Boom Vang Question

[Hydro Therapy]

I purchased a boom vang that uses 5/16 rope and has a 992 lb capacity. The main reason I bought it was to use with a gin pole to raise and lower the mast. My concern is that the C clamps have a very small and have a very thin threaded pin.

I have a 22 Oday. Will the boom vang do the job with the mast or should I be concerned.

Thanks,

Mark

 

[centerline]

if your using a gin pole of at least 6ft long, you should have no worries. the vang is strong, and with a 6ft gin pole, you may encounter an initial pull of about 300-350 lbs to start the mast up. as the mast becomes more verticle, the load will lessen....
I dont know what size shackles you have, but a 1/4 inch screw pin shackle would be the minimum size that you would want to use....

if you have any doubts, hook it all up and hoist the mast a foot and then inspect it all.... if it looks good, you could push down on the mast a bit to proof test the loading.... and then re-inspect. Im sure you will be fine....

make sure the connection point at the stem of the boat is good and solid, and if you use the bow horn cleat to anchor to, go thru the center eye rather than just hooked over the horn. as when the mast is nearly verticle, there will be hardly any tension on the vang tackle and it could very easily be accidentally shaken off the horn, letting the mast free to do what ever it wants to....

 

[Allan12210]

A 1/4 inch pin will fail in shear with around 7500 pounds applied to it. The shackles will be less but still above the load I think it will be exposed to. The line is already dividing the load by 4 so its not going to break under a few thousand pounds of load either.

More important is what Centerline suggests..keep it attached and under control.

 

[Joe11688]

I think it will work for you but 5/16" braid is going to be a little hard on your hands. My boom vange has 55' of 3/8" braid line on it.

 

[Hydro Therapy]

Thanks for the responses.

 

[dscribner]

The vang is 4:1. How much will you be required to pull? X 4 is the load on the vang. I'll bet that you don't exceed 400 lbs, just as Centerline said. I step the mast on my 25 footer every time we sail. I use a 4:1 block and tackle on a 7' gin pole. My mast is significantly heavier that yours and I pull about 100 lbs initially. If your vang has a working load limit of 992 lbs, intelligent engineers use about a 40% safety factor. You're good. I attached a dedicated line to the top of my mast, just for stepping so I wasn't messing around with my halyards.

 

[Hydro Therapy]

You guys were right. I raised the mast today with the Boom Vang. No problem. I didn't use a Gin pole. Instead I made a hinged rig that attaches to aft end of the boat. It holds the mast up off of the back between 8 and 9 feet. I then used the vang to raise the mast the rest of the way. This allows me to stand on the cabin hatch to use my shoulder to guide the mast. This was the first time I raised the mast and the setup allowed me to do it solo. I will take a pick of the setup and upload it.

 

[soldier1964]

good to hear it worked for you Spooled Again. I look forward to your pics since I raise mine solo also. the oday 20 was pretty easy by myself, but now I have a larger boat and was looking for options to do it solo still.

 

[HillbillyWanderer]

Not sure if you have anything to keep the mast from swaying from side to side should you have to move to untangle lines and such. I have a gin pole for my cat 22 with wench on it. works great but have problems with mast swaying sometimes. Several different ways to fix this. Just haven't found one suits me yet. Again, not sure you have this problem but if your lines hang up or something else happens and you need to let go of the mast will it stay in place?

 

[Hydro Therapy]

I'm sure if a decent side wind was blowing the mast would sway without me holding it. It was calm the other day plus nothing got tangled so I didn't need to let go of the mast.

I made a collar out of wood. The intent was to run baby stays to the collar. Apparently wood was a poor choice. The collar broke when I tightened it to the mast. That was when I raised the mast. It went up so easily I don't think I need the collar.

 

[Joe11688]

If your O'Day 22 doesn't have a roller furler connected to the mast, you can get away with just a single sheave block mounted on the bow stem chain plate with about 60'x 3/8" three strand nylon line running through it with one end connected to your Jib halyard.
Hoist the halyard shackle to the top and cleat the halyard off on the mast.

Your mast crutch only has to be high enough for you to reach up and lift the mast out of the crutch while straddling the cockpit seats, provided that the mast has enough clearance with the top of the cabin. I would install a roller in the crutch.

Then all you would need to do is lift the mast by hand while standing on the closed companionway hatch while holding the 3/8" line. The line really won't play a part in the mast raising procedure until the mast is about 3/4 of the way up. After that, it can be used to hold the mast up temporarily until you connect the forestay.
Regardless of how you raise your mast though, you should make sure the boat is level and have the wind coming directly from the stern.

 

[Hydro Therapy]

I added this pic for Soldier1964. It's a pic of my mast crutch with a rollered extension added. That set up alone with the boom vang makes for easy raising and lowering of the mast.