Buy it? We'll make it!
Why not make one? Before aluminium was de rigeuer these extra spars and so forth were simply wood. I know you guys will complain about looks but really even a planed-down 2x3 or a piece of 1-1/2-inch bamboo will do it. You can even hand-make the fittings out of brass and so long as you are just knocking about it will provide decent practice and fun anyway. Play around with readily-available materials and maybe save yourself the $300 or whatever they are now. Remember too that racing rules may often proscribe whisker poles longer than the J. By the way Warren actually paid my father, my brother and I to go out and buy, borrow, make, use, test, and even break hardware on his Cherubini 44 cutter. The boat was essentially a test-bed for new ideas and we got to entertain ourselves by abusing rather expensive equipment sometimes (enough to make most of you cry). If we needed something NOW we made it and then learned from it. –it is a family tradition (and joke) to say, 'BUY it? We'll MAKE it!' I would not have ANY qualms about planing down and painting a fir 2x3 to use as a 10- or 12-ft whisker pole, at least temporarily. In fact that 44 had a workshop in the foc's'l and we kept raw aluminium tubing, stainless-steel hardware, and excess lumber aboard just for stuff like this. JC
