Spinnaker pole, need to be 17 feet ?

[scott wilson]

Thanks to all who responded a couple weeks ago about flying a sym chute w/o a pole. In light air we got the chute up using the recommended home-made tack ring around the furled jib/forestay. Everything worked great. When the wind died, we dropped the chute on the deck and motored until we found more wind. On the second raising, we achieved a "perfect" hour-glass shape, that took some doing to untangle, but it was great fun in light air.  So, now I am thinking about borrowing a pole and seeing if it makes sense to get one of my own. My research tells me the pole length should be the "J" dimension of the boat. The "J" on the 37C is 17 feet!!!( I'm told because of the cutter rig the mast is aft of similar sized sloops). The foredeck "crew" will be comprised of me and my imaginary friend. So how do I manage a 17 foot pole? Does anyone use a chute pole on their 37C and if so, where do you store it? Can I go with a length that just exceeds the forestay-mast distance, 6-8 feet above the deck? I won't be able to do a dip pole gybe because of the stay sail, so I'll be going end for end. I didn't pole vault in highschool, so I have no relevant experience. The topping lift will be the stay sail halyard and the downhaul will be easy to rig. The boat has a pole track on the mast. But, has any 37C crew experienced a 17 foot pole?

 

[Ed Allen]

yeah as a matter of fact.

I have a 84 37c here in florida. I have a pole that is about 20 ft extended. it came with the boat. I also have a cruising spinnaker. the sail is designed to be used fastened to the headstay. it has a particularly long luff. so it works well in that fasion. the idea of the pole is to get the sail away from the rig and into clean air. that presuposses a semetric sail. on the pole it is hard to set, hard to adjust, hard to trim hard to drop and doesnt set worth a damn unless the pole is next to the head stay and pulled down to near the deck, I set it about a half dozen times before i started to listen to others who told me so. I hate it when that happens. not i have this giant pole that would work well to pole out a big jib, but i am using yankee. the clew is so high the pole has to be in the stratosphere to set it. So is dont do that either. dont get me wrong i like to pass people more than i like to follow them. but the whole experiece wasnt worth it. I can set my cruising chute alone douse it alone and trim it alone and in most conditions i can sail it pretty fast. so there you are. if i ever get to seattle ill look you up its on my list to go sailing north of there but i dont know if i will ever make it.Big Ed.

 

[scott wilson]

If you come through town, bring your pole.

Thanks Ed. Food for thought. Scott