Sitka spruce, the number one choice
for wooden spars for over 100 years.
Introduction.
The finest wood specialties for boatbuilders, new build and restoration.
For boat and yacht construction we supply the finest Sitka spruce and Alaska Yellow Cedar.
Whether it is for a classic racing dinghy, a small keelboat or a fast skerry cruiser, Sitka spruce is the obvious choice for the spars. Light, stiff and strong with a beautiful appearance. The largest inventory in Europe is found at our warehouse in the Netherlands. Sitka spruce is mainly used for masts and spars. But Sitka spruce also finds its way in deck beams, carlings and interiors. Everywhere on board where things need to be light and very strong, Sitka is the Number One choice.
Alaska Yellow Cedar is used for hull planking, decks and interior joinery. For hull planking Yellow Cedar is very easy to work with, it bends to harmonious and fair curves, glues well and finished silky smooth. For decks AYC is light and strong with excellent anti-skid properties. It is one of the few well established alternatives for Teak. Interior joinery is another beautiful application, the light but warm tone color has made it a sure choice for many of the finest yachts.
From the enthusiastic amateur builder to the passionate professional and industries who wish to excel, we try to be there as the reliable quality supplier.
Marine projects.
From a tree to the sea
Our Sitka spruce and Alaska Yellow Cedar finds its way to some boat- and shipyards around the world. Why did those yards come to us? Well, because we are genuinely interested in your projects and products, listen to your ideas and together with you we select what wood is best suited for the job at hand. And if you don’t see what you need here, or, if you need an unusual wood specie or an unusual size for a project, please call and we will gladly try to help you source.
-
![]()
Cambria
Designed and built by William Fife III in 1928, Cambria is often referred to as the world’s most beautiful yacht. In 2005 we were honored with our first Cambria project, supplying the Sitka spruce for the world’s tallest spruce mast. The next project for Touchwood was the hull refit for which we sourced mahogany and teak for her backbone and planking…
-
![Racing Yacht Project Ester]()
Ester
Designed by Gunnar Mellgren and built by the legendairy yard of Plym, Ester was unquestionably one of the most progressive racing yachts of her time. Engineering to the finest detail, pushing the envelope to the limits to save weight. Touchwood was able to source all mahogany, Sitka spruce and Oregon pine for the rebuild…
-
![]()
Rita IV
Just like cats, boats have more than one life but rarely are these successive lives as interesting as with Rita IV. In 1925 she was built for a King and when Rita IV left the yard in 2012, she was born again, as good as new and, ready for her next life as The Queen of Lake Geneva. Touchwood was chosen as the supplier of all timber for the hull planking, framing, deck and spars…
-
![]()
Hollandia
A modern Int. 8-Metre yacht, designed by Doug Peterson who had a simple design brief, design the fastest 8-Metre ever, able to win the Coppa d’Italia and the World Championships in a small but hyper competitive fleet. Touchwood supplied all selected Sitka spruce for the cores and with John Lammerts van Bueren at the sharp end of Hollandia, Touchwood supplied the bowman too…
-
![]()
Scud
Designed by Nathanael Herreshoff and built in 1902 under Seawanhaka Rule, she was fast from the get go. Somehow Scud ended up in a barn in Belgium, maestro Federico Nardi immediately recognized something really special in the wreck and found a client who shared his vision. A keel up rebuild started and we supplied all Alaska Yellow Cedar for her double skin hull planking, the decks and the interior…
-
![]()
Blue Marlin
Up north in Finland a really special yard lead by master boatbuilder Allan Savolainen houses a famous classic Int. 12-Metre named Blue Marlin. She came to the yard as a beautiful wreck and a restoration was done to the highest imaginable standards, keeping as much of the old as possible. Touchwood was proud to supply all spruce for the spars, mahogany for the planking, teak for the deck and cedar for the interior…
-
![]()
Atlantic
The schooner that set the record which stood in the history of sport, any sport! The original Atlantic was broken up in 1983 but in 2009 Dutch yachtsman Ed Kastelein decided to recreate her. Touchwood’s John Lammerts van Bueren was lucky to be involved in the project. Touchwood helped source the mahogany for the interior, teak for the decks and of course the Sitka spruce for her spars came from our mill…
-
![]()
Rowing boats
Grejsdalens Inriggerværft builds some of the finest traditional rowing boats. Lars Ljungdal runs this small but ever so famous yard, dedicated to build the finest quality C2 and C4s. Touchwood keeps a special selection of the Sitka spruce battens needed for his shells in stock. A huge pleasure to have jointly developed an ongoing program and see these beautiful small craft continue to be built…
-
![]()
Starling Burgess
At the shores of Lake Constance in Germany you will find Martin Yachts, ranking with the world’s best boatyards, where Sepp Martin sets the standard for quality and precision. The latest yacht to be launched is the Int. 8-Metre Starling Burgess. Touchwood supplied selected Sitka spruce for deckbeams, carlings and quarter sawn Douglas fir for the deck. Of course the racings spars are also built in Sitka spruce…
