I am just in the early stages of considering adding a bowsprit.
Has anyone put one on their boat?
Am I allowed to use one while racing?

Seldom sell one.

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twodogs1969 said..
Seldom sell one.

I think he means Selden.
Unless of course he's a purveyor of boating parts who does actually seldom sell one.

If you are talking about a bowsprit for an asymmetrical, they Selden do in fact sell a retractable one. Our Bavaria had the hard points moulded in to fit one (although an in the way Rocna anchor prevented us from going down that path).
If you look on line you will also find European manufactures of after market fixed ones.

They are good for asymmetrical but do have the effect of increasing your marina fees.

I solved that problem with this mod on the already existing "bow sprit".
It only needed a bit of strengthening and it works a treat for cruising.
I flew my huge assy off it and it was working perfectly.
Naturally, it is only used up to about 12-14 knots of wind, above that the big sail was over powering the boat. At that wind the big genoa was employed and kept on going up to 22-24 knots wind.

It was all mostly single handed cruising, thou.

John are you back in town? still got stuff to sell????

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Tamble said..

twodogs1969 said..
Seldom sell one.

I think he means Selden.
Unless of course he's a purveyor of boating parts who does actually seldom sell one.

If you are talking about a bowsprit for an asymmetrical, they Selden do in fact sell a retractable one. Our Bavaria had the hard points moulded in to fit one (although an in the way Rocna anchor prevented us from going down that path).
If you look on line you will also find European manufactures of after market fixed ones.

They are good for asymmetrical but do have the effect of increasing your marina fees.

Yeah I meant selden auto correct .
I was talking about the retractable one.
On the Mottle just cruising I use the same system at Sir Galivant suggested

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Tamble said..

twodogs1969 said..
Seldom sell one.

I think he means Selden.
Unless of course he's a purveyor of boating parts who does actually seldom sell one.

If you are talking about a bowsprit for an asymmetrical, they Selden do in fact sell a retractable one. Our Bavaria had the hard points moulded in to fit one (although an in the way Rocna anchor prevented us from going down that path).
If you look on line you will also find European manufactures of after market fixed ones.

They are good for asymmetrical but do have the effect of increasing your marina fees.

Yeah I meant selden auto correct the retractable type.
I do use the same system as Sir Galivant suggested on the Mottle cruising with a strip that goes around the furled Genoa.
However for racing go the retractable bowsprit.

Yep, I've got a retractable Selden sprit on my deck. Added as an aftermarket by previous owner.

I deploy it and leave it out during the whole race, just raising the assy in the downwind legs. Then I put it away at the end of the race.

One thing to beware of with the sirgallvant solution is the pressure it can put on the hull deck join.
Notice on the picture the bow roller is one piece with a stem strip that is bolted through the hull; sharing the load.

Some of the Euro boats just have a roller bolted to the deck, so that arrangement is in danger of pulling the deck from the hull under load unless you weld or bolt the roller to the forestay chainplate.

Hi Bundeenabouy,

There are a couple of brands out there that are pretty straight forward to retrofit onto most hulls.

Should be able to race with it not a problem at club level as the handicaps are based on past club performance. If your racing IRC (or alike) the boat will need to have a new rating certificate.

Something to consider is that you may need a couple of new kites to suit the bow sprit too...

Good luck with it mate.

Adam

trogear.com/sailing-anarchy-aftermarket-bowsprit/

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boatbroke said..
trogear.com/sailing-anarchy-aftermarket-bowsprit/

The Australian distributor for the Trogear bowsprit is Bombora Marine in Sydney - www.bomboramarine.com.au There are 5 standard and also custom up to 2 metres.

John's boat is an old 26 footer, for 850 euro one could make it out of SS and keep the 500 euro for beer money.

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sirgallivant said..
John's boat is an old 26 footer, for 850 euro one could make it out of SS and keep the 500 euro for beer money.

I couldn't agree more , I have had this on my boat for many years now similar to the pivoting designs and is simply made from the appropriate size aluminium .
Bonus was no drilling required and easily pivoted up out the way near other boats and in marinas.
IMHO there is no substitute for getting the tack well clear of the bow when using assy's etc.

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Sectorsteve said..
John are you back in town? still got stuff to sell????

What are you looking for?

Me John!

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Bundeenabuoy said..
I am just in the early stages of considering adding a bowsprit.
Has anyone put one on their boat?
Am I allowed to use one while racing?

This discussion has been very worthwhile to me.

The top of the range is Trogear.
The total cost would be around $8500.
Trogear bowsprit $1600.
Bobstay, side mounts if desired, line to cockpit etc and labour $1400.
Two new sails, Code Zero and Assy $5500.

I will have to think very hard before I put that amount of money into my boat.

here you go theres also a baot attached to the Bowssprit !! yachthub.com/list/yachts-for-sale/used/sail-monohulls/radford-sprint-35/235739

My new boat has a 3m bowsprit upping marina fee by 200pm!

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Sectorsteve said..
My new boat has a 3m bowsprit upping marina fee by 200pm!

Yep, that's one area where retractable sprits just keep on giving.......

Oh yeh Steve I share your pain, if I was to frequent marinas I would arrange a tabanacle / slide for the sprit !

