Sparring -- Mast, Yard/Gaff, and Bowsprit

It never fails.  Whenever I get excited about something about this build, I get slammed back pretty hard, and the bowsprit is no exception.  I was so psyched about the "perfect" hunk of Douglas fir that I couldn't wait to tear into it, so I did.  And this is what I found:

 

Buried underneath perfect, supple rings was a fault line stretching from one end to about four feet along the heart of the wood.  This was completely invisible from the outside; there was really no way to know except for this small, one inch red line that I chalked up to a minor fault.  As you can see, this thing wasn't so minor.  Faced with the prospect of yet again searching for a block of wood or laminating up 3-4 planks, I went ahead and planned to use this anyway.  That was a good idea.  Here's a few of the top of the bowsprit was I'm whittling it down to spec with a belt sander.

 

I usually try to get lumber a foot or two larger than I need in the inevitable case of knots or faults.  This was no exception.  It turns out that the fault lines perfectly frame the nose of the bowsprit on either side.  Meaning -- cut away the fault and there's no fault!  I freehanded a jigsaw to slough off the front of the bowsprit then used a belt sander to finish it off.

 

For once, I feel like I dodged a bullet.  So now I have a bowsprit waiting for its turn to be epoxy'd.  I set that aside and pulled out the various bits would become the mast.  After a quick dry fit, I noticed there was a bit of a problem.  It turns out I was about 1/8" short on both sides of the rabbet I cut those many years ago.  This meant I was about 1/4" inch short overall on the width, the entire length of the mast, and there was no way around it.

 

 

 

I could either source two more 16' planks or shim the mast.  I decided on the latter, effectively laminating up to the full width across the length.  I don't see any reason why this won't be as strong, if not stronger, than one full length, so I'm fine with the fix.  I couldn't help but clamp everything together and raise it to the rooftops.  I can't wait to do this in my driveway some day as I put the rigging together.

One thing that I wasn't expecting, though should have, was laminating up four extra boards in addition to the normal glue up effectively meant I had to deal with a lot of epoxy, all put in place before it dried into a hunk of useless plastic.  Because of the threat of rain, I had to move this operation onto the floor of the cramped garage.  This wasn't easy, and I was exhausted the next day.  But I got it done, and glued everything in place.  Knowing I'd have some spill and squeeze out, I wasn't looking forward to sanding this back down.

 

But once again, something I thought was going to be awful wasn't so bad.  A belt sander made quick work of the residue, exposing some gaps in the lamination that I'll go back and fill.  But what I thought would take four hours took about 45 minutes.  The side lines actually look pretty good, even intentional.

I also moved so quickly that I forgot to stuff the mast with aluminum foil as a radar reflector.  As a side note, I one time thought I would run wires up the middle of this to extend out the top for an anchor light.  Given the extra lamination I didn't want to monkey with the specs anymore than needed.

 

Quick work of the mast left enough daylight for me to sand down the gaff which I rough cut with a jigsaw the day before.  After the annoyance of the mast, the gaff was amazing as it went from board to finished product in about an hour.  Taking advice of Chris and other builders, I extended the gaff 18" to a full 140" as the spec length means it will miss the boom gallows and fall into the cockpit.  My gaff now looks it has an odd extension towards the end but it's a small price to pay for the safety of my skull.

 

I'll just take a moment here to say that CLC calls the "gaff" a "yard" in the plans, which I think is a bit misnamed.  While it may be so that all gaffs are yards, and not all yards are gaffs, PocketShip is, by definition, a gaff-rigged sloop.  This means that the very spar that makes the boat a gaff-rigged sloop should be called a gaff.  More semantically, a yard generally squares off a sail, and PocketShip's mainsail is not square, nor is this spar parallel nor perpendicular with the keel, as a yard would be.  Gaff it is, and gaff it should be.

 

So at this time, I have a finished bowsprit and gaff(!), a mast that needs a little touchup, and a boom that's laminating in the garage.  I'll finish the boom and the mast tomorrow, and that means I'm done with the spars (not counting epoxy, sanding, and varnish) but I'm calling it good for now!