Spinnaker Pole and Track
Pole and Track Choices
We bought a Forte carbon fibre spinnaker pole from PT Rigging. We also had them install a spin track on the front of the mast. The pole is 22' long so it can be used as a whisker pole with both the jib and spinnaker, or as a spinnaker pole to move the assymetrical in front of the boat for deeper downwind sailing, as pictured below.
Setting the spinnaker pole on the tack of the assymetrical.
PT Rigging recommended a Harken spinnaker track which we bought from them. We had originally planned on installing the track ourselves but due to time constraints asked PT Rigging to install the track while the mast was sitting in their shop.
Billing Mystery
PT Rigging allows customers to use their shop while working on your mast. I finished the paint touch up on the mast one evening around 9:30 pm, made sure everything was locked up, and left for the night. The following morning we arrived at PT Rigging at 9:15 am to talk to Dan and Lisa and discovered the spinnaker track was installed, although without end stops. This job could not have started until I finished the touch up paint and had not started the previous evening, yet was complete early the following morning.
Imagine our surprise when we received a bill from PT Rigging for the track install - $300 for five hours work. When I asked Lisa about it she gave several explanations. "Brian starts work early." 4am? "We matched the estimate." There was no estimate, and even if there was that would make the estimate a minimum charge, not an estimate. I actually told her I'd come back later to talk about it. When I returned she told me they had spent 3.5 hours installing the track but felt the bill was justified because they had run over on other parts of our re-rig. Truly. She refused to modify the bill and I didn't push it because our mast was still in their shop; I figured they'd get the $90 out of us somewhere else. So much for business ethics.
Finishing the installation
Anyway, back to the spin track. Since the track was mysteriously installed without end stops and PT Rigging didn't seem to care, we bought two on our next trip to Seattle, drilled and tapped the track for them. After the billing discussion PT Rigging didn't seem to be interested in helping with the track cars and controls either, so we also bought those from Fisheries in Seattle. The track car was dictated by the track we bought from PT Rigging, the Forespar toggle by the ends used on the spinnaker pole, also done by PT Rigging. PT Rigging recommended a mast-mount urethane pole chalk to hold the lower end of the pole when stored on the mast.
A minor problem
We found the problem with a pole attached to the car by a toggle is that the pole wants to move around any time there is motion. The toggle allows movement in all directions, and the pole does. PT Rigging recommended we mount their chock on the mast face, below the end of the spinnaker track. Unfortunately this is the wrong end of the pole to stop the movement. Forespar solves this problem a couple of ways, the first with a hard rubber piece at the base of the toggle. This didn't help us since the Forespar car is different enough that the rubber piece would not fit with the Harken car. The second solution is a Forespar car with chock mounted on it. This car is attached below the top car and is hoisted along with the car and pole. Once hoisted it's a simple matter to pop the top of the pole into the chock, very effectively holding the end of the spinnaker pole, preventing movement. The Forespar car did not fit our Harken track.
This is the sort of problem I expect to avoid when paying a rigger in the five figure range for a re-rig. They should not be sending us down a path without solutions to the problems. We resolved this issue with South Beach Riggers in Sausalito. They modified the mast-mount urethane chock to fit on a Harken car. We made a pennant for it and now hoist it 18" below the toggle. When hoisted the chock locks the top of the pole in, preventing movement. A big thanks to South Beach Riggers for a job well done.
The second car hoists 18" below the top car and keeps the pole from moving around when stowed.
PT Rigging received the spinnaker pole from Forte, added ends, and asked if we wanted to rig the pole ourselves. We ask them to and they added a bridle and trip line. At his request I gave Dan the exact location of the downhaul padeye for bridle construction.
Bridle failure!
Coming down the coast we found we could sail deeper downwind with the jib poled out. We could also sail dead downwind wing-on-wing and the monitor steered perfectly. Off the Baja peninsula in 8 knots of wind the bridle failed while flying the spinnaker. We re-attached everything to the pole end and kept sailing while we dissected the bridle to see what went wrong.
PT Rigging strikes again! One end was spliced with a core bury, not the expected mobius brummel. The other end was doubled over on itself and wrapped with tarred twine. Both ends were covered with heat shrink tubing, no doubt to prevent others from stealing this unique attachment method. The amsteel simply slipped out from the twine wrapping. We were lucky this didn't happen in thirty knots of wind off the Washington coast.
Not the right way to terminate amsteel.
The spinnaker pole now works great. All control lines go to the end of the pole and the spinnaker pole is secure when stored up the mast.
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