Pad Eye ?? also Rivets vs Screws & Cheap Blocks

[jnardone]

Hi:
I am rigging up the spinnaker that I bought on ebay over the Winter and I purchased the Forespar "small boat spinnaker pole kit" from West Marine. The pole came with a small Lexan pad eye (Forespar model PE-1) and two sheet metal screws to mount it with. I mounted it on the mast and then we tried raising the spinnaker so we could determine where we wanted to mount the blocks and cleats for the spinnaker sheets. As soon as we raised the sail the pole end fitting bound in the 5/8" diameter ring and snapped the pad eye. It seems to me that the ring was way to small.

Anyway, I need to get another pad eye and I wanted to know if anyone could suggest a model and size.

Also, what is the better way to attach things to my mast? - all my halyard blocks and stays are attached with aluminum rivets so thats what I used to attach my spinnaker halyard block. But it looks like all the pad eyes in the West Marine catalog are made to be attached with screws.

One more thing - I needed a bunch of blocks and cam cleats to rig up the new sail and I didn't feel like I needed any higher quality than the ones that came with the boat when it was new. I found some at: http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/store/ ... blocks.htm
that look like the originals on my boat. (1966 DS1)

Joseph

[PDuckX]

I don't know if you have explored Bob Hunkins web site, but he has an article that was taken from the DaySailer Quarterly that may be some help to you.

http://www.bobhunkins.com/mt-archives/c ... icles.html

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