Masts, Square, Round, Etc

[gottabsomewhere]

Whats all this about making round masts ?

Square seems like a much easier make. Any reason why I shouldn't make my homemade mast square ?
I waas going to use a green ceder tree off my property, and square it off on the table saw.

Whatdyya think ?

[Ian McColgin]

Cedar is not used that I know of for masts as it tends to be a bit more brittle than the more normal firs and spruces and the poles I've seen have an aweful lot of knots.

If you've a suitable whole stick for your mast, why mess up the structure by milling off useful wood. The only reason for a rectangular (rarely square) section is the ease of build up if you're making a hollow stick or conservation of wood if you're making a solid built-up stick.

Assuming that you find a straight tree of suitable species, you'll want about a year after barking it to fully season it. Try to harvest about now while the sap is down.

Farley Mowat tells a very funny tale of his schooner's masts that were green and the trees had a twisty grain. As the masts untwisted with age he had to keep relocating the rigging leads to have them point fore, aft or athwartships.

G'luck

[Uncle Duke]

Adding to Ian....
Round is more conducive to mast hoops than square - that's why you see it on old-timey (or not so old-timey) masts which use hoops. Square (or rectangular or even oval) are more conducive to sails hoisted on a track.
All those shapes can be done hollow also, of course, with the advantages of slightly lower weight, the opportunity to twiddle with the aeordynamics a little, and the opportunity to minimize warping and/or checking.
But round vs. square is really mostly about hoops vs. tracks.

[kc8pql]

I waas going to use a green ceder tree off my property, and square it off on the table saw.

Whatdyya think ?

I think it's a pretty small mast or you have one heck of a big tablesaw!

[Oscarvan]

How big is the boat?

Gut feeling, I am not an engineer, is that tension loads are distributed more evenly on a circle than an angular shape......

[gottabsomewhere]

Yeah.............that makes for a lot less work.

I have several dead trees of the 4" size. Maybe dead and dry is a way to go ? Also I thought to wrap with a 2" glass cloth and slap on the epoxy.
I am landlocked so there will be no open ocean stresses on this spar/mast.
Thanks for your input !

[gottabsomewhere]

I guess I should have said "band saw"

[gottabsomewhere]

16 feet

[Ian McColgin]

gotta, do you have any boat building reference books to fill in some of the terse remarks we might make.

Spars are interesting and can be made in a lot of ways, but especially making composit structures - wood and glass - can make for some interesting engineering. You'll likely have better luck sticking to basic wood.

Dead trees are rarely as good structurally as live trees properly harvested and seasoned. You get rot, insects, all that. Depending on how and why the tree is dead, you may have less obvious deterioration of the wood structure.

What boat and rig is all this for? The "open ocean" stress is not an issue - plenty of violence can come whistling down a valley and out on a lake, even a small one, and the issue is to harmonize the strength of the rig with the likely stresses.

[gottabsomewhere]

I knew somebody would ask me "what kind of boat"
Do I really waant to sound kinda silly or maybe it a blast of creativity.
So.............Built a lightweight "dory" last summer. Also built two narrow pontoons for rowing catamaran. In a fit of winter boredom I attached the catamaran to the Dory. Now I have a "triadorian" !!! I am able to attach and dis-attach the pontoons in 5 seconds. To continue the goofyness I am installing a sail ................the whole thing is three boats / one.
Something happens to a old sailor when the snow flies. It's mystical

[Ian McColgin]

This rig crys out for a balanced chinese lug sail. Maybe make the sail of Tyvek and use PVC tubing for the battens. There's an online bit on Tyvek sail making.

If you have a router or table saw, you might most cheaply make a nice bird's mouth spar from some common stock you might find for cheap at a lumber yard - I'm thinking clear grain "mahogony" (it's not) or spruce, often sold for flooring. Or glue up a square shape, eight-side it and bring it down to round.

If you can't find the threads on how to make an eight-siding guage, write again.

G'luck

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

I knew somebody would ask me "what kind of boat"
Do I really waant to sound kinda silly or maybe it a blast of creativity.
So.............Built a lightweight "dory" last summer. Also built two narrow pontoons for rowing catamaran. In a fit of winter boredom I attached the catamaran to the Dory. Now I have a "triadorian" !!! I am able to attach and dis-attach the pontoons in 5 seconds. To continue the goofyness I am installing a sail ................the whole thing is three boats / one.
Something happens to a old sailor when the snow flies. It's mystical

Whoa! A sailboat is not just a boat with a mast and a bedsheet. A sailboat has to tack. If it can't tack you will have to go to the oars every time you want to go upwind.
If the mast/sail and the daggerboard/centerboard/leeboard are not installed in the proper relationship you may have an evil handler rather than an enjoyable sailer. And having THREE hulls in the water is not going to make figuring this all out any simpler.
I would not get very aggressive in the sail deptment till you are certain you have something that will work. A simple 10'-12' mast with a homebrew sail about 40 sq ft., or so,for starters. The easiest way to make a mast is to get 3-1" x 3" x long enough to hang the sail and laminate a tapered blank 2" sq.,on the bottom and 1 ½" sq. on top. Cut the corners off so it's 8 sided. Don't need any 'glass or other reinforcements that will drive the cost up.
If you can get a small sail and spars off a junked sailboat for a small price that's even better.

