Yeah saturday the weather in moreton bay was good, to bad i was busy, had planned on taking my mossie down to humpybong to race on sunday, but the wind increased from saturday and it was too windy for their liking and racing was cancelled.

Bought most of the gear now for the spinnaker, from what i understand greg goodall is finishing up the spinnaker and i should recieve that shortly. I decided to go with the ronstan orbit smart ratchets, not sure how some people had trouble with them locking in manual mode, as they have a pretty much fool proof system of locking in automatic mode with a lock on both sides of the ratchet to hold it in automatic mode.

Bought most of the blocks, went with series 20 for most of them and a series 30 high load block for the halyard block that goes back to back with tack line block. Only block left i need is the one for the end of the spinnaker pole, i know alot of people use a sheave block, however the spinnaker pole i got a local aluminium supplier to make is far too thick at 3mm, in fact im definately considering getting another pole made, as it seems to be way too heavy, though it could be put to good use as a heavy weather pole, as its seems extremely strong. What thickness aluminium do most people use for the pole, id rather stay away from carbon fibre, as i dont feel the cost is worth the minor reduction in weight, and greg goodall advised me not to go with anything expensive as its an item that undergoes lots of stress and if it doesnt break within a year it should be replaced anyway, as it will be structurally weaker, which being an undergraduate aeronautical and space engineer i completely agree with, even the high military grade aeronautical aluminiums and carbon fibre composites we work with degrade noticeably within not to long a time period when subjected to even normal operating stress loads.
So anyway, wondering what type of block people would recommend i use, id prefer an external block, even with a thinner pole that could take a sheave block, what kind of attachment should the block use, i know ronstan have several types that i saw the other day, one was a connected to a normal half loop of metal, and had a spring around the connection which had free motion in most directions, another was a more complicated and solid looking metal setup that had a pin and ring holding the two connections together, this only had freedom of movement around the axis of the pin (side to side). How strong does the connection between the pole and the block that the spinnakers tack hits need to be, and how much freedom of movement does it need, not much freedom of motion, in fact none at all im guessing as is the case with a sheave block.

Cheers.
Michael.