Stabilizing boom in light winds and rougher water

[zemurray]

I’m curious as to what others do for handling shock loads on the hardware when you have winds that are light, but in a bit of a chop like you get offshore a bit, boat is moving around and causing the boom to slap around a bit.

I would think an easy solution would be a quick preventer looped around the boom or tied on the main sheet bail, to a block and back to the cockpit cleated off. Seems like there are a lot of people who recommend not running simple preventers for various reasons, however I’m referencing just the light air use case.

I’ve looked into the various boom brake solutions as well, although that might be a bit of overkill for this scenario.

All previous searches I’ve made on the topic have a wide variety of opinions from one extreme to another. Seems like the cruising crowd might have a better handle on realistic solutions that are simple and cost affective.

[tkeithlu]

When I sailed 40' sloops, a long time ago, I did exactly that. The downhaul keeps it from taking flight and breaking battens, but a light preventer protects your head.

[a64pilot]

Before I installed the boom brake I would use a ratchet strap attached to the boom and traveller to stop the boom from jerking around, mostly used for motoring of course, but would work for light winds that had me pretty much going nowhere.