Back in August 2024 I posted looking for a ronstan 1.5 inch track traveller stop.
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Sailing/General/adjustable-traveller-stop-for-old-1-5-inch-Ronstan-I-beam-track--
Closing off this one (thread too old to add to it), I could not source a second hand stop, though I searched far and wide (including second hand dealers overseas). I took the one I still had to a metal fabricator I found.
Here's the result showing the old beside the new, and the new on the track.
I'm mightily impressed at what the fabricator was able to make, though it took him some months between other work. The body is cut from stainless rather than aluminium so it is stronger than the original.
However, in the meantime I rigged port and starboard 4-1 pulley systems for controlling the traveller, and so have been sailing without needing the stops.
An important lesson for me that sometimes the best answer is not necessarily to replace what I had.
20/20 vision in hindsight, thanks for the update. I use a handy billy ( running back stay tackle)to let the traveler out if I get excited enough. If I was inspired I could do something similar, got any pics of your set up ?
Just for interest how much was it custom made?
Just asking as this week I purchased a replacement Forespar mast spinnaker car with pin and the matching pole receptacle. At $1600 it had a healthy profit margin.
So far as I know it was made from scratch. So the stainless steel body was CNC EDM wire cut from a block of steel, the plastic inserts were 3D printed, the sprung stop plunger and its collar were machined from steel and even the internal spring was hand made. Ditto the block of rubber. The knurled nob may have been from something else, but I think it was also made from scratch.
I had to take a file to the inside of the inserts
as they were a just a bit too tight on the track. To be fair, the fabricator didn't have access to the track. I put vernier callipers on it and sent him photos of the callipers on the track for measurements of width and thickness. So needing a bit of polishing with a file was a better result than being too loose.
The job wasn't cheap so probably not a less costly option for your spinnaker pole car.
Out of curiosity, is your Forespar spinnaker pole receptacle a bell fitting?
Select to expand quotewoko said..
20/20 vision in hindsight, thanks for the update. I use a handy billy ( running back stay tackle)to let the traveler out if I get excited enough. If I was inspired I could do something similar, got any pics of your set up ?
Here's a piccy:
I'm not putting it out as exemplary. It's what I rigged using already installed fittings (saddles and jamming cleats), presumably left from a previous set up. But it's worked well enough since.
Quixotic,
Forespar call it a Toggle Socket, slightly different to a bell. Hopefully I have made the right choice in going this way, I have changed from the standard ring car as I broke the last one.
Also known as a bayonet fitting I think. I've some old cannon bell fittings which, like my ronstan track, are no longer available. Not currently
in need of replacement, but likely impossible to source if ever needed. I don't fly my spinnaker as the two poles I have are more than 5m long and 100mm diameter, and so weigh quite a bit. Wrestling them on the foredeck in any kind of swell when single handing would not be sensible. The mast track is not long enough to store one vertically up the mast, not to mention putting all that weight up the mast.
I hope your new fitting serves you well.
Select to expand quoteQuixotic said..
Also known as a bayonet fitting I think. I've some old cannon bell fittings which, like my ronstan track, are no longer available. Not currently
in need of replacement, but likely impossible to source if ever needed. I don't fly my spinnaker as the two poles I have are more than 5m long and 100mm diameter, and so weigh quite a bit. Wrestling them on the foredeck in any kind of swell when single handing would not be sensible. The mast track is not long enough to store one vertically up the mast, not to mention putting all that weight up the mast.
I hope your new fitting serves you well.
What do you use to set a foresail downwind?
Well spotted. Therein lies the problem, and so my interest in fittings. I'm looking to get a lighter whisker pole, likely an extendable one, such as made by selden, which could be stored up the mast. But that entails finding a pole fitting to match my bell fittings, or replacing them. The bells are attached via a pin so I may be able to keep the traveller and traveller car but swap the actual fitting. I'm also looking into whether Harken bell fittings or Francespar bell fittings, both of which I can still source, are compatible with my existing fittings.
One of a number of things on The List which I'm working through as time, opportunity, competing priorities and finances permit.
If money was no object, I'd get a carbon pole, but that'd be an incongruous extravagance.
