DaySailer.org Forum

When I bought my boat, it came with a extendable whisker pole, made by forespare. Trouble was, sitting for 18 years it did not work. I could not extend it. After fooling around with it I was able to get it to work a little. But soon that stopped, I took it apart and attempted to fix it, but the eccentric mechanism was to worn and torn.

Not wanting to spend the cost of a new one, and repair parts around 50.00, I decided since I had a few extendable paint roller poles, thought one of them might work. So I disassembled both poles, and adapted the working locking mechanism from the paint pole to the whisker pole.

First I drilled out the divots on the tube that hold the ends in. cut the whisker pole off at the locking mechanism. (I used a pipe cutter) . selected the size of the mechanism that fit the best.
Installed it onto the whisker pole, made sure that it indeed worked, (I had to sand it down slightly for smooth movement inside the tube.) Then I dimpled the tube to hold the locking mechanism in place.
Put it all back together, doubled checked it. Now I have a working whisker pole for the cost of a expandable paint roller handle. notice the taper of the threads and collar, this is what makes it expand and lock in place by twisting the pole. you also can see the retaining dimples that need to be drilled out to remove it.
all done, sorry i didn't take any photos of actual repair process.

Very nice.

thanks GL, was glad it worked out.