I recently had a serious encounter with my boom during an accidental gybe. It turned out OK, but got me to thinking about how to avoid that in the future. On our recent trip to St. Clements for the Colson’s Point Blessing of the Fleet Regatta I had some time to think about how to do it. Additionally, I recently helped a friend race his Irwin 31 in the Kinsale Cup Regatta at Coles Point and saw his preventer set up. In some online forums I picked up a few suggestions as well so here are my current thoughts.
I liked Bob’s set up (Irwin 31) as it was all Garhauer gear and it worked pretty well except that when rigged his lines obstructed his side decks which was a problem. It also added a bit of complexity to his lines overall. I did get a few suggestions online including the Wichard Gyb'Easy Boom Brake, the Dutchman Boom Brake and the Walder Boom Brake. In looking at the literature I liked the Dutchman the best due to cost and the fact that it did not need “special” line like the Wichard did after a year or two (the special line loses flexibility). Plus none of the three would prevent a gybe.
So I am sitting on the boat while we motor in no wind thinking. On one forum they mentioned using your shroud connections and tying the blocks off with line. While this does not get you forward of the mast, it does get the line far enough forward and it is solid. Then I thought that it would be nice to have both lines come to the same side so it would be easy to use. On Te-Keel-La, we modified our traveler after seeing how the 309’s have both of their lines led to the port side and we did the same. This has worked out great and it presented a new possibility as the original cam cleat for the starboard line was still there as I knew some day it would come in useful.
So this is what I am thinking. I use my aft lower shroud attachments on the port and starboard side. I use my cam cleat on the starboard side of my traveler as the way to secure the traveler from the cockpit. This also puts the line in close proximity to my main sheet so the person operating that can also work the preventer. I use the existing aft bail on the boom to get the preventer as far back to the end of the boom as possible. For routing lines I need to take the port side line and run it to a single block and feed it to the starboard side and a double block so that it and the starboard side line can be fed back to the cam cleat.
Attached to this article are some pictures that show the deck layout on Te-Keel-La and a drawing that shows the entire configuration. Thoughts?
I liked Bob’s set up (Irwin 31) as it was all Garhauer gear and it worked pretty well except that when rigged his lines obstructed his side decks which was a problem. It also added a bit of complexity to his lines overall. I did get a few suggestions online including the Wichard Gyb'Easy Boom Brake, the Dutchman Boom Brake and the Walder Boom Brake. In looking at the literature I liked the Dutchman the best due to cost and the fact that it did not need “special” line like the Wichard did after a year or two (the special line loses flexibility). Plus none of the three would prevent a gybe.
So I am sitting on the boat while we motor in no wind thinking. On one forum they mentioned using your shroud connections and tying the blocks off with line. While this does not get you forward of the mast, it does get the line far enough forward and it is solid. Then I thought that it would be nice to have both lines come to the same side so it would be easy to use. On Te-Keel-La, we modified our traveler after seeing how the 309’s have both of their lines led to the port side and we did the same. This has worked out great and it presented a new possibility as the original cam cleat for the starboard line was still there as I knew some day it would come in useful.
So this is what I am thinking. I use my aft lower shroud attachments on the port and starboard side. I use my cam cleat on the starboard side of my traveler as the way to secure the traveler from the cockpit. This also puts the line in close proximity to my main sheet so the person operating that can also work the preventer. I use the existing aft bail on the boom to get the preventer as far back to the end of the boom as possible. For routing lines I need to take the port side line and run it to a single block and feed it to the starboard side and a double block so that it and the starboard side line can be fed back to the cam cleat.
Attached to this article are some pictures that show the deck layout on Te-Keel-La and a drawing that shows the entire configuration. Thoughts?
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