-
![]()
Invader and Defender
Wooden Boatworks in Greenport NY is the birthplace of so many great boats. When Oakcliff Sailing decided to expand their fleet with two Int. 8-Metres they obviously turned to Wooden Boatworks. Two stunningly beautiful Eights were built, the 1931 Invader and her sister Defender. Hull and decks were built in Alaska Yellow Cedar, covering boards, coamings and cabin in cherry, spars in Sitka spruce…
-
![]()
Elena
Designed and built by Nathanael Herreshoff in 1911 for Morton Plant, Elena proved the fastest racing schooner of her time. Elena was broken up shortly after World War II but her beauty kept sailors dreaming to re-create her. Steve McLaren discovered the plans, found a yard and managed the recreation of that iconic schooner. Touchwood was involved from the earliest stages and supplied all Sitka spruce for her spars…
-
![]()
Nini Anker
It was the vision of Oliver Berking to build Int. 12-Metre designed in 1940 by Johan Anker. Oliver laid his eyes on the design and recognized a masterpiece. So strong was his conviction that the right buyer would come if he would just started to build. Nini Anker was finished and rigged with an extraordinary Sitka spruce racing mast designed by the worlds #1 spar designer Juliane Hempel from Radolfzell Germany…
-
![]()
Beatrice Aurore
The only 150m2 Skerry cruiser left in the world. When her mast was up for replacement Juliane Hempel was asked to take on the engineering and calculations, ensuring the mast would be as light and strong as possible while keeping her full authentic appearance and hardware. A project which combined the best of both worlds and the finest possible mast for a uniquely beautiful yacht…
-
![]()
Saskia
Probably the most famous Fife designed Int. 8-Metre. She won the coveted Seawanhaka Cup in 1931, sailed the Olympics in 1936 and won the Sira Cup in 2007. Touchwood supplied wood for an all round mast built at her restoration in Portugal and an all out state of the art racing mast, built at Ventis in Enkhuizen. A superb Eight with Sitka spruce racing spars to match…
-
![]()
Star Class
This 1911 design had a long run as preeminent Olympic Class and today this hyper sensitive, demanding and complex boat continues to provide the racing which appeals to the world’s best sailors. Touchwood has supplied the wood for many new Star masts to the designs of legends like Henri Rasmussen, Duarte Bello and others. We also supply quarter sawn spruce for the decks and cedar for the hull planking…
-
![]()
De Groote Beer
In the Netherlands racing barges are hot! New boats continue to be designed and built and large fleets gather to battle it out on the water. Within that fleet of modern designed barges there is one that stands out; the legendary Groote Beer. Built in 1928 and 90 years later still the barge to beat. First in her class with a super stiff and lightweight gaff followed by a mast and boom to match, both in our finest Sitka spruce…
Marine services and project approach.
We are here to share our experience.
When new yachts, major restorations of special spars are built, we are often invited to join the project team. The expertise we offer goes well beyond the actual timber supplied. John Lammerts van Bueren brings a life time of experience on board, a five time world champion sailor who made Atlantic crossings on schooners, racing in metre boats and performance dinghies. He is able to combine science with hands on experience, engineering with practical boat and spar building.
We work with naval architects, sailmakers, riggers and boatbuilder to find solutions, to try and innovate and improve, it’s who we are and what we enjoy most. We will gladly share experience, try to help you improve the performance of your boat, help find solutions for better and stronger spars, help find easier construction methods for the project at hand and help find the perfect wood having the properties you need.
Invader, the Fife designed Int.8-Metre
built at Wooden Boatworks in Greenport NY.
Planked and decked in Alaska Yellow Cedar
with Sitka spruce spars.
Marine products.
Specialties are our standard, so here are some of our standard specialties.
At our mill we manufacture a range of standard grades and dimensions for boat and spar builders. But we are just as happy to cut and sort to your specific requirements. We have a large and very accurate custom built saw- and planerline able to process up to 12 meter/40ft lengths. We are used to different cutting patterns, especially VG/Quarter sawn. So, if you are missing anything from this list, please call, we will be happy to listen and discus your specific needs.
Sitka spruce for boatbuilders
For new build and restoration projects we have special sorts suitable for deck beams, floors, structures and reinforcements. Packages of short and mid length clears which we can offer at an attractive price.
For the beamshelf and bilge stringers we can offer sawn to size solutions.
Sitka spruce
masts and spars
Over the years we have supplied hundreds of Sitka spruce spar packages. Whether you need spar staves for a small dinghy, a cruising yacht or a big schooner, we are able to provide you with the staves sawn and graded to specification.
