Spinnaker pole

[byo]

Hi folks, I want to have a spinnaker pole made for our SO43 Deck Saloon, can anyone suggest what the best length of the pole would be.
Regards, Bruce.

[rhb]

The classical way to determine spin pole length is to measure the distance from the front of the mast to the forestay at deck level. With a deck stepped mast this requires a tiny bit of fiddling since the mast ends at the cabin top rather than at deck level and you want he straight line distance from where the mast front would be at deck level.

Forespar has a good web page that helps figure out spinnaker pole sizing:

www.forespar.com/spinnaker-pole.shtml

[MartyB]

You can also use your st J measure too to get the spin length. If you go a bit on the larger size spin, you may want a pole a bit longer. Using the J measure for the pole length will not get you in trouble with race rules. Where as if you go longer, there can be a penalty for being longer, usually takes a foot or so to come into play. I have a 12' pole with an 11.8' J, using the std program for figuring out my rating, takes a 12.8' pole to get hit with a penalty.

Marty

[davideso37]

From an article on optimising and Elan 350
"In terms of spinnaker pole length, we have assumed an overlength pole of 107% of J. This is typically regarded as the longest you can go with the pole to keep it manageable. A pole much longer than this can become difficult to manage through the gybe, but different owners will have their own view on this. Another typical IRC configuration on boats of this size is to carry a spinnaker pole of about 107% of J as well as a short bowsprit or fixed prod of approximately 115% of J. This then gives the option of flying the spinnaker from the pole or sprit whilst minimising the penalty for carrying the bowsprit through keeping it fairly modest in length."
From my own experience the longer the pole the harder it is to deploy. I intend to cut my 5 metre pole down to 4.45 metres to match my gennaker prodder just have not got around to it yet.
Regards
David

[alex1949]

Hi folks, It is still unclear , 107-110% J for the boom is ok but will give some handling problems that some of us said "get back to the original J". What happens if you have a relativly short bow sprite of 50 cm (1.5') still recomand J or longer ? Please suggest
Alex