Whisker Pole to hold Genoa out

[Steve A.]

I have a Hunter 28 that I sail up in Maine. When I am sailing dead down wind (or nearly) I use my boom van to hold the boom to one side but always wished I had a whisker pole to hold my Genoa out on the opposite side. I have looked at several web sites and catalogs and have found that "real" whisker poles are quite expensive. I would not be using it is winds over 15 knots so it wouldn't have to be super strong. Has anyone made their own whisker pole? What did you use for the shaft and the ends? How did you connect it to the Genoa and the mast (or did you use a different attachment points)? Thanks for any feedback.

 

[Steve677]

Not too expensive...

West Marine sells one for $89.00 - link below - Else, you can Google "home made whisker pole" and come up with a lot of light weight poles based on twist-lock poles of one kind or another that will end up costing you between $20 and $40. $89.00 isn't that bad for a heavy duty pole that you can really count on.

 

[s sauer]

Whisker pole connections

The answer to the second half of your question is you connect the outer end of the pole into the bowline loop thet ties the Genoa sheet to the Genoa; the connection to the mast should be a fixed stainless steel padeye loop with four fasteners carefully drilled and tapped into the mast. The cast aluminum version is tempting but it wil break off if th epole rises tomuch and it binds. Mount it at the same height as the end of the Genoa so the pole will usuall be horizontal when the sail is fully extended.

 

[Michel16053]

Whisker pole

The price is of the ends of the pole, not the pole itself.

 

[Ross]

I turned the ends from cedar and made the shaft

from local bamboo. 2 inches in diameter.

 

[Dennis W.]

Whisker Poles

Steve, Check E-Bay, I purchased a used 7-17 Forespar whisker pole about 3 years ago for $110.00. List at WM is nearly $500.00. Just rebuilt both twist locks for under $40.00 with parts from Forespar. It took several weeks of looking before I found the one I wanted.

 

[Timo42]

This one from WM is a complete pole,

may be too light for your boat, have been using it on my 22 w/o any problems.

 

[Joe on Alure]

What We Did

When we got half-way serious about racing, we hit upon a great idea to acquire a whiskerpole for our Hunter 31: we combed all of the sailboat ads across the country. If boat for sale was similar to Alure, we would call the owner to see if 1)their boat had a pole? 2)was it listed in the specs? if yes and no were the answers, we offered to buy it. We got ours quickly and cheaply (as cheap as any nautical thing can be!).

 

[s sauer]

28.5 Whisker Pole

Just remember the Genoa on a 28.5 may be 300-350 square feet in area; I've been using a Forespar 7x17 twist lock adjustable for 22 years with it set at 12'-1" for racing. I'd be the 1st to admit the 1-3/4" diameter of the smaller tube is on the lighter side. A spinnake pole for this boat could be 2-3/4"to3" diameter and 12'-1" (J Dimension of a 28.5). In light air the 7x17 will not be a problem but I certainly wouldn't want anything smaller.