Please help, As I have stated in prior postings, I'm new to the I-20. I was setting it up today, and while tightening down the spin pole to the bridle wires, split the longer section where it slides onto the short one, just in front of the main beam. It split in two places, about 3-4 inches long.
Two questions, how much tension should be on the spin pole when tightening to the bridle wires, and what is the best and simplest way to repair the damage? Should you glass the long section onto the short? Thanks for any help and or info you can.
Forrest Lockliear

It should be one length of aluminium without any joins.

On my cat i have them tight enough to have a little downward bend... but its much more important that my pole is set to the lenght of my luff...

Andrew,
Thanks for the info. I might have mis-stated what I have. I guess you would call it a snuffer with a loop and a sock for the spin. Any idea how to fix the carbon pole and the cracks?
Thanks
Forrest

I thought i understood... that is how i tie my spin pole bridal lines. If you mean the mid pole line (that comes off the ring)... i tie it snug but not excessively tight. Many people put a line on the opposite side of the pole to help reduce bend while flying the spin. I personally took mine off because i don't care if my pole bends a Little (fiberglass pole).

I have no idea about working on carbon.

Old F18 spin in image... so my pole was MUCH higher than it is now with a Torado spin

Andrew,
I believe he is referring to an I20 endpole set up, which is three pieces of carbon. Two pieces for the pole and the carbon hoop.

I'm not sure we understand exactly what's broken. Pics would help.

Philip,

Yes, that's it. Sorry about the confusion. I cracked the long pole that slides onto the short one. Can you just re-resin the pole and maybe put some strips of material on the outside for reinforcement? Or does it hurt to do the above, and attached it to the short pole, permanently?
Thanks again.

Forrest

Sorry for the confusion. I'll try to get pictures this evening. Please allow me to try explain. On the front cross bar is a pin sticking out, that the short C/B pole slides onto. As Philip stated it is a two piece pole. the longer pole then slides over the 4-5 inches of the shorter pole. The loop then slides into the end of the longer pole. When I was tightening the bridle wires to the loop, I put to much bend in th epole, (downwards pull and broke the longer pole, where it slides onto the shorter one. It splintered in two places where it slides over the shorter pole. So my question is, can you just re-resin the cracks in the longer pole and place material around the outside to strenghten it. Also would it hurt to just resin the longer onto the shorter permanently?
Thanks
Forrest

Yes, Forrest you can repair as suggested. I would keep the two pieces of the pole as two pieces, which makes assembly and disassembly managable. The one piece set up becomes more difficult because of the position/relationship of the jib cheek blocks mounted on the pole and the s.s. bridal pole bracket. Hard to explain here but if the boat is sitting on the beach you will struggle to get the longer pole into the bracket from the rear (you can't mount from the front because of the cheek blocks on the pole). Like I said, hard to explain, and the repair to keep the pole as two pieces is easy.

Philip,
Gotcha, and yes I understand the reason for the two separate poles and hassle of coming from behind. Where would you get the resin and material for the carbon? West Marine or someone else?

Forrest

That sounds like the EO end-pole snuffer. And you cracked the middle section.

Why it cracked is important in figuring out what fix would work.

Was the spin pole assembly fully connected (all the parts fully inserted to each other) or did it slip out and crack?

How much downward force were you applying, and from what part of the assembly?

Are the forestay bridles standard length?

Is the spinnaker luff standard length?

Was the pole assembly just old (blistered, cracked, out in the sun too long)?

I would suspect that unless you've got significant downward force on the spin bridles you could just glass up the cracked area and you'd be fine.

If you need a boatload of force to attach the spin bridles, I'd find out why. I had an EO snuffer, and while I did have to lean on the hoop slightly (maybe 5-10 lbs of force) to attach the spin bridle, the hoop could be pushed further without major effort. There was a slight pre-bend in the spin pole, but not as much as I had with the aluminum pole (first generation)

The spin luff was set so I could grab a handful of spin luff and rotate my hand about 60 degrees until it was taught. I think that was the best compromise setting for the spin cut I had (2nd generation, before the mid-pole setup)

Hope it helps...

Jay,

Thanks for the info. I was attaching the bridle to it, and was sucking it down so that the wire would attach to the bottom of the hoop. Quite a bit of bow in the pole. The area that cracked was the area that had slide onto the short piece. After reading Andrews posting, it looks like I over tightened (loaded the pole) it. Philip stated that I could re-resin and wrap material around it and I would be good to go.

Thanks again,
Forrest

I would agree with his recommendations. I don't think that snuffer pole should be under that much pressure. Had you used it with this setting before? Was the spin luff tight at that setting?

Jay,
As I said earlier, this is a new boat to me, and didn't have very good dealer support when I bought it. It's my fault that I loaded it to hard. I had quite a bow in the pole. I must have over done it. It's an 04 boat that I bought from the dealer in '07 and they didn't have anyone to show me how to set it up. Now that you speak of it, I didn't have that much load on it the last time I took it out. Of course I've only had it out 4 times, and have as of yet to get the spin up and really working right.

Forrest

I couldn't get my spin rigging to work correctly for the first dozen or 3 dozen times till i worked out the bugs.

Now that i have it down... my sock is shredding!

At least you're out on the boat... that's always good!

Where are you sailing?

Last weekend I was at Lake Harris. I've been launching across from the boat ramp on the park sign. I've been in contact with the Head of the Parks Department, Bruce Erickson about launching from over there. There is a sign that says no launching, but he has given permission to launch. I discussed the possibilty of events there on the lake. He will be approaching the City Manager about changing things perm. for use of that area by cats, sailboats, and other non-powered craft. It's only about 100yds to the open lake. Any other time, I go down to Honeymoon Island, but 90 minutes away and a pocket full of change, I don't get down there to often. There are a couple of guys, ( Andrew, ) and another that have offered to help out. It's just a case of getting down there.

Forrest

I offered to help? that doesn't sound like me! Did i say i would charge to help? $$$ MONEY TALKS BUDDY~!

(kidding)

I will presume, then, that you are in the Dunedin, FL area? Who's boat did you buy (or do you know)?

I wondered where Smitty's boat went, as I thought it was in great shape the last time I saw him sail it a few years back...