This winter Tim and I took a trip to Massachusetts to see Jeff Maher's newly renovated Triton (hull 30). While we were there, Jeff noticed me eyeing a grungy pair of Lewmar 25 winches that he had sitting around. Since Jeff has been working to get the classic original hardware for his boat, he had no real need for the Lewmars, and after a bit of negotiation, a deal was struck for the 2 Lewmars as well as a pair of Spartan Marine bronze winch bases, all at a favorable price.

On initial inspection of the boat, it seemed clear that the mast beam would likely need repair or replacement. This initial reaction was supported by the survey results. There is a clear inward bulge in the center of the overhead and there is also clear evidence of movement of the mast beam, especially on the forward face of the bulkhead and along the doorway trim. Additionally, all of the tabbing has broken loose from the beam. Discussion on the Triton e-mail list revealed that many boats do not have any tabbing between the mast beam and the bulkhead and overhead, suggesting that perhaps someone had attempted an ineffectual repair or "upgrade" at some point in the past.

Initial Inspection

Last fall (2001) I removed the mast step and all of the bolts holding the mast beam in place through the bulkhead. I had a bit of trouble with this, since the bolt heads had been glassed over on the forward face of the bulkhead, so I had to grind through the glass in order to remove them. At this point, the beam was loose, and I was able to remove the sister plate, however the main beam was still loosely held in place by the tabbing. No problem. Using my 4-inch grinder, I cut away as much tabbing as possible. Unfortunately, this still left enough tabbing to prevent the removal of the beam, and my grinder was too large and awkward grind away what remained.

Fortunately, I was able to get a Dremel tool on loan from Tim Lackey, and spent almost 2 hours grinding/cutting away the remains of the tabbing. The Dremel was small enough to get into the tight spaces, but unfortunately just doesn't cut very quickly! Eventually I was successful, and the beam slid out with only slight coaxing with a pry bar.

Once I got the beam off of the boat, it became clear that removal, rather than repair and strengthening, was the correct choice. Besides the hole that was drilled through the beam as a conduit for wiring, the beam has 2 checks, about 14 inches long running lengthwise along the beam. These checks were not visible until the beam was removed.

One interesting thing I discovered, though, was that the "bulging" of the overhead that we had noticed, and assumed was due to deck compression, actually appears to be part of the original layup. The mast beam and the bulkhead are actually shaped to accommodate this bulge. This discovery is somewhat relieving, actually! However, at this point, I am undecided as to whether to try to shape the beam to fit back up there (several hours with a plane and belt sander), or if I will attempt to fair the curve of the overhead by laying in additional glass (several hours of cussing at glass and epoxy over my head). More on that when I head out to the boat with the beam.

A New Beam Takes Shape

My original plan for a new beam was simply to cut the shape of the beam from marine plywood, and laminate those together. This would have been simple, and probably sufficient. However, when I was at the "Triton Factory" in Rhode Island this spring, I was bewitched by Dana Berube's beautiful laminated oak beam. I had to have one. Simple as that! Time for a modification of the plan.

My new beam is built up from laminated Ash strips. I secured the assitance, and use of space, of a family friend who has a cabinetmaking shop. I picked up about 18 board feet of 4/4 ash from a local dealer and headed over to the shop. I purchased substantially more wood than I anticipated needing, to allow for selection of undamaged strips for the lamination. I ended up using only about 1/2 of the wood that I bought, but better safe than sorry. Plus, ash is cheap.

The first step was to joint one edge of the boards, which were about 7 inches wide by 10 feet long. The boards were a bit cupped, so I ripped them to 3 1/2 inches wide before running them through the planer. Although the wood was nominally 4/4, it actually was closer to 5/4, so even after planing, the boards were just hair under 1 inch thick. With a bandsaw, we resawed each board into two, then sent them all through the drum sander with 40 grit paper to remove the resawing blade marks, and to provide some tooth for the epoxy. The final thickness of the laminate layers was about 3/8 inch. I cut the boards to 5 foot lengths, and we were ready to start the lamination.

Lamination begins

This was the first time I had ever done anything like this, so I was not exactly sure how smoothly things would go. The first step was to wet out the strips with unthickened epoxy. I then mixed up another batch of epoxy, thickened with high density adhesive filler. Working quickly, we applied a coat of the thickened epoxy to one side of each strip.