INSTALLING A NEW WHISKER POLE
If you own an older boat, you’re likely familiar with the quirks that come with aging rigging and equipment. Many budget sailors like myself make do with these imperfections on their boats by finding workarounds or perhaps living in ignorance of how well their boat could sail if everything was running correctly. Perhaps it’s that squealing masthead sheave that you haven’t yet found the time to replace. Or maybe the outhaul car is stuck, but it never really bothered you anyway. In my case, it was a whisker pole with seized jaws, jammed telescopic tubes and a damaged cast-aluminum car that wouldn’t slide up and down the mast anymore.
My boat, , a 1984 Tayana Vancouver 42, doesn’t yet have a spinnaker in her arsenal, so for now, sailing downwind has involved a main and genoa. Still, I have spent many long hours running dead downwind in this configuration, sans whisker pole, watching the genoa dance and collapse in the shadow of the main. My sails were suffering, my boatspeed was