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woko said..
Oh yeh Steve I share your pain, if I was to frequent marinas I would arrange a tabanacle / slide for the sprit !

When i first saw the boat the bowsprit was a turn off but the rest of the boat was too good!

That's not a bowsprit!
This is a bowsprit.


gary

ive since learned that the 3m bowsprit on the new beast is removable without too much effort.

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Sectorsteve said..



ive since learned that the 3m bowsprit on the new beast is removable without too much effort.

That's fantastic Steve! That's a bloody big sprit, that up there with the sportboats, would make for awesome reaching.

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shaggybaxter said..

Sectorsteve said..



ive since learned that the 3m bowsprit on the new beast is removable without too much effort.

That's fantastic Steve! That's a bloody big sprit, that up there with the sportboats, would make for awesome reaching.

Tis a bit of a relief cause ill possibly spend time in marina and some places will charge for that bowsprit!
Boat comes with alot of sails. Theyve saved the old ones but also got brand new ones never used as yet. Spinnakers, mains etc.

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garymalmgren said..
That's not a bowsprit!
This is a bowsprit.

gary

Thanks Gary

We made a retractable carbon fibre prodder to replace a fixed aluminium tube one which broke - for our 2tonne 30 1/2 foot racer cruiser. Over a 50mm oregon timber core - very slightly tapered at outboard end. Works perfectly, just a high strength spectra rope stay down to the cutwater for assisting to take the vertical load - no lateral stays needed. We got excellent advice and carbon braid and uni material from Dick at ironbarkcomposites. 3 braid layers, 2 uni layers, about 5mm wall thickness of the carbon layup. Epoxy resin. Needs 2 people to lay up the resin and carbon properly including steel roller to get the resin to soak through.......numerous other processes needed. Carbon material cost about $300 - resin and timber on top of that. Kevlar sock over the carbon where it comes out of the tube in the hull to avoid wear. This was our first carbon layup project and the stiffness of the resulting prodder is amazing.
It retracts into a tube in the topsides - pvc tube but strongly supported by stainless saddle and epoxy glass at the fwd end, and by ply deck head bulkhead at the inboard end. I can email you photos if you want.
Barry Colson wrote a good article here;
colsonyachtdesign.com.au/latest-news/
For your S80 not sure why you don't simply set up a system off the foredeck and bow onto which to mount your alum symm kite pole - have it about 1.5m out from the bow and it shouldn't need any lateral or vertical spectra rope support. I have done this on a 24 footer. Not sure of your rig dimensions but there are numerous asymm kites for sale on the web which should suit. Draw up your rig with the 1.5m prodder and the luff length of the asymm should be about 1.1 times the straight line from the prodder end to the halyard exit box for a "reacher" type asymm, and about 1.2 times for a more broad running asymm.

Interesting info, r13.

The other thing is that a boat of an S80's speed is going to be slower most of the time with an assy. That's not a bad thing in itself, but it's something to consider. Assy boats have to be fast enough to make it worthwhile to sail high angles, and even many boats that are faster than an S80 can't do that. Trying to get anywhere near square can be annoying even on fast assy boats; it can be really frustrating on a slower one,. where you may feel as if you are zig zagging and not getting any closer to the mark.

Another way to go is to use an assy off a pole. The advantage is that you don't need to use the pole all the time; for example if it's windy and you are worried about gybing, you can take the pole off, run the assy off the bow, go through the gybe, and then put the pole up when you feel like it. It does take a bit of getting used to but it has some of the advantages of both pole and bowsprit. I'm finding it pretty effective on our 36'er which is roughly the same age as an S80 and roughly the same proportional speed (ie when you adjust for the different length of the two boats).

Thanks Chris.

Yes good point regarding the S80 relative speed.....for the courses we mostly sail (work, two 45deg reaches back to the leeward mark via the wing mark, another work then square run back to the leeward mark then work to the finish) the asymm on the 2 reaches can be a godsend.........then change to a symm for the square run and we have the best of both. The S80 and Adams 8 designs were very similar back in the day and both blew away IOR 1/2 and 3/4 tonners inshore upwind as well as downwind - ok they both were a tad tippy - for sure they were not Hobart capable boats obviously.........both would be A1+ candidates for asymm kites now even around 40 years after they were first drawn up. The Mutiny 8 and Sonata 6.7 would be similar others. For sure these are not Melges 24s or REO 7.7s see
www.reosportsboats.com/specifications/

Asymms can't sail deeper than about 165deg apparent as you allude to - it used to be even lower angles than this and needed zig zagging all over the ocean as mentioned but asymms these days are cut to rotate out to windward when sailing broad.

Asymm off a symm kite pole - agree - in contrast we have a symm kite which we also set off the asymm prodder - we have a long symm kite pole not a short one as per IOR poles - so a very versatile kite - issue is that when set off the prodder the take-down must be perfect else the clew will dive into the drink to leeward and become a nightmare........this happened twice last season and I don't know how the mast is still in the boat with that un-designed for mast load case..........during the worst event we went from reaching in 15kts to bear away in the 20kt gusts and below the mark to bear away further to drop the kite - to the kite in the water and it gybed us to a standstill..........then got the kite back on board over the new windward side of the boat..........gybed and got back on course..............