Timber!

Today I hit a trifecta.  I've been searching for timber for the spars on and off for about 7 years now and today I got exactly the wood I wanted.  Well, not exactly-exactly as I'll have to whittle what I got down to spec but I'm thrilled with it all, especially the bowsprit piece. I tend to avoid naming places, but I got these over at Menard's which has a decent lumberyard in the back behind the moulding area. This pile has the chunk for the bowsprit, the four sides of the mast, and the unfinished yard/gaff and boom.

The bowspirt is a 4 x 4 x 12 chunk of beautiful, clear of Douglas fir, shockingly free of knots along the length and solid all around.  This is especially great as it means I don't have to laminate this up and then cut back down.  Of course if I cut it there may be a knot lurking below but upon inspection I don't see anything that would cause any trouble.

The boom, too, was sourced as a clear 5/4 x 6 x 12' of Select Pine.  This cut in half and epoxy'd together is near perfect.  And then the yard/gaff is a solid piece of 5/4 x 4 x 12', too.  This will be about 18 inches longer than the plans call for as it falls into the cockpit otherwise.  One wayward gaff knocked out a PocketShip skipper for a few seconds.  True story.

Careful readers will note that 5/4 is not the same as 1 inch.  I don't have a planer and will accept the extra 5/32 of width.  1/8 inches of wood, 3 inches wide, 12 feet long, is the same weight as a four cubic inches of wood.  Weight won't be a problem and neither will working the lines, so I'm calling that good and moving on.

This last piece of the puzzle means I have all of the major pieces in a rush to get this done by early October.  The sails will be here this week, the trailer is waiting for the keel bunk to be installed, the sailing hardware is on order, and I have all of the timber, lines, and paint needed to make a push.  I might be able to get on the water for a few days just before leaving.  That would be amazing but the amount of work still left to do is daunting.