I plan to build a new bowsprit for our BCC. My choice of wood is
quarter-sawn (vertical grain) fir. Has anyone built a bowsprit from
slab-sawn fir? Slab-sawn fir is common to most lumber yards.
I’ve made two. The first was of vertical grain fir
right from the lumber yard 2 x 6 (l 5/8 x 5 1/2) X
12’. The second was the same dimensions but of western
red cedar which was all that was available. I glued
these up solid and shaped according to Hess’s plans.
The first one lasted 21 years and was only destroyed
when the boat was damaged in Hurricane George’s in
'98. Three bow lines parted and allowed the boat to
get caught against a concrete pier. The compression
loads became so great the sprit literally exploded
into six or seven pieces. The first took quite a while
to build, the second 11 hours including the primer
paint(wanted out of Puerto Rico fast).
I don’t know that I would go with anything but
vertical grain but the scantlings are pretty hefty for
the size of the sails.
Also, I found that the crans iron tends to pull back
into the end grain where it fits the outer end of the
sprit. To stop that after a few years, I had a solid
stainless plate welded about an inch inside the
outboard end of the iron. This provides a ‘blunt’ stop
on the end of the sprit. I then fitted a ‘nose’ sprit
end on the out outboard end of the crans iron to make
it look like one continuous piece of wood. This also
made an easily replaceable piece for when I ram
someone,(haven’t yet), and easy to remove for
maintenance of the dolphin I carved on it.
I’m attaching a photo of my latest sprit. It’s a lousy
pic of the sprit but a nice pic non the less. It is my
own photo and free of virus.
regards,
Stan “Waxwing” hull #22 (1977)
— seagypsy@att.net wrote:
I plan to build a new bowsprit for our BCC. My
choice of wood is
quarter-sawn (vertical grain) fir. Has anyone built
a bowsprit from
slab-sawn fir? Slab-sawn fir is common to most
lumber yards.
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