Subscribe
Notify of
13 Comments
Oldest
Newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Alastair Currie

I have seen a similar idea but the shape fabricated from tube along the boom.

George L

see comment above.

I wouldn’t use stainless.

Concerning injury, not sure it matters much what part of the boom hits you – the consequences are horrid no matter what – whether your neck gets broken by the boom, or the brain gets banged up makes very little difference – the outcome is the same

George L

Hi John,

I guess it depends on the circumstances. We ended up setting the boom well above head height for that reason.

However if you consider the striking surface of the boom in the picture at the very top, I don’t think it is any different from that of a 25 or 30 mm pipe. So, if blunting the blow is the objective, perhaps neither should be used and we should stick to the regular shape.

Svein Hellesø

In addition to the advantages in controlling the sail on top of the boom, there might also been an aerodynamic advantage in that the wider boom acts as an end plate for the main sail reducing pressure spill over from the windward side.

Apparently very important in some cases (Americas Cup etc. where the deck acts as a big endplate), but for a cruising boat maybe mostly a small added bonus.

George L

Hi John

we priced this out in aluminium, it was more than the boom itself and I was not enamored by the look (though you can sleep up there when its really hot and the sail isn’t up. Also it reduces how far you can let out the sheet before the boom hits the shroud

Our solution was to have three bars each on the boom spaced so none would hit the shroud. These are kind of three dimensional – with a support in the center, so nothing will bend. Good old triangles …

The lazyjacks go to the outside of the bars.

Same benefits, cheaper, lighter, no problems.

George L

you can do much more, shapewise, with carbon than with aluminium (which was the option we considered – Sparcraft France) and they look quite good on large yachts, IMO. We didn’t bother carbon for the boom because the weight penalty of an alu boom is much less than that of an alu mast.

point taken.

concerning ugliness etc. we decided this on the basis of drawings and it looked ok to us – ugly did not come to mind, but that’s in the eyes of the beholder. to us the benefits were bigger, light weight and doing the job. I commented concerning the danger above, but we may agree to disagree on that one.