where to find a replacement wood boom for lecompte medalist

[svheidi61]

hello,
After giving it much thought of how to deal with my wood boom due to years of neglect I decided to replace it sure I could epoxy and mat the rotten ends and always be second guessing if it would break in a heavy wind. I decided to just go ahead and to try to find a replacement for it. Some said go with a alum one but i want to keep what come on the boat.It is 16ft long and 6 inches wide if anyone knows of one or where I might get one at it sure would be helpful Thanks

Jim
sv heidi
33 lecompte medalist

[Ric in Richmond]

You are going to have to build one or have one built.

Is it a round boom?

[Rachel]

Jim,

Have you asked on the Woodenboat forum? Not to chase you away from here at all, since your boat is very much a plastic classic; but they have a forum section devoted to those looking for resources and supplies, and of course wooden boats usually have wooden spars. It sounds as though you have the hardware from the original boom, so you would just need the actual wooden spar, right? That should help you out quite a bit.

Also, I believe the line is spelled "Lecomte" with no "p" - that may help you in various forum searches and etc.

Wooden spars are quite beautiful.

[svheidi61]

Well thanks for info I think they would laugh at me at the wooden boat site. My boat is pretty much fiberglass last time I look at her just because she isn't one of the big name boats she is a true plastic sailor. This will be last time I will ask anything about her on this website and I should go to the woodboat site maybe they will be much helpful instead of put you down for what kind of boat you have.

Jim
svheidi 33 medalist
A True Fiberglass Sailboat if you want to check

[Rachel]

Jim,

I received your PM and have also just read your post above. It seems as though you took my post as an insult of some kind, but that is not what I meant (or thought I said?) at all.

I'm a big fan of plastic classics, which is why I'm here. And, in fact, I owned one -- Dutch-built even -- with a wooden boom. I love wooden spars and I think they add a lot to a plastic classic. I've always been a particular fan of the Dutch-built fiberglass boats, and the LeComte line was a very nice one.

That said, the majority of plastic classics have aluminum spars, whereas just about all wooden boats have wooden spars. Based on that, combined with the fact that the majority of wooden boats are old enough to have required one or more major refits over their lifetime(s), I thought the folks at the WB forum might be able to give you some good leads on where to look for a wooden boom for your Medalist, if you were not able to get that information here (or if you simply wanted to check out additional options).

From what I've seen, a number of posters over at WB do have fiberglass boats. Sure, their main focus is wooden boats, but I don't think they would have any problem helping out a fellow sailor looking for a wooden boom. People post all the time in their "resources and supplies" sub-forum looking for things that are no longer commonly available (or are only available at hard-to-find-unless-you-know-about-them places).

Of course even if you did ask over at WBF about a boom, there is a lot more to your Medalist than just that one spar, and much of it is "plastic." So of course you are welcome here. That's what this forum is about!

Again, I'm sorry that I offended you; it was completely unintentional. I was trying to be helpful.

Rachel

[Quetzalsailor]

Jim,

I'm sorry that I have not gotten out to measure the Hinckley boom.

Thinking of your description, I would not have much problem with the idea of scarphing on new replacement wood where the rotted ends are. Perhaps you could post some pictures and we all could see whether I'm on base. I've done several scarphs on a Spruce Flying Dutchman mast. The mast was transversely cracked at the hounds bolt. I used pieces of piano soundboard for stock (they're Spruce). Worked fine. I would not recommend filler and wrapping in fiberglass. The fiberglass would trap moisture and further rot would be risked; the filler adds nothing but shape. One other lister, at least, has scarphed in wood to repair stripped screw holes in a mast.

Another example is what used to be normal practice in the Finn Class. They used to not have boom vangs on their wood masts and booms. The mast was Spruce, the boom was Douglas Fir. The boom was morticed through the mast and wedged to keep the angle down in lieu of a boom vang. The Fir would crush the Spruce mast at the wedges and Finn sailors took to scarphing in a bit of White Oak around the mortice. When dad's Spruce Finn mast broke after 20 years or so, it broke at the deck and not at the scarpf. (My brother in law was racing it at the time and he said the thing came down faster than gravity.)

The 1963 Hinckley's mast, which I have reduced to component wood for other purposes, had rotted at the heel. It had a 2' long chunk of solid Spruce scarphed in.

Bottom line: don't shy away from repairing the boom if there's enough left. A majority of split glue joints would be the kiss of death; or the gift of firewood.

Jim, I doubt the individuals on the WoodenBoat site would diss your plastic boat. We're all aficionados of boats of a different era.

[Ric in Richmond]

They'd be fine over on the WBF.

They'd call it frozen snot or a clorox bottle, but then they'd help you out.

The personalities are a bit strong sometimes...but it's all talk.

I go by James River Rat over there...rarely there anymore.