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Just thought I would post some pictures of my mast building efforts for my 12' catboat Little Gem. When lug rigged Little Gem quite happily used the first mast I ever built, the one from my Pocket Cruiser. Here is a picture of her sailing in a good gust of wind:



Over a couple of years sailing this boat I decided to make some changes to make it possible to sleep on the boat, to make it look a bit more classic, and to give it and a fordeck for a bit more safety. Here was the result:



Part of this rebuild entailed moving the mast 16" forward so that I could use a beautiful tanbark gaffsail I bought from www.usesails.com. The new sail had a much higher luff requiring a longer mast so I decided to give more length by using a tabernacle.



I went sailing with this setup and watched the mast bend fairly far in about 8mph wind and listened to the tabernacle creak and decided a thicker mast might be in order. So, I laminated a mast out of two spruce 2X4's and ditched the tabernacle idea. The new mast was stiffer but had unfortunately developed a warp. I was able to straighten it with the forestay and it did hold up to the breeze better but I wanted something more. Maybe something stiff enough so I could eliminate the forestay which was causing problems with the gaff jaws. So, I decided to build a birdsmouth mast. In the pictures below, the solid mast is on the right and the new birdsmouth is on the left. The birdsmouth came out 3/8" thicker, was incredibly stiffer, but came out to be the same weight (20 pounds) as the solid mast.



Here is Little Gem with her third mast. The mast is a bit thick for the boat's length but that is traditional for catboats where the mast is too far forward for shrouds and, in my case, forestay.

Shes lookin' great Scott, So tell me, how difficult was the birdsmouth to make? Was it as hard as You thought it would be? From this end it looks nearly impossable .
Little Gem has come a long way since I saw her a year and a half ago, I like all the bright work and the foredeck, have You installed the removable soft cabin top yet?

Brian.

The dodger is in the works. I have all of the pieces, sunbrella cloth, plastic window material, and noseeum mesh. I just received a book on canvasswork that has some great tips. I gotta get her done for the end of october Glen-L gathering but have been nervous about bending the pipes.

The birdsmouth wasn't particularily hard once I figured out what I was doing. There is a lot of cutting involved and a lot of despair when I first started trying to fit it all together. Getting 8 16' staves to line up is a bit like hearding cats. A plywood mold really helped accomplish this. The taper, which I thought would be hard, was easy and the method of gluing up the mast in two halves really helped installing plugs in the ends. I am just in awe of how much stiffer the mast is especially since it is the same soft spruce as the solid mast. This alone made the effort worth it!