Stainless Bowsprit Sails and Rigging- Standing and Running Forums

Actually I am mostly comfortable welding mild steel and stainless but have no experience with aluminum. If I had the money to pay someone to weld up an aluminum bowsprit and all the stuff attached and around it, I might take the money and buy a welder for aluminum as well as take a class on it. I bet it would come out close to the same cost I figure by the time all was said and done a decent shop would want 2500 to 4000 dollars to do the job.

I got a great deal on my aluminum hard dodger frame at about 2400 dollars but the guys that did it told me they would never do another for less than four grand.   They kept coming up with better ways to do it and that would get me to come up with an enhancement. It is a work of art but a lot went into it.

Just the frame.

I came up with a list of goals for what we wanted in a dodger.

1. I could see over it standing at the helm and under while seated
2. It cleared any running rigging so nothing would hang on it.
3. It was strong enough that you could clip to it or hold onto hand rails that bolt to the top of it and it would support a 200+ lb guys weight under extreme conditions.
4. It extended back farther than the old dodger to give better cover of the companionway from the rain.
5. It could be used to catch water for usage in our tanks,
6. It had a large surface area to mount solar panels to.
7. That we could enclose the entire thing in mosquito netting and isinglass so that we could turn the entire top of the cabin into a play pen for the babies/toddlers and or sleep up there ourselves.
8. Also a built in guide to keep the boom from hitting the solar panels or that we could bungee or tie the boom to to secure it.

Lastly and the one  goal we couldn't meet was that we could move the traveler onto it. To mount the traveler there was just awkward based on the height it needed to be. With a traveler there, we had to lower the height to the point that it was unrealistic to get under and out from under easily for access to the companionway etc... Also to build in the structural support into the dodger for the loads of the traveler aesthetically just looked bad.

Even without the traveler, by the time all was said and done it you still have to duck down quite a bit to get under the aft edge of the dodger and to the companionway.

As far as the actual dodger top, I fabricated it from 1/4 inch luan with glass and epoxy on both sides, all edges with an oak lip wrapped in epoxy and glass, every corner has its own custom built in drain that a hose attaches to that can lead water to where you need it. It is held on by bolting the full length hand rails and the boom protector over it to the frame. We welded in large matching surfaces to the frame so that the feet of the rails are pinched between and held together with about 36 1/4 inch stainless bolts. all holes in the dodger top were pre-drilled filled with epoxy and the drilled again just through the epoxy. It took me months part time to build the top but it came out very nice. we glued 13 25 watt thin film solar panels to the top of the dodger for a total of 325 watts there. You can jump up there and safely walk on the panels also. that was a design goal that evolved as we got into the project. The dodger is so large that access to the boom was made difficult if the boom was centerlined.

Materials for the dodger cover were around 500 with the wood being around 100 dollers. Epoxy and glass cost a bit lots of bolts to buy Solar panels I got a deal on for 325 dollars on ebay. Misc stuff used to put it all together, sand paper, etc... about another 200

By the time was all said and done it cost about 3200 to 3600 $ roughly. I didn't have the budget for it and didn't intend it to cost so much but honestly it seems about right given normal job creep and lack of decent expectations of what the job would cost. To have someone else do the whole job I think it would have run about 6000+

Other than wanting more head room under it which would require raising the boom we love it. It came out great. The height is very livable and perfectly fits the esthetic's and lines of the boat in my opinion. The guy that welded it up for me was not only a welding artist but added small touches in changing some of the straight lines I had designed to curved ones that visually made a 1000 % difference in the looks. He used to design and build fishing towers  for Grady White. It was funny There was a Grady White about 5 slips down from me and when he was working on mine he talked with the owner and based on the age of the boat said the tower on it was one of the ones he head designed back in the day when working for them.

I know way more information than you asked for.