Malcolm,
great story, I think you have had more fun just getting the wood than most of us have in the entire build
: Well folks, the day finally came! For two years I've had my eye on
: a pair of 46' wood masts that have been lying on a beach on a
: small island, victims of a tropical storm that put the boat on
: the reef. The masts were in fairly good shape, but had splits up
: the glue lines. I would not deem them safe for their intended
: use, but they have a few hundred board feet of quarter-sawn old
: growth Douglas Fir well worth salvaging. After two years it is
: way more than fair salvage. Legally it could have been salvaged
: right away, but certainly after this long there is no way
: someone can say "Hey, I was coming back for those!" It
: had come to a point that if someone didn't do something with
: them they were just going to rot and get bug eaten.

: With two sit-on-top Hobie double kayaks with the foot peddle system
: and my single strip-built 19' kayak and a proper Greenland
: paddle, we set off on mission impossible. I think it's a sin to
: peddle a kayak, but my friend rents them to tourists and they
: are great for people with handicaps that can't swing a paddle. I
: have to say, they gave me a run for my money with two strong
: guys versus one of me, but I won the race to the beach! The
: peddle systems gave us another advantage- more torque for
: towing- my friends could peddle and paddle at the same time.

: Well it turned out they didn't need the paddles. In fact, we didn't
: need two SOT's. We lashed the masts together and hitched my
: kayak and a double SOT in a line with one guy actually riding on
: the back of the masts with a piece of wood for a rudder. That
: was too funny of a sight for words, and darn it I left the
: camera ashore! The other kayak just followed for added steerage
: if needed. We made amazing time pulling two masts that I
: estimate weighed 400 pounds each. Arriving ashore, my friends
: had to bail on me, but I was happy just to have them on land
: where I could get them home.

: Getting them home required the unthinkable- cutting those two 46'
: masts in half!!! I brought an expert boatwright with me to give
: them one last inspection and say for sure that they could not be
: fixed before hacking them in two. He agreed with me that they
: were no longer safe for masts, but in amazingly good shape for
: salvage wood. With a sawzall and a portable circular saw we did
: the dastardly deed of sawing 20' off each end, then on one of
: them another 6' came off to end up with three 20', one 26', and
: one 6' section of mast. They were hollow rectangular with
: 2" thick fore and aft, and 1" thick up the sides. The
: sides are 9" wide and the fore and aft pieces 8". I
: was really wanting them to be spruce, but when we sawed into
: them we smelled that sweet piney smell and saw the reddish color
: and were quite sure it was fir. Later I would confirm it is for
: sure fir.

: Getting them home atop an XTerra roof rack meant four trips, one
: mast at a time. I am quite certain these things were pushing 200
: pounds per section. The roof rack being rated at 125, we placed
: some minicell under them to spread the load a little, and took
: it reaaaaal slow. The local fishermen that hang out on the porch
: of a local store seemed to enjoy watching us make trip after
: trip with these massive sections of mast on the truck!

: So now I have a whoooooooole lot of old growth fir. The aft pieces
: are the tightest grain, and darn it they have screws every
: 3" all the way up holding the sail track on, so I have to
: split them down the middle. I am going to build a paddleboard, a
: skin on frame kayak, a few surfboards, and possibly another
: stripper out of this stuff. It is extremely light, much like
: spruce, and I think it's going to make some very light boats.
: All I have to do is remove about 200 screws and a few bolts and
: then I will sand them to see if any missed broken screws show
: up, run a stud finder over them, and then with fingers crossed
: run them through the planer.