I don’t have your boat (I have an O’Day 322). My boat had a rope vang, a Traveller, Mainsheet and a topping lift.
I was interested in a rigid vang of some sort, but didn’t want to purchase a new one if I could help it.
I looked at a device that uses 2 fiberglass rods positioned from the base of the mast to a point on the boom, but it isn’t really telescoping. I had one of these on my Hunter 280 many years ago…cheap, but not exactly what I wanted.
Garhauer makes a rigid vang that is ”reasonably” priced, and Seldon makes one that it quite expensive.
You need to know a few things to fit the vang properly…
- do you have room at the base of the mast to mount the lower bracket?
- do you have space to mount the boom bracket and not interfere with other hardware?
- you need a measurement between the base of the mast and the location on the boom where you want to attach the vang. They don’t need to be too precise, as the boom bracket can be slid forward or aft as needed, as long as you have the free space.
- how much does your boom weigh…? Not specifically, but these things have some sort of spring to keep it rigid. In the case of Seldon, it is a gas-charged strut. You need to order it with the right newton of force.
In my case, I found a used Seldon rigid vang from a fellow SBO member, but the gas strut was shot. I was able to order a new strut for it, and rebuild vang.
It wasn’t ordered for my boat specifically, but I knew it came off a similarly sized boat. I did upgrade the spring from the original strength to a stronger spring. I was able to make small adjustments to my mainsheet tackle to get the rigid vang in place.
Greg