I have a Forespar Ultra spinnaker pole that the previous owner had always stowed on the mast. Forespar recommends while cruising to not stow on the mast because of windage and weight and resistance during a knockdown. I believe they recommend against stowing on stantions.

Our boat came with a spinnaker pole mounted on the cap rail.  One chock was on the top of the cap rail and the other on the bow sprite platform, similar to Jays.  It was a real pain to deploy when on the ocean, especially in rough conditions.  Before we went cruising we replaced it with a line control whisker pole mounted on a mast car on the mast.  Line control whisker poles are fine for Genoas, drifters and asymmetrical spinnakers, but not symmetrical spinnakers. This is much easier to deploy. I've talked to Forespar about their advice and it makes some sense for a spinnaker pole which is slightly larger and heavier than a whisker pole, but  disagree for a whisker pole especially when cruising.  It's much easier to deploy from the mast, an important matter when there's only two, sometimes one on deck. It is a little cumbersome to lay on the sail cover but we manage without having made any alteration to it. We like off wind sailing or running with a sail poled out and do it as often as we can.

We've never been in any serious weather nor do we intend to be.  We have seen 50 knts twice and numerous sustained 30 knts. with gusts to 40, mostly on the Bajha Bash. Short of a hurricane I can think of nothing that would make me take down our pole.  Actually the boat sat out a hurricane on the hard in Guayamus, Mexico which saw 85 knts.  We had stripped everything but the pole and were back in the states when it happened.