A ‘boom’ in nautical terms is a spar (another word for pole) that extends out from a rigged sail providing for a number of purposes including additional rigging and control. The boomkins are short booms that project from the bow of the ship and are used to secure a couple of larger main fore tack blocks.
A notable aspect of the boomkin is that it has a slight downward curve which gives it additional strength. Getting this downward curve normally means one would have to either soak and bend a dowel, or create the boomkin from a solid block of timber. Fortunately for me, I happen to have a couple of extra laser cut boomkins left over from the USF Confederacy build. Although the dimensions between the ships are different, the scale is the same and so these saved me a bit of work.
I did however have to make up that extra work when I discovered that my seats of ease were just slightly off – about a half millimeter to be exact. The boomkins run right along side the sides, so although I did measure for this – being off by even the slightest is no bueno. Moving the seats of ease meant readjusting all the ledges. A little bit tedious, but necessary.
The capsquares which hold the boomkin to the rail are cut from brass and shaped by curving them over a pin file handle. They’re then drilled & blackened, then mounted on the boomkins.
Next step for the bow was the berthing rail. I followed the same procedure here as the foc’sle by soldering a brass tube to a pin head, filling it down and running the same cabled wire through it. I still dig how this ‘railing’ looks as compared to using a line or a straight metal rod. However, I think this will preclude me from adding netting to the bow because I think that will look funky. I may change my mind after mulling it over as the netting can be added at any time.
Rigging the boomkins consists of three lines that extend out from the end of the spar – the larger fore tack that I mentioned at the beginning of the post and two shrouds that attach the boomkin to the hull and knee of the head (the portion of the front of the keel just below the figurehead).
The fore tack block is one of my larger (6 mm) boxwood single blocks sanded down to create the shoulder block look and the served line for the strop that wraps around the block and loops over the end of the boomkin.
The aft shroud also loops over the end of the boomkin then attaches to the hull with a pretty simple hook into an eyebolt. The fore shroud is a bit more complicated with a triangular eye bolt strapped to a heart block and lanyard. The eye bolt is a bit of wire angled into the triangle with the end soldered then attached to a standard eye bolt. I don’t remember where I got these laser cut heart blocks, but after a little sanding they worked out well. Strapping the heart to the triangle without it looking like a just a big lump of line was a bugger however. For the second shroud, it made much more sense to do that part first, then loop the other end over the boomkin and finish the shroud.
The Lehman Shipyard 