Spiros twins Osprey pics

A couple of years ago a competative Opsrey set up a twin spiro system - and told us all how wonderful it was and we should try it too ....  up to the point when he took it out.

Originally posted by Mikey 14778 It's one of those 'unwritten' rules. Basically the argument goes along the lines that the Fireball rules refer to 'the pole', which is in the singular and thus means one and only one. I pointed out that they also refer to 'the trapeze', but apparently that's different and we are allowed two of those (phew!). I would have been inclined to argue my point further, but I was debating this with the Fireball International Class Rules Bloke, so his opinion is clearly going to carry a bit more weight than mine. In fairness, I can see his point of view now it's been explained to me, but I still think it's a bit of a grey area. For the full explanation, see this post on the FI Forum Maybe I should look at what the Merlins get up to with single poles....

I fitted twin poles and a twin spiro to a Sandhopper (shoal draft Squibb) and it was brilliant, particularly when gybing. Personally, I don't like 'unwritten' rules. I did a load of research and found that virtually all classes use the singular 'pole' in their rules, including the Merlins and 505s. The 505 chairman of the technical committee told me that he had never found a need to change the wording to read 'pole or poles' or some such.

I don't think you can avoid using a purpose made fitting, loose blocks would be a nightmare. Incidentally, you don't need a shockcord return to retrieve the pole which means you are far less likely to suffer a pole in the mouth. Check out the Merlin Rockets, they have a micro block on the inner end and a high set line (or shockcord) at the mast down to the boom end that allows a much more controlled retrieval. That worked for me too.

Originally posted by Merlinboy Sorry to drag this old thread up again.  I am in the early stages of thinking about converting the 505 to twin carbon poles.

Edited by Bramble - 09 Feb 21 at 1:27am

Thanks for that...actually I have a couple of very different asymmetrics, as yet untried, but everything I read about Ospreys makes me think Proctor's original sailplan probably can't be beat.

I remember Fireballs ( last century!) having a mega extending tiller extension so the crew could steer from the wire and the helm could move forward pre windward mark to set the pole up.