best you can with the resources available to you.

[ghockaday]

Without easy access to a planer most of the reclaim would be unusable for me. Mail order will be hit and miss as there can be a lot of misrepresentation. Thank you very much for the information. I will probably glue the oak as that is the best alternative for what I have available. Thank you again for the time you spent on this. I'll kick around the other options as I search for solutions. I learned a lot. Dennis

[John Stone]

Sure. No sweat. Good luck.

[SVFayaway]

Looking good! I'm doing exactly the same thing with a slab of teak to replace my bowsprit. In my case I'm adding three bronze threaded rods to hold it all together. Do you know if the oak bowsprit was original to the boat?

How thick of teak are you using or do you think you need?

I'm ripping down a piece of 5/4 stock to get strips that are 1 3/8" thick, which is the thickness of the old platform. I should clarify that in my case what I have is not a bowsprit proper but an anchor platform. It does not carry any of the loads of the rig, it's just a place to mount an anchor roller.

[ghockaday]

Looking good! I'm doing exactly the same thing with a slab of teak to replace my bowsprit. In my case I'm adding three bronze threaded rods to hold it all together. Do you know if the oak bowsprit was original to the boat?

How thick of teak are you using or do you think you need?

I'm ripping down a piece of 5/4 stock to get strips that are 1 3/8" thick, which is the thickness of the old platform. I should clarify that in my case what I have is not a bowsprit proper but an anchor platform. It does not carry any of the loads of the rig, it's just a place to mount an anchor roller.

Thank you, dee

[ghockaday]

Well, I found heart pine in Richmond with a company that specializes in reclaim lumber. 2 inch by 5 inch best grade all vertical grain, 150 years old or better. Full two inch after milling. No knots that a dime will not cover for $350. This is probably the way I will go. I also found a company that specializes in quarter cut oak and black walnut out of very large trees, but with ya'll help and more reading I think the pine will be gorgeous and worth the money. None of their wood has less than 10 rings per inch.

[Jim Walsh]

Heart pine does not refer to a species. Some pine is suitable for boatbuilding and much is not. Since you are buying from a business I would request the specific species they are offering. Douglas fir is tried and true.