Monday, March 14, 2011

Carbon Fiber Spinnaker Pole Repair

When our 14-foot carbon fiber spinnaker pole snapped (due to excessive lateral loading) and we were confronted with a very expensive dilemma (a thousand dollars for repair by professional riggers or thousands of dollars for a new pole), we managed to repair our pole ourselves, quickly and much less expensively, by means of a repair tube custom built for us by Jeffery Kent of Composite Solutions Inc, who:
  • promptly built a 3-foot carbon fiber tube to match the outside diameter of our pole,
  • machined down the ends to match the inside diameter of our pole,
  • leaving a center section to replace the broken pieces we cut away from our pole, and
  • rushed it to us by air.
We bonded the two pieces of our broken pole with epoxy to the machined ends of the custom repair tube, and the resulting repaired pole both looks and works great. (To complete the repair we will wrap the repaired area and clear coat to protect it.)

Highly recommended.

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