Need to replace my boom. What's good wood?

[Thunderbolt]

This is a 17' "Whitehall-like" boat. The mast and boom are wood. The boom is 8' long and completly rotten. It has a T rail hanging on a few rusty screws. I'd like to build a replacement. What's good? Solid wood? laminated hardwoods? Re-cycled milk jug material?
T-bolt

[SteveCox]

The best spar material is generally considered to be Sitka Spruce with everything else running a distant second. If your original boom is solid material I would stay with that.

[Thunderbolt]

I wouldn't have guessed a soft wood like spruce. But it makes sense. Nice and light. Just goes to show ya. Does it need treatment of some kind? Is there a preference of which way to orient the grain for screws? Andy

[Hawkeye25]

I agree 100% with SteveCox about the Sitka Spruce.

I once owned a 1954 28' Winthrop Warner Cambridge Cadet which had a 44' Sitka Spruce mast (truck to keel) and 16' Sitka Spruce boom. These were strong and beautiful spars. They were box constructions, being large enough to do this.

It is well worth getting the spruce if you can, but the last time I had to get some, about 4 years ago, I had to order it from a mill in the far northwest, and those guys slipped me 25% unusable, knotty trash I wouldn't use on country barroom floor. The rest was flawless straight, clear grain, light and strong.

If I were you, before I got on the phone and ordered the spruce, I would comb every backlot shed and storage rafter area in every boatyard I could find. You may uncover an old boom you can cut down and refit and refinish.

If all else fails, it is a boom, after all, and you can find a piece of soft, clear mahogany that will serve well. Southern yellow pine might be a nice match to the spar color. Everything really is a distant second to Sitka Spruce, the pride of the great white northwest.

[SteveCox]

Wood for boatbuilding is an interesting topic. Local availability really plays into it. If you ask someone from the New England area you will get a completely different answer than someone from Puget Sound (where I am). Out here our fishing boats are built of Douglas Fir, ribs,hull planking, decks, you name it. Other people will say that softwood is unsuitable for boats but it has been used for a long time and found to be just fine. You'll want to run the grain for the spruce for strength where the sailing forces will be and let the screw holes fall where they may.

[capttb]

Old growth,straight grained Doug Fir is still used in the manufacture of Fireman's Ladders and often used for spars in our area. I've attached a website here of someone in Homer with some very old Doug Fir spars for sale that points to their longevity.
http://www.wealaskans.com/mast.html
There is also a mill in NW that advertises they have
High grade mast and spar stock available. They're website is http://www.timberwork.com/lumber.html

[Thunderbolt]

I remember the "Captain Cook Fir" I saw in Hawaii. Very tall and straight. Well over 100ft. Legend has it they were planted all over the Pacific as a source of mast and spar material. I had to google it and I found out that Captain Cook Fir is Douglas fir and Douglas fir isn't really a fir but a spruce. It was called Douglas Spruce in the beginning.

Thaks for the links capttb. I sent a quick email to timberwork.

[SteveCox]

Doug Fir is a good spar wood. It is widely used in the Pacific Northwest. It would be my second choice after Sitka Spruce. Sitka is still a much better choice than DF, just not as widely available. If you ever have the chance to split or crush pieces of either wood you will see why. Sitka Spruce is very "stringy", that is, when crushed it results in very long fibers that don't seperate cleanly from each other. This property allows it to hold together over high stresses while remainig flexible. Df has a similar property but is not as pronounced as Spruce. On your boom Fir would be okay. If it were the mast I'd hold out for Spruce.

[Thunderbolt]

A little duct tape and some sheet rock screws got me sailing last night for an hour. When I had her back on the trailer I noticed the forestay turnbuckle was missing. Gad. Those things are a pain. I have to put the mast up and take it down every time I want to go out. Is there another connection in popular use for shrowds? A small come-a-long or something?

[sailingdog]

They have quick release lever-type fittings that are originally designed for use on inner forestays. See http://www.apsltd.com/Tree/d3000/e649.asp for a couple of examples.