SKINNY HULL Vol 1 No. 1

similar hollow at the foot. Add a small switch in the lower side and plug the top and bottom wire holes with sealant, and you have lights to awe your friends with!

As for looks, I have sanded my nodes smooth and varnished all my spars, painted the boom end as you see, and it makes for very nice looking rigging. Many spars turned out of lumber look better painted, but bamboo has a beauty that needs to be seen.

When selecting bamboo, consider the flex of the spar and know that the material will flex quite a bit without breaking. If in doubt, once you have discussed your choice with a dealer, order material that may be a little larger in diameter than you think you need. Think of it like reefing—if you think about reefing under sailing—then reef.

Also buy longer sections than you need so you can trim the culm to length yourself. Once cut, treat the ends with a sealant like epoxy, varnish or some other product to keep bugs out of it. If you get green bamboo, know that it could lose up to 20 percent of its diameter as it cures, which takes about three to four months. Dry bamboo standing on end in the shade—you could hang it in a tree if you wanted. But store bamboo horizontally and out of the weather and sun, even if treated. I keep my rig hanging I built this 16-foot sharpie out of cypress using mostly traditional methods. Instead of a in my garage where centerboard I employed leeboards, which, if i had it to do over again, I would not. The mast, it gets plenty of boom, sprit and jib boom are all out of bamboo and worked flawlessly. ventilation.

The photos I have here are from my sharpie. I’ve restored my E.M. White-style canoe and am refitting it to carry a 50-foot sprits’l I’ll likely convert to a lug or balanced lug. I’ll definitely use bamboo for the new rigging. I’ll also use a bamboo pole for my push-pull tiller and a pushpole. There’s a lot of value and uses in bamboo, which, as you know, is just a grass. A grass on steroids, that is!