[Lewisboats]

Whoa! A sailboat is not just a boat with a mast and a bedsheet. A sailboat has to tack. If it can't tack you will have to go to the oars every time you want to go upwind.
If the mast/sail and the daggerboard/centerboard/leeboard are not installed in the proper relationship you may have an evil handler rather than an enjoyable sailer. And having THREE hulls in the water is not going to make figuring this all out any simpler.
I would not get very aggressive in the sail deptment till you are certain you have something that will work. A simple 10'-12' mast with a homebrew sail about 40 sq ft., or so,for starters. The easiest way to make a mast is to get 3-1" x 3" x long enough to hang the sail and laminate a tapered blank 2" sq.,on the bottom and 1 ½" sq. on top. Cut the corners off so it's 8 sided. Don't need any 'glass or other reinforcements that will drive the cost up.
If you can get a small sail and spars off a junked sailboat for a small price that's even better.

Party Pooper!


(I know you are right but I just HAD to throw that in)

Steve

[Ian McColgin]

But once he learns to sail, he can drop the training hulls.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

But once he learns to sail, he can drop the training hulls.

I've been following the progress of a guy who is going thru' a similar process. He's into his third year and probably has had the boat in the water no more than 3-4 hours the whole time. It hasn't worked yet.
He could have built a prooven S&G sailboat design in 3 months. I think he is more at home trying to re-invent the wheel than he is with his hand upon the tiller.
Whatever turns you on!

[gottabsomewhere]

This wheel was invented a long time ago.
Dory rows great, looks great, floats great.
Rowing catamaran was built for "crabbing". Think about it !
Now I can trailer three boats to the water.

[Tom Robb]

I wrote and erased some fairly unkind words I'd probably regret.
Instead how about:
Get some books about boats and boatbuilding.
Read them as if studying for an exam.
Then ask a question or two about whatever still seems to be unclear.

[BBSebens]

I am a young lad, and very new to boating and sailing, and as such, am still naive and ambitious.

that being said...

I think this "triadorian" idea is really neat. Tweaking and tinkering is half the fun, i think. and the satisfaction of getting something to work is one of the best feelings ever.

I say go for it!! with a bit of luck, it will be a lot of fun.


as to the mast issue itself, my father-in-law built a 16ft. Mattinnicus Double Ender, a short version of a whalers longboat. He also built a simple sprit rig for it. It has a solid, built up round mast, with a sail track. It is a simple set up, and is easy to disassemble for trailering. Seems to me, that would be a fairly simple way to get a sail up in your very unusual and flexible boat.

Good Luck!!

[Chan]

I agree tinker away, stay away from the expensive stuff and consider it all firewood it doesn't work.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

This wheel was invented a long time ago.
Dory rows great, looks great, floats great.
Rowing catamaran was built for "crabbing". Think about it !
Now I can trailer three boats to the water.

I live on Lake Erie. No crabbing but lots of walleyes.
Judging from the small amount of detail you have devulged making a mast is the least of your problems.
Boats that row, paddle or go by motor generally go as they are urged.
Wind power is a different proposition. The boat has to be capable of certain maeuvers if it is to be practical. If you throw up a sail and go waaaaaaay downwind and cannot saill waaaaaay upwind (i.e. tack) you will be late for supper most of the time.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

You can go upwind without tacking.

You can "Shunt" - proa style,
You can Gybe - fast windsurfers.

There are other approaches - you can have fun looking into them.

[tonydezoc]

normal procedure for mast making is to start with a square section and then plane to 8 sided then 16 sided and then finally round, the most noticeable difference between what you start with and what you end with is weight, which is important,especially aloft and there is a certain satisfaction in running your hands over the finished product when looking for the last high spots. I dont have any data to sudstantiate it but I cant help thinking that a round mast will have a better strenght to weight ratio. Also should create less turbulence.

[gottabsomewhere]

I'm waiting but nobody asked "WHY A CATAMARAN FOR CRABBING"
This was my grandsons idea...............It's hard to look over a boat side down to the bottom for crab, and see him in your trap. BUT sitting on a bench between two hulls makes it easy. His first idea was to make a hole in the bottom of the boat. Actually not a bad idea
GOTTAB

[gottabsomewhere]

YEAH i THINK i'M GOING THAT WAY

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

You can go upwind without tacking.

You can "Shunt" - proa style,
You can Gybe - fast windsurfers.

There are other approaches - you can have fun looking into them.

I have only been sailing 3 years and I have no idea what you are talking about. I suspect that GOTTAB doesn' know how to sail at all.
If you look at my avatar you'll see that my pram has a boomless sprit. It tacks OK but will never do the Rhumba or any other sexy machination. I'll leave the "shunts" and "gybes" to Dennis Conner and concentrate on staying upright.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

in response to

You can go upwind without tacking.

You can "Shunt" - proa style,
You can Gybe - fast windsurfers.

There are other approaches - you can have fun looking into them.
I have only been sailing 3 years and I have no idea what you are talking about. I suspect that GOTTAB doesn' know how to sail at all.
If you look at my avatar you'll see that my pram has a boomless sprit. It tacks OK but will never do the Rhumba or any other sexy machination. I'll leave the "shunts" and "gybes" to Dennis Conner and concentrate on staying upright.

Instead of Tacking, turning upwind until the wind is from the other side of the boat, you can "Gybe" - that is turn downwind until the wind is from the other side of the boat.

Usually on small boats this is a "hairy" move but in anything which risks getting caught in irons, its a sound move.

Shunting is usually reserved for proas which sail backwards as well as they do forwards.