It's a shame you live so far away: we are hoping to have seven junks sailing at the Russell Tall Ships Regatta this weekend and it would be great to have you here. Have you been to see Mike and Lynley Hayes's project: the Gary Underwood 'Shoehorn' they are building.  Although their profile says Mahurangi, they are actually somewhere down your way.

Best of luck with the new rig.  If you find a suitable flagpole, do tell us about it, won't you?

Edit: just re-read the full thread and I see your boat is actually in Scotland.  I don't suppose a Kiwi flagpole is going to be much use to you!

David, Google 'aluminium (or alloy) flagpoles NZ' and you will find a surprising number of sites.  I did the exercise a few days ago for Linda CG and sent the links to her, but am already running late and don't really have time to do it again.  Some of them seemed very affordable, but those would probably be too short for your boat.  There was nothing suitable when I was re-rigging Fantail, but things may have changed.

Hi David,

I did not find anything I could compare. The nearest was an aluminium tube with a wooden top section. The tube alone was more than the purchase coat of the flagpole, but the transport cost made it uneconomical for me. It is still on my options list but I am at present working on  completing a smaller boat so that I have something to sail again. A larger boat will have to wait a bit!!

 The secret of making it economical is getting the transport cost down and this would involve finding someone who regularly imports container loads and could add a flagpole to their load at a reasonable price.

 I did find similar flagpole sections in the USA but the cost was about twice what the Chinese one was and transport costs were also prohibitive.

All the best with the project, David.

Hi, I recently got a quotation for a bare aluminium flagpole from a company in China. The pole is 11.8 meters long, 212mm diameter at the base and tapered in the top third to about 130mm, 5mm wall thickness 6063 T6 alloy, white color coat. The cost for the section was quoted at US$ 648.00 and delivery to New Zealand at US$ 725.00. The pole was in one piece and the 11.8 meters is so that it will fit in a standard 40 foot container.

The company is Nanjing Miracle Technology Co. Ltd. and they were contacted through Alibaba .com.

They can provide sections with diameters to suit your needs with custom tapered top sections.

This looks like a reasonable option for a new mast.

Hello Steve,

You could try http://www.sunbirdmarine.com/ for a second hand rig, as your first step. Failing that, it's a case of DIY, and the costs vary widely according to your skills and the amount of work you can do versus the amount of work you have to hand to professionals. I think the best way for a lazy man to get a mast is to buy a bare tapered alloy tube from The Aluminium Lighting Company. Putting more work in, the pragmatic and less expensive way is by buying an aluminium alloy tube from a stockholder and making a wooden topmast for it - a "hybrid" mast.