to share a personal experience - when Sage 17 AIR BORN went to the san juans & gulf islands last june the spinnaker eye was backordered and there was no local source in denver (ie, West Marine in denver didn't have any spinnaker eyes). jerry told me to get an eye when i got to seattle.  as i didn't have a pneumatic pop rivit gun to put in stainless rivets jerry said just use alum ... but if the wind comes up the eye will likely pull out of the mast.  the eye, attached with alum, was used for two weeks during the san juan cruise and again during the Cruiser Challenge XII. the eye didn't pull out of the mast, though i did (especially at CC XII) use the whisker pole in high-ish wind conditions. when i returned to Golden i checked the spinnaker eye and it was slightly loose as the rivets had 'deformed' from sailing stresses. i drilled out the alum rivets and reinstalled the fitting with stainless. :: Dave Scobie :: Sage Marine - www.sagemarine.com --- On Wed, 4/4/12, douglas kelch <doug1kelch@gmail.com> wrote:

I am curious about Tom's comment on stainless pop rivets.

I used to use stainless self taping screws.  Over 10 years of use, often in saltwater, they fused to the boom and were not easily removable and the resulting larger hole was not useable.

I switched to aluminum pop rivets as thier strength seems to be well in excess of the need on small boats like ours.

There does not seem to be any need or advantage to stainless pop rivets.

Am I wrong here?

Thanks

Doug Kelch M15 G" #310 "Seas the Day"