Masts and spars

I have been thinking about masts for my gaff rig aswell. In my case it's for a slightly heavier boat, 25 tons I have thought about carbon mast as a friend has a couple available. On a 50 ft stick it would make a huge difference in weight. My problem about a composite mast for a gaff rig is the amount of shock. I may be wrong as I'm by no means knowledgeable about composites but for what i know they are extremely resistant to flex, very rigid for the weight but don't like repetitive shock and friction. On a gaff rig the jaws "hits" the mast a lot. On every tack or jib the jaw twist a way that shocks the stick, same with waves and low wind, the jaws hit the mast. Wouldn't that be bad for any composite spar?
What about the friction of hoops or lashing? I'd love to hear opinions about this.
I pretty much given up the idea for the mast but am still thinking about composite gaffs. For the booms, well, gaffer want heavy booms so wood it is.

For our previous boats masts, 36 ft schooner, we laminated pine, which served us well.

Cheers,
Murielle

 

Murielle i just visited your web site
great stuff keep up the good work
please if you get anywhere near a Gaff rig boat, take some pictures and post them, Thanks

 

I have thousands of pictures of gaffers, I have been collecting them since I was a child. Now my husband and I do trips and detours to see or take pictures of gaff rig boats. Over all, about boats, the traditional working boats are the ones that passion me. I strongly believe that a picture is worth a thousand words. Are you looking for anything in particular in pictures, I might have what interests you. Otherwise, tough to pick

M

 

Murielle thanks, great to hear about your pics.

What i am looking for are those little close up details of all the "parts" that make up a good gaff rig, mast, boom, yokes, gooseneck, tackle and and and and

I find many pics of gaff rigs taken from afar but the resolution is very low so when you zoom into the pics all detail is lost.

Many of these old sailors have tried and tested methods of doing things and that is what i am trying to learn more about.

Once again
many thanks for your interest

 

Manie,

I thought I'd find some examples of how one _could_ go about this. My set-up is rather simple, but then again, my boat is very small.

I then thought, I'd find a few links and recommend Rigger's Apprentice, "Hand, Reef and Steer" and the "gaffrig handbook".

However, looking for great links, I found this, which tells you what you can find where, so that's a tad easier for me, but I think it will help a little:

http://www.messing-about.com/gaffrig/

Now, Murielle, the rest of us would still be interested in seeing some of those pictures.

Oh, you might also want to take a look at other boats such as luggers and catboats. They might give you some inspiration.

Speaking of: When my sails are shot, I will be trying out a high peaked lug-rig on mine.

 

DanishBagger

Thank You

just what i needed for the weekend, some really good reading material

TGIF

 

No problem, Manie - have a nice weekend

 

For smaller traditional rigs, this is also I nice book for one who wants to rig. It's in French but also has a lot of images. It is comparable to hand reef and steer but concentrates on smaller boats and goes over different rigs, including lug.

http://www.chasse-maree.com/index.php/les-livres/bateaux-par-genres/bateaux-traditionnels/guide-de-la-manoeuvre-des-petits-voiliers-traditionnels/fiche-produit-detaillee.html

Otherwise I have started adding some gaff rig pics to my gallery but it's taking a while and the weather is too nice to not be working on my boat. So here's were I posted (quite faster) some rig detailed pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Pepe.Berrou/GaffRigs

I'll add some more when I come across interesting ones.

DanishBagger, the lug rigs are even more attractive to me then the gaffers. We have seriously considered lug rigging, but knew too well it was a bad idea for a boat of our size to be handled by two. To convince ourselves we went play with some heavy lug sails at sea....that treated us.

Cheers,
Murielle

 

Haha, good point, Murielle.
The reason I'm thinking lugs is because of the nigel irens' Romilly, Roxane and Roanne (at respectively 22, 30, and 37 ft) supposedly have neato handling systems. Ok, it took carbon fiber to get there, but they're beautiful.

http://www.nigelirens.demon.co.uk/nid_CRUISING3.htm

(Oh, btw, the Maggie B is one beautiful gaff schooner, while you're there - I see you used to own a schooner! I like that)

On - I believe it was on the wooden boat forums - Ed Burnett explains how those rigs are set up. Perhaps I can find it again. Seems very simple (the lug doesn't tip and smacks someone on the head when you slacken the halyard for one …).

Thanks for uploading those pics on picasa - they're excellent

 

We raced the Marie Ty's construction with a friend who had bought a Roxannes bare hull to be fitted. Both boat where worked on side by side at a friends shop. I think they are still mooring neighbors. The sticks for the Roxanne are absolutely amazing, I got the chance to weigh the mast, stunning! The owner gets the mast in place with bare hands and rigs it in minutes. That makes the boat a great trailer sailboat, perfect to transport from one sailing plan to an other, which makes inland sailing a little more diversified and weekend trips more exiting. The concept is great and it's a fantastic looking boat...maybe I should take a break this summer and ask for a sail, only ever spent time on it on the hard.
Maggie B is indeed also beauty.

For small size sail I wouldn't be worried about the rig weight. For my size boat, it is a serious exercise to raise a lugged sail. The loose foot also become a dangerous weapon on a big rig, worst than a big boom as it can have more erratic movements. I've seen one act with a broken sheet....it's scary!

Murielle

 

If you get to sail with him, please make a full account on these boards

I found the Ed Burnett comments, btw:

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum//showpost.php?p=676681&postcount=11

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum//showpost.php?p=676684&postcount=14

Both are taken from this thread:

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum//showthread.php?t=14090

Edit: In the attached pdf, there's a drawing of how the yard is set up.

 

Bird´s mouth stuff

Hello,
I build stuff as a hobby, not as a pro. Don´t know what You don´t know so here are some of my thoughts on the topic:
I have built several tubes with this method and they have all come out fine. Nothing in Your scale though.
The first was a test for building a big wooden mast. We only made a spinnaker boom. The length was about 5 metres, od 120mm in the middle and tapering to about 70mm towards both ends. The wooden battens were yellow pine and the edge with the groove was straight while the straight edge was tapered. The thickness of the wood was under 20mm. The piece turned out straight and solid. No mast was made due to lack of time...
The second tube was a sitka boom, lenght about 3.5 metres, od 80mm material thickness 16 mm, no taper.
Third tubes were small tests for a project not in this field, length 2 metres, od about 50 mm in the middle, tapers to both ends by both narrowing and thinning wood strips. Material thickness 7mm in the middle and a worrying 3.5 at the ends.
These have all been round sections. By making the side strips wider You can make sexier sections.
All tubes were glued with epoxy. All were wrapped in plastic and assembled using hose-clamps. You want the kind that can be tightened with an elecrtic drill. Tapering the top is no problem..
If I was to make a mast, I would sheet the tube in thin fiberglass-cloth to make sure that water doesn´t get near the wood. My opinion is also to keep all lines (hoists aso) if possible, outside the mast for the same reason. Moreover, I think that the sail track should be glued to the mast (no screws..), again to make the mast last longer. The wood strips should be pre-scarfed to make life easy. A couple of extra hands is good to have around during assembly.

Hope this helps.