wisker pole

[phil416]

Hi  gang;  I have a nice 12' bamboo pole, fully cured that I intend to make into a wisker pole.  The plan is to wrap this pole with xynole cloth bedded with epoxy resin.  I will make my own ends as I have access to a lathe and milling machine.  Has anyone tried such a pole?  Any advice, warnings etc.   Fair winds Phil

[s/v Faith]

What a cool idea!

  I know that bamboo is strong stuff... there is a company in Alabama that makes bicycle frames from the stuff....  hope you can share some pictures of the finished product!

(yes, I know I have added nothing to the technical discussion you were looking for).. 

[Snapdragon]

Phil,
I'll be following your efforts on the whisker pole with great interest.  I've been toying with the idea of making one out of a seasoned 12' Juniper sapling.  Your idea of wrapping with xynole and epoxy resin may help to overcome my main concern of splintering and sharp ends if it breaks.  Now, if I just knew what xynole is.....
Could you post some illustrations of what the ends will look like?

[marujo_sortudo]

IIRC, Slocum used a piece of bamboo as a jib boom and I believe quite a few sailors in 70's successfully used bamboo yards to hang square sails.  I imagine one would work quite well for a whisker pole which seems an equally demanding application.  I guess the trick would be to pick the right sized piece.  Heck it might not even need so much protection as epoxy and all.  No personal experience to relate, though.

[phil416]

Thanks for the replies;  Here is what I have found out so far.  The reason to wrap is that bamboo is a grass and the most likely failure is lengthwise along the strands.  The waxy coating must be removed, and then the wrap can be applied binding the bundled strands together preventing splits. I hope.  When used as a wisker pole the stresses are both bending and twisting a hard test for any material.  xynole is a polyester laminating cloth that has a 30% stretch potential although epoxy streches only 10%.  Whenever doing deckwork I always put a finish layer of xynole to prevent stress cracking, from dropped wrenches etc.  If the open weave is not filled in it makes a fine nonskid.  As for the ends I am still in the design stage, trying to simplify, simplify.  You can find xynole at www. defender.com.  Dynel would work as well at greater expense.  comments are welcome. Phil

[Leroy - Gulf 29]

I would be curious about the bamboo drying and cracking.  I've seen long bamboo poles that have split length ways because of drying. 

[Steve Bean]

There's a lot of information on the Net about bamboo harvesting, curing, etc.  It should be cut when at least a couple of years old,  not too much older, and cured out of direct sun, but not too moist.

[Captain Smollett]

Phil,

I considered making a whisker pole out of wood, and rejected that plan since it would be usable for only one headsail.  Instead, I've opted to go with  aluminum tubing and a VERY simple telescoping arrangement of my own "design."  We'll see how it works out, but for far less than half of a commercial pole, I figured it was worth the experiment (I had tried to locate a used one locally with no success).

If you plan to only use it for one sail ( ** ), seems like reinforced bamboo would fit the bill to me.  Let us know how it works out!

--JR

( ** ):  I suppose one could just have multiple attachment points and let the 'excess' pole overhang forward of the sail...probably not the best arrangement, sailing with 4-6 feet of pole sticking out, but ....

Or, how about a reinforced hinged deal where several feet of the pole could swing down  (and back) out of the way?  Making it strong enough for the "full" length would be tricky, but not unlike sleeving a mast perhaps...

[CharlieJ]

A whole lotta years ago we made surf rods from bamboo-calcutta. These would be 12-16 feet long.

We'd wrap between nodes with rod winding thread to prevent splitting. No problem at thenodes. Never had one break and I landed a few good sized sharks on 'em.

I suspect bamboo would make a good whisker pole, but NOT a spinnaker pole. Those takea
HUGE compression load close reaching.