On our dedicated precision rip line at the mill in Holland we cut spar staves up to 12 meter / 40ft length. The individual staves are sawn to design and labelled with project name and position in the spar. A unique concept which improves the quality of the spar while reducing build time and waste.
Sitka spruce decks
For vintage and classic keel boats such as the iconic Star boats, we supply beautiful quarter sawn Sitka spruce for the decks. Light, stiff, strong and sublimely elegant. But it is not just the Stars, also some of the large Int. 6, 8 and 12-Metres have been decked with Sitkaspruce.
Sitka spruce for
ice boats
For the ice boat fanatics, professional and home builders we supply the thin Sitka spruce slats needed to build the canoe body of the DN Ice sailing boats. We also have spruce for runner planks and stringers.
Alaska Yellow Cedar
boat planks
Alaska Yellow Cedar is one of the finest wood species for planking a yacht. It is light, strong, dimensionally stable, durable, easy to work with and beautiful. In short it simply ticks all the boxes. Generally boatplank is sawn to specification for projects, a so called “custom cut”. The yards present us their projecst, we discuss them, make a cutlist with optimum thicknesses and then we look for the right logs for the required sizes. Generally the logs are kept in stock at our mill in Canada so plan well ahead as it takes some time to transport lumber from the mill in Canada to the yard in Holland. It is not the cheapest planking stock but each and every yard who bought it from our mill has come back for more..
Alaska Yellow Cedar
deck planks
Thanks to it’s natural durability, dimensional stability and lightness Alaska Cedar is very suitable for deck on racing yachts. We have supplied the wood for decks to many yachts around the world and they have held very well. In the old days yards like the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company and Nevins on City Island used Yellow Cedar for the decks. But there is a down side ! It is not as hard and robust as teak, it wears down quicker and requires care and maintenance. Alaska Yellow Cedar decks are not for everyone but if handled with care they mature to a beautiful platina grey and will hold for decades.
Alaska Yellow Cedar
interior panneling
Alaska Cedar is often used for yacht interiors. It has that beautiful lightness to it, it is dimensionally stable and over time it matures to a wonderful warm honey color. It is also a wonderful wood for interior joinery and furniture, the uses for Alaska Yellow Cedar on board are virtually endless. We supply both quarter sawn and flat grain from our mill in Holland.
Selection, manufacturing & testing
The world’s finest Sitka spruce for the world’s finest masts and spars
We have a unique way to track our Sitka spruce from the tree to the sea. Each individual board sawn from a log is marked and numbered so we know its origins. It helps us supply you with wood to build the most beautiful spars with very little color and grain variation. If the right log is available then in some cases we are even able to cut all wood needed for a mast from a single tree. Knowing from which tree the wood comes helps to select wood with uniform strength properties, helping you to build spars which have symmetrical and harmonious bending characteristics.
Manufacturing
As a service to spar builders around the world we can saw and resaw all staves to the desired spar design. Based on the main section drawing of the spar as well as the dimensions of the available sawn Sitka spruce we are able to pre-manufacture an entire “kit” for the mast. The best spars will show the annual rings between 90 and 45 degree of the exposed surface after rounding & shaping. This often means that the “kit” needs to be a dedicated mixture of flat and quarter sawn boards. This is a time consuming job, and, it also requires a large inventory of dimensions and qualities.
So, rather than a stack of standard sawn lumber, you receive all pieces sawn to target sizes, meeting the target grain orientation and individually labelled so the craftsmen know which piece goes where.
This is a slightly more expensive option but experience of the past 20 years has proven that the extra cost on our end is easily offset by the savings in manufacturing of the spar in the shop. Please contact us if you would like to discuss this in more detail.
In-house testing laboratory
We are the only mill in Europe with in-house testing equipment and facilities to determine axial compressive strength, impact strength, tensile strength, 3-point bending, brittleness test and dry-weight testing.
Initially we built this laboratory to service our customers building and restoring wooden aircraft but it soon developed into a much wider range of applications. Today both spar builders and boatyards turn to us for testing ideas and concepts for engineered wood products and laminates. The lab enables us to determine the physical and strength properties of each individual board supplied. Now the architects can calculate with measured rather than generic values. The result is cutting edge engineered wood products for the yachts around the world.
We also have an in-house stress wave timer, with that unit we can accurately measure the specific frequency of each individual piece of wood and based on this data and other measurements we are able to generate both the modulus of elasticity and the torsional modulus. Close cooperation with some of the leading naval architects and engineers has led to cutting edge wooden racing spars which have won multiple world championships.
Most equipment is built by the famed Galdabini company and we continue to expand and upgrade the equipment and possibilities. We recently expanded the lab with a WBP test (water boil test for laminates to ASTM standards)
Enquiries.
Question, need information,
would you like to order?
Get in touch, we look forward
to hearing from you!
