Spinnaker Pole

It has been quite some time since I last posted so I thought that I had better do something about it, up to this week I haven't done a great deal what with the pandemic, yes I know we are all using that excuse, and the cold wet weather. Last week I finished scraping the bottom and got the antifouling on ready for relaunching on the following Monday which all went well the rest of this week has been spent putting things back together, filling water tanks etc. Next week I am aiming to service the engine and put the sails back on.

During the last lockdown there wasn't a lot I could do but I did have a look at the spinnaker pole which had been sitting at home since I bought New Morning. I knew that the sliding bolts in the pole ends were seized so I thought that I would use the time to try and sort them out. The ends were each retained with three self tapping screws which proved reasonably easy to remove given that they were stainless into aluminium. When I removed the ends I found that the bolts were fitted into a plastic sleeve and were seized solid in fact the only way to remove them was to completely butcher the sleeves I am not sure if it was a build up of crud or the plastic sleeves had soaked up water and swelled which some plastics particularly nylon are are prone to. I started looking around for a pair of new pole ends these needed to have a 40mm diameter spigot to fit into the hollow aluminium pole but this size seemed to be unavailable yes I could have bought a larger pair and turned them down to fit. Of course the next problem was the price they were for a boat after all, £48 each was about the best that I could find time for a plan 'B' especially as I usually sail single handed so don't get that much use out of the spinnaker although I have been known to pole out the genoa on my previous boat. I decided to make some new plastic sleeves and went to my favourite engineering plastics supplier  at www.directplastics.co.uk and purchased a length of 30mm diameter Acetal rod 500mm long. This material is ideal for this application as it is not known for swelling when wet it is also easy to machine the swarf coming away easily, with some plastics it can wind itself tightly round the bar as it turns it also provides a good bearing surface. I have used this company on several occasions they have a reasonable minimum order policy and the price was reasonable £10.48 inc VAT. Delrin would also have been suitable having similar properties but it is a little more expensive.

Spinnaker pole end striped

I turned up two new sleeves the bolts are 3/8" diameter so I drilled them out to 25/64" as drilling plastics can sometimes end up with a slightly under size hole.

Replacement sleeve

The sleeves are retained with a couple of self tapping screws through the flange the holes can just be seen in the above photograph.

Two pole ends complete ready to fit back into the pole

Once the ends were complete the reassembly of the pole was straightforward it is now back in its brackets on the boat one of those satisfying jobs completed with minimal expenditure.