Bumpkin - a short spar projecting over the stern of a sailing vessel to sheet the mizzen sail. Also spelled boomkin or bumkin.
Spoiler alert, here it is!
Now back to how I cut out a new bumpkin from spruce for the Dabber VICTORY today. The transom slot for the bumpkin happens to be about the same height as the thickness of the 2x4, so we didn't have to cut that. Check your boat, as your measurements may vary. For the width of the transom slot, on our Dabber it angles out on the top, inboard side about 3 degrees, so I set a 3 degree bevel on the table saw and ripped a 6 foot long piece (it will be shortened later). Remember to allow for the blade angle when setting the width. I cut the blank a little wide, took it to the boat and marked how much to shave off, and brought the blank back to the saw for another cut.
Once I got the blank to fit through the transom slot we marked the position of the dowel pin on the end of the blank. In this picture I had ripped the blank to the right size and made a square cut with a jigsaw around the dowel pin.
Public Safety Announcement (PSA) for Shop Safety time. When I used the table saw I forgot to reinstall the blade guard after removing it for a curved cut. That was not a good idea. There are a few cuts where the guard might be removed for some advanced wood butchery, but this was not one of them. A friend who lost a finger to a table saw reminded me to USE THAT GUARD. The time I saved was not worth the potential for losing a digit, trip to the ER, rehab and all. And I know we see it gone in all the DIY shows and youtube so maybe we think it is not that big a deal for it to be removed. It is.
The only way I could think to make the little dowel shape where the bumpkin pins into its step was to cut it square and then shape it with a rasp. That turned out to be pretty easy and fun, another option would be to buy a dowel and drill a hole in the end of the spar, then glue it into place.
Here is the little step that the bumpkin pin goes into, I shaved off a little at a time with the Shinto rasp until I got the fit I wanted.
INTERMISSION: Glamor shot of the carriage house.
Back to our irregularly scheduled programming. Wow it's long, about a foot too long here, but we cut it that way and we'll sneak up on the proper length. The measurements I was given said that the fairlead for the mizzen sheet should be about 60 inches, measured along the spar form the transom to the fairlead position. That should also give a measurement of 57 inches from the fairlead straight forward to the transom, isosceles triangle and all that.
Scribed a circle on the end so we can cut the corners off and make it 8 sided on the table saw.
I made the blank 8 sided from where it exits the transom out to the tip by shaving off the corners. I marked the spar where I would cut only the section aft of the transom. This picture shows how we cut just the corners off at a 45 degree angle to reduce the amount of wood we have to plane. A spokeshave and patience will produce the same result. Do not cut all the way to the forward end of the spar, you will lose the fit going through the transom hole.
Marked the spar at 61 inches, the fairlead will be centered over the 60 inch mark.
We sanded the big ridges with 60 grit on a Black and Decker belt sander and shaved some areas with a Stanley. Took the ridges further down with 120 grit on a Dewalt random orbital sander and then hand sanded with 120 grit.
A spar is born. Not as long as the camera angle makes it look.
Restoration Log of VICTORY:
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