Rigging the Boom

[Terra Nova]

Hire a professional rigger.

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I can't tell for sure from your picture, but one can usually effect a mechanical stop to limit downward travel of the sliding gooseneck. It appears from your pic that there is a countersunk flat head screw near the end of the track. If you remove that and replace with a hex or socket head cap screw, standing proud from the track, it will stop the gooseneck from falling off. IF that screw is not in a useful position, drill and tap for a similar cap screw wherever you want the stopper to be.

Jim

+1 for Jim's suggestion!

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

Hire a professional rigger.

TN, just what in this simple query would suggest the need for a pro? Maybe I missed something, but it seems a simple problem, one where a mistake in execution won't have very bad repercussions.

Jim

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by SassySailor

I recently switched out my mainsail. As I was removing the old and tattered one, the boom fell to the end of it's track (on the mast) and at the time I had no idea what had happened. I assumed a piece of hardware came out letting it loose. This is a new boat to me and I haven't sailed it yet.

I've put the newer mainsail on and can't figure out how to keep the boom up off of my dodger. It turns out the boom must have been crusted into the spot it was in, because there is nothing allowing me to lift the boom up on it's track (on the mast). There is a shackle hanging on the boom, presumably for a line to go in to allow me to pull the boom down.

Because of the boom not being rigged, I am unable to enclose the canvas cover to protect the mainsail. I'm not entirely sure how to rig it to be able to lift the boom up so that it is not resting on my dodger and so that I can enclose the canvas sail cover.

Any suggestions? I know this probably isn't going to be as easy as getting a line and putting it onto the boom.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

TN, just what in this simple query would suggest the need for a pro?...

Because of the OP's own statements, I feel her "simple query" is an admission and plea that this is all above her pay grade; that no rig survey was done as a condition of purchase; and that, for safety's sake, she should have a pro inspect her "new" rig and advise/help her on any issues.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

Because of the OP's own statements, I feel her "simple query" is an admission and plea that this is all above her pay grade; that no rig survey was done as a condition of purchase; and that, for safety's sake, she should have a pro inspect her "new" rig and advise/help her on any issues.

OK, I see where you are coming from, but I thought that we were kinda helping guide her along the track to getting her boom back on the mast and supported properly. It is a pretty simple task, and she seems willing to give it a go. That is one way of raising one's pay grade.

If you start talking about a whole rig survey, well, that's a different problem entirely, answering an unasked question. Might be a good idea, might exceed the budget for now.

Cheers,

Jim

[UNCIVILIZED]

Odds are that at some point there was a small car with a knurled screw for tensioning, on the track down near the bottom. Just a hand adjustable track stop. Which served essentially the same purpose as the proposed screw head standing proud. Only since it slid up & down the track, & was only held in place by the friction generated by the knurled (tension by hand) screw, at some point, someone dropped said fitting, & it bounced off of the deck & down to the bottom of the harbor.

What some of the folks are trying to say about why the bottom of the boom isn't fixed in place, is that on some vessels, like say a Cal 29, there's no winch to tension the main halyard. However, there is a block hanging down from the underside of the boom. So when you hoist the main, you hoist it far enough that you actually raise the boom several inches above it's natural position/the bottom black band on the mast. Then you use the purchase via the block hanging from the boom's underside to properly tension the luff.
- So yes, to some degree it's like a Cunningham, & it's a simple, inexpensive (compared to the price of a winch) way to be able to adjust the luff tension on the main.

BTW, there's an incorrect statement about where the majority of the drive in a mainsail comes from in one of the posts above. Very little, if any drive comes from the luff & forward portion of the main, quite the contrary. As it's in the lee of the mast & gets about zero air flow, & thus lift generation until you begin to sail off of the wind.
Such is why you see full battened mains & extended roaches on cruising boats now. Well that, & you get a more efficient sail shape. Racers have been using such sails for half a century due to this efficiency.

In the '92 or '95 America's Cup, the French team went so far as to "cut" a piece out of their mainsail from right behind the spar for 50%-70% of the main's height, & use the extra sail area on the luff where it was more efficient. The cut out was maybe a foot deep, fore & aft.
By "moving" this piece of sail, the sail was still of the correctly measureable "sail area", under the rules, but in theory would gain them a tiny bit of speed.

Didn't really help them much (boat was a slug from the outset), but if you really want to dig up the math, it'll verify what I'm saying. And, while the French modification sounds gimmicky, in the America's Cup, when it was raced with keelboats, guys would go nuts looking for 0.01% of speed (or even less), as differences that small were enough to make or break some races.
The saying was & is, "All things being equal, the crew with no socks & belts wins" - due to less weight aboard the boat.

[Blue Stocking]

I'm thinking that some folks here a too young to have ever sailed a boat with wire halyards and wire winch. On these boats the mainsail was wound up to a headboard stop at the top of the track. This lifted the boom as well on the heavy slide track. The boom was then downhauled to set the luff tension, and therefore the draft, with the underside purchase. The distance from the sailtrack to the tack fitting sometimes required the luff to be cut with a curve, usually from about 6 slides up. These slides were not sewn to the sail, but were fitted with a 1" welded ring. The matching spaced luff, where the slide would normally be sewn, were instead, doubled grommeted. A length of line, called a jackline, was woven thru a grommet, thru the ring, back thru the grommet, and down to the next set, and so on. The main was set and sailed, and the jackline tensioned when closehauled to set the best shape for the sail, and then secured back on itself. When the sail is lowered, the jackline allows the boom to lower to the BOTTOM of the slide, and the sail then has enough luff slack to stack on the boom. BTW, it requires some special thought to make a stackpack type of sailcover to work, but it can be done. Mine, which I designed and had built of Sunbrella, works perfectly. Can't post photos of all this as Bluestocking is stripped after being damaged by Gonzalo.

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

...If you start talking about a whole rig survey, well, that's a different problem entirely, answering an unasked question. Might be a good idea, might exceed the budget for now...

You have to read between the lines. She knows how to r&r a mainsail (mostly) but not how to rig the boom. Lots of members here willing to give good and bad opinions. But sometimes (especially new) boat owners need professional help, whether or not they have created a budget for it. And a boat that was sold with a tattered mainsail, will likely have rigging issues. Between the OP's lack of understanding and this likelihood, she needs (at least) a rig survey, something we can't do from a distance.

[dandrews]

Thought I would pass along an image of the bottom of my downhaul track so you can see how they stopped the gooseneck from falling off the track on my Bristol 34. Same bolt arrangement at the top of the track so you don't pull the sail too high and have the goose come off the top of the track either.

Hope you get the idea.

Don