Yes, please send me as much money as you can. Need some new gear on our boat after the scandinavians last weekend. I'll change any pounds to dollars in my Monopoly bank.

Quid ~= buck in the context that they are both slang for money. Quid is used for pounds while buck is short for dollar. ~= is a notation for approximately equals, and I tought it obvious that we were talking about the linguistic concept of money instead of the intrinsic value of each currency.

Sorry!!! You're all wrong it broke because it's a Blade. Might be the first but won't be the last. heee, heee, heee. Stealth's (carbon) Rule the Spi poles.

Sorry I didn't mean to sound sarcastic or sardonic but you wouldn't have had a fatigue problem or £=$=§ problem if you had a carbon pole as they are obviously stronger. I could put you in touch with a person who might sell you a Carbon Pole but there again you do sail a Blade.

ahhahahaha, thanks for the good laugh <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

I would go carbon, but its kinda sorta pricey. I could have gone with a windsurfer stick, but I want this repaired before next weekend. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Are any carbon spars on an F16 class legal?

A drilled hole in a carbon stick will still corrupt it's structural integrity lessening resistance to fatigue failure. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Phill, a 'bottle screw'/'bottle jack' is a loose term I used as a reference to a threaded fitting Nacra used on their rudder cross beam to adjust the alignment of the the rudders by altering the distance between the tillers. I happen to have one here and thought about using it at the beam to push the pole outward to load up the bow lines to help initiate prebend.

Yes they are.

Here are the rules regarding spin pole

Bern,
Thanks for the pick.

I agree with you on the point regarding drilling holes in carbon because it doesn't like being drilled and in fact aluminium takes holes being drilled in it much better than carbon.

If drilling holes in carbon and especially if riveting to it it is a good idea to have some glass or kevlar in the laminate.

Regards,
Phill

Alright, go your own way then.

Wouter

My pole costed 30 Euro's, it is not anodised as I was pressed for time to complete my boat. As a matter of fact since 1998 I never used a anodise pole. Seems to hold up just fine anyway.

Which 10 quid block is that ? The main halyard block ? That one should be ball bearing one or it will indeed cease up. Like I said earlier all these things were prototyped and the Blade design has addressed all these points. We can't garantee however what individuals and builders decide to do for other reasons.

You should not worry in my opinion.

Wouter

Read the F16 class rules my dear friend :



It is actually the second rule from the top you would have seen it immediately.

Wouter

To be fair, the block on the Blade has not failed yet. But then again, I've been sailing it less than half a season. My point was simply that, in my experience at least, those blocks up the top of the mast don't last too long and aren't cheap to replace. I'll start worrying about how my spi pole is strung together once it starts breaking more often that those pulleys.

Paul

So anything goes as long as the boat weighs in? I was under the impression that Carbon was not allowed, to keep the cost down, except for the boats that already had carbon masts (Stealth).

I saw a really neet spinnaker snuffer setup on a Tornado in Zurich, it was a carbon tube molded right into the pole which was quite large. Inside the mouth of the snuffer hole it had a neet roller setup across the top to help the spin go in easier. It looked expensive!

If you go with a carbon setup though you can glue stiffeners around the holes and midpoint, or even add tabs to the pole without drilling into it.

I see your point regarding the headsail tack point, makes sense.

What are your thoughts on the bottle screw adjuster?
Bern

Timbo, that would probably be the Marstrøm MKI snuffer. It has been replaced by the MKII now as it did not work as well as hoped. There are some images of the new one here: http://www.marstrom.com/news.asp?id=T750

The one I saw looked just like the one in your picture. 1,375 Euros, ouch! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I dont think the new one (MKII) has the roller. If the one you saw had a roller, it probably was an MKI. No big deal..

Here is a picture of the Marstrøm MKI: http://www.tornado.org/html/images/marstube.jpg

The tornados are using several types of snuffers, with the Graham Eeles tubes probably being the most popular ones. Regular rings with bags are rare now, but we are quite satisfied with our alu ring. I would like to do a ring similar to what Phill has on the Blade prototype, as you dont have to pull the spi over the bowsprit tube on his variant.

Marstrøm stuff is always high $$$, building high quality items in Sweden is not cheap.

It did have a roller, so I guess it was a Mark I? Anyway, it looked nice and seemed (from a distance) to work well too. I liked the way it was all molded together with no sharp edges for the spinnaker to catch on and rip. Have you heard of any failures ie. cracking in the middle or anything like that?

I have heard of at least one MKI snapping when pitchpoling, but I dont think there has been many failures. The problem with the MKI is that you should go quite deep to retrieve the spi. Radius of the edges, expect for the roller, is too small.

Generally, the weakness of solid tubes is that if the carbon tube is compromised, you get sharp edges that will rip your spi to shreds.

John,
On 3 Aug., 06 in a thread about spin poles you said that you were working on an adjustable pair of tip stays. This caught my interest because in very few sailing days I noticed that my spin pole lost the pre bend which I attributed to 'not tight enough knots'. Although there is some truth in that, I also found in the West Advisor (West Marine) a statement about Spectra/Dyneema/UHMWPE line, ".........has the best strength to weight ratio, low stretch, and very high strength. Very slippery with good hand, it has poor knot holding ability, and a low melting point (300F).........." From this and another statement about "creep" I'm lead to believe that Spectra may not be the best material for establishing pre bend in a spin pole system that will snap as soon as the bridle goes out of adjustment. I am thinking that a small cable like the ones used for trapeze with small turnbuckle and shackle could be used reliable, and quickly.