Spinnaker Prodder

[spiritcat]

The cat I am building has a prodder mounted to the front beam for carrying the spinnaker and screecher. It is close to 2.0m in length and constructed to hinge upwards to reduce the overall length of the boat when in a marina. The design calls for a composite construction including the tangs that connect to the hulls and for connection of the two sails. I am not happy with the concept and know others have had problems with the arrangement including the designer who has modified the design several times.
I am looking at changing the design and building the prodder out of an aluminium section but would be interested to hear from other cat owners on how their prodder is connected to the front beam and hulls. On my last cat (27 foot Simpson Backslash) I built an aluminium prodder and ended up breaking it twice where it joined the front beam, but I must admit some of the problem was more related to how we were racing the boat at the time and the loads exerted.