I was very pleased with the pigstick. It did the job beautifully. But as we left Cherbourg it seemed not to be turning so freely. Once out of the harbour, on the way home, I lowered it to see that was going on. It turned out that the lovely roller bearings that I’d thought were stainless only had stainless shells, and that the lower one, that can sit in water, had rusted up solid.
Mark 2 was clearly required. Shopping around I couldn’t find any suitable stainless needle roller bearings but could get some standard all stainless bearings – trouble is they were a fair bit larger in diameter, so I had to redesign the fittings a bit. I printed redesigned end caps for the outer carbon tube, that acts as the carrier for the burgee, with a larger cavity for the conventional bearings. It’s not as slick looking, but works perfectly and has now coped with a couple of weeks of use.
