When SummerWind, a 100-foot, John Alden-designed schooner emerged from the shed after a two-year-long total refit headed by the yacht’s captain Karl Joyner, the next thing on his list was to step the brightly varnished Sitka spruce masts. And once they were firmly secured in place the next step was to attach carbon fiber booms to the shiny stainless goosenecks. Wait a minute. What’s a carbon fiber boom doing on a classic vessel like this one and why do the booms look as though they too are varnished wood?

Although the yacht, one of the legendary Alden schooners, already has a long history as Queen Tyi, it is now owned by a Fort Worth, Texas businessman who plans to race it in this summer’s classic yacht regattas. But the owner also wanted to have a large roach on the foresail and wanted both it and the mainsail to have full length battens. He also wanted the crew to be able to stow the sails quickly and safely. That solution called for an in boom furling system and he installed two new carbon booms from GMT Composites.

But to make the booms appear as though they were spruce the carbon booms needed to be painted. GMT was given the color and grain of the orginal spruce wood and they formulated a special polyurethane paint that matched the color of the original wood. When that formulation was completed the paint was carefully applied to the carbon surfaces in trompe l’oeil fashion. The result is easy to ee, easy on the eye ….but very hard to duplicate! To learn much more about the SummerWind project go to gmtcomposites.com.

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