Trick Pole Chock

You can see at the left that there's no easy place on deck to secure the bottom of the pole. When working at the mast, the pole tends to become something that is grabbed, so I wanted it to be strongly secured. Also, the car that's on the track is a Forespar Heavy Duty car that swivels easily, so I didn't want the bottom to swivel and bang.

I thought about just bolting a ring on, but it didn't fit the curve of the mast well, and it allowed the pole to bang around. So I'm going to bolt a strong deck chock on.

I put a new whisker pole on the mast.
Right now (April 2002) I haven't rigged the boat for a spinnaker, and when I do it'll be asymmetric,
so I just wanted a light pole that'll push the jib out when heading back down the estuary in a light breeze.

Obviously, I like to make stuff, so this is a good excuse. I took some prefab fiberglass sheets from McMaster-Carr, and using my bench belt sander made the little deal you see to the right. I glued the pieces together using West System epoxy.

Then I strengthened the outside edges with an epoxy fillet of West System and colloidal silica.

To make it fit, I taped wax paper to the mast, then packed the interior joints with a super thick putty of West System and MicroFibers. The mast was nice and cool, and acted as a huge heat sink, so it took about 8 hours to set up.

After grinding it into shape, I drilled sockets halfway through the face plate, and epoxied nuts into the unit.
To keep the threads clean, I dipped screws into vegetable oil and fastened them in while the epoxy set. The epoxy worked its way back down the screw, so the fiberglass plate is also threaded. I don't think I have to worry about the screws coming loose! Finally, I wet sanded the heck out of it.

After about six coats of Interlux White, to match the mast. Methinks it's pretty cool. A small piece of 1/2 inch hose around the crossbar keeps the pole tight and quiet, but loose enough to take on and off easily.

BTW, since the first two people who looked at this said "your spinnaker pole's upside down" I thought I'd reiterate that this is just a little whisker pole.

There seems to be a global shortage of Phillips Head 5/16x18 3/4" machine bolts! I looked at four West Marines and Svendsens, and all anyone had were slotted. So all my little running rig stuff is bolted on with slotted head machine screws... someday I'll have to go back and replace them all, but for now I can't take a delay since...

I'm too close to going sailing!