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Turns out the rot at the back of the bowsprit is much further along than I had originally anticipated. We were originally thinking of doing an epoxy soak to bring back the structural integrity, but now it looks like the rot is so bad that the cleat (that was poorly installed) was able to be pulled off with little effort. Damage extends from the aft end to the bollards.
Has anyone had a similar experience or does anyone know of any folks in Southern California that are able to do a repair or full replacement of a bowsprit this large?
Any help is appreciated!
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Just an idea from an old Yankee: since a bowsprit is basically a compression post like a wooden mast, I would think that you could scarf in a new base to your bowsprit using the same ratio as they do on a mast.
Cheers,
Jim
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MDR:
Ouch! That's a bad one!
We had similar where the PO had put in a lot of dutchmen which, when revealed, eroded all our confidence in the structural integrity of this key piece of rigging so I replaced it.
I got douglas fir 2 x material that was clean of knots; not hard to find, even if you pick through the stock at your lumber yard, and a piece of plywood sandwiched in between everything. I believe the glue joints make for a stronger piece than one solid timber (3/4" plywood compared to 3/4" anything) so I wound up with a sandwich of 5 pieces: 2 pieces of doug fir on either side of the piece of plywood in the center, all glued together with west system epoxy using a west system notched trowel and glued and clamped overnight. Then I transferred the tapering dimensions from the old one to the new one and went to work with a hand planer.
I coated it with some penetrating epoxy and finished it with awlgrip since I was also spraying the mast in the boat yard at the time (after hours and Sunday because spraying was forbidden). Sounds like a lot but it came out great and has lasted for years.
When we took the Cransiron (metal bracket on the end of the sprit) and looked closely it was cracked and as my welder said: rotten, so we had to replace that as well.
Actually, the only things we haven't replaced on the boat so far are the masts and the hull.
NO wait, we haven't replaced the forward hatch either.
Yet.
My wife suspected it a while ago but now she's quite certain I've lost my mind and I have no defense with regard to this boat.
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I had a similar problem when I first bought Argyle (a 38). My rot was not nearly as bad as yours and I still opted to replace.
I did an extensive search online at various message boards to get a feel for what the best replacement was. Almost universally, the answer was not a hard wood like what was original to the boat (glued sections of two types of Mahogany, the lighter of the two rotted), but soft wood, since a bowsprit is meant to flex under load.
According to a few wooden boat builders, the best possible material was old growth Douglas fir from the Pacific northwest. Sitka spruce was also mentioned, but Doug is much more rot resistant and on the deck the lighter weight of the spruce is of less importance.
I ended up getting a beam from these guys: http://www.mcclanahanlumber.com and they were great to work with. For a 38 I needed a 10' x 7"x7" piece. The specifications were "B or better, CLR" and it was around 25-30 lines per inch.
Good Luck
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