Constructing Wooden Pole Masts for Gaff Rig

[grattonshe]

1. I have a thirty year old gaff rigged steel boat (39 feet)
2. It needs new wooden pole masts.
3. The 2 forty foot white spruce squared timbers are sitting in my driveway.
4. I need to find a source of information on how to make them into masts
5. Then I need to find all the hardware, or instructions on how to make the hardware for the masts. This is because a very primitive system involving boring numerous holes in the mast was used on the original masts.
Thanks for any help
Gratton Sheely

[Thad]

If you look at John Leather's book GAFF RIG, THE CATBOAT BOOK (or any book with lots of pictures of gaffers, and Chapelle's AMERICAN FISHING SCHOONERS (the details covered in the back of the book), you will get a sense of the options open to you in rig design. Mast bands can be purchased, welded to order, or cast from your patterns. Alternately eyes can be spliced over hounds. The blocks needed to lift the gaff and sail, throat and peak, will be determined by the weight to be lifted. The positions of the blocks and bridles vary from boat to boat as they do from place to place and era to era. Draw your rig up as you want to see it and start to put it all together. Round the spars and fit your rigging. Little by little, it can come together.

[TerryC]

Frank Hagan has a wonderful webpage devoted to the Gaff Rig. It's probably the best gaff rig information on the web.

http://users2.ev1.net/~fshagan/gaffrig.htm

[John B]

Classic marine has good information and product. there are good articles in there.
http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/index.htm
You could a search on "Pin rail" in this forum too for quite a neat discussion.

[Bob Cleek]

Bud McIntosh's "How to Build a Wooden Boat" has about the best treatment of how to turn out a solid spar I've seen lately. WB store mailorder has it. Buy yourself a nice plane and keep it sharp! Plan to walk a lot! LOL