Having made the new legs for the cockpit tent spreaders I now need to make a pair of spreaders for the spreaders. These will slide onto the ends of the spreaders across the boat so that each spreader is reinforced by the other. It will also also the use of some suitable small diameter rope or string to brace the spreaders further.

However, in order to make the spreader spreaders I need the spreaders in place in order to get the lengths correct.

Glue, plywood and some screws made a temporary fix for the broken legs.

Pretty ugly but it does the trick.

I measured the distance between the front and back ends of the spreaders and found that I don't have a single piece of suitable timber but I do have several lengths of cutoffs that I can glue together. The wood was glued and then clamped down to a workbench every 6" and left overnight to dry. Unfortunately the temperature meant that although the glue had dried enough to allow the removal of the cramps, it was not dry enough to be worked so I moved the laminated piece to the wet-room. This is a glass "conservatory" at the back of the house that is South facing and gets quite warm when the sun shines as it is right now. I day in there'll warm the whole piece up nicely and that should dry the glue properly.