I currently have a soft vang. Am getting ready to install a boom kicker to replace the topping lift. Is is possible to leave the vang? Is there any advantage to doing so?
Vang & Kicker
- Thread starter wufibugs
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The boomkicker will tend to push the boom up putting twist into your sail. You'll want to use your vang to counteract this a bit in order to get the correct amount of twist in your sail for the conditions you're sailing in. For this reason you'll want to keep your vang.
The other alternative to the boomkicker is a rigid vang.
The other alternative to the boomkicker is a rigid vang.
Thanks, Ross. That was my thought. The kicker was a swap meet find. Any thought of a rigid vang would require adding a food taster to the crew. My wife is using parental controls to block my access to the Garhower catelog.
Seems to me its a matter of two equations:
To describe the physical aspect:
Boom Kicker + Existing Traditional Vang = Virtually Rigid Vang Performance
To account for the your partner's influence over the $'s aspect:
Low Cost Flea Market Boom Kicker + Zero Cost Existing Vang = Continued Family Harmony
And maybe you will be able to use the topping lift line for something else!
To describe the physical aspect:
Boom Kicker + Existing Traditional Vang = Virtually Rigid Vang Performance
To account for the your partner's influence over the $'s aspect:
Low Cost Flea Market Boom Kicker + Zero Cost Existing Vang = Continued Family Harmony
And maybe you will be able to use the topping lift line for something else!
The boomkicker won't work without the vang... so, uh... don't remove it. But hey, the device will come with instructions. Have you actually looked at an installed boomkicker? http://www.mauriprosailing.com/us/category/2-Boomkicker.html
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Many of those that have installed a kicker love them. I put one on one boat and was disappointed. With the mainsail down and motoring the boom bounces around with every wake or wave you go over unless you keep the topping lift on and tighten up the mainsheet. Also without a topping lift and just a kicker the boom goes down easily if you lean on it while putting on the sail cover, or using the boom as a handhold when coming back into the cockpit after going forward.
Just my experiences with it, Bob
Just my experiences with it, Bob
I don't see how this is the kicker's fault. This will happen with ANY type of rigid boom support of you do not have the boom end secured up and down. The simple trick is to dump the topping lift and run your halyard to the boom end. Snug the halyeard and mainsheet and you are sorted.
I'm assuming that they are like tale-tells. I would use them, as I usually keep a couple on the lower shrouds. It sure beats trying to see that wretched windex on the top of the mast. If I'm not "pinching", they're really all that I need.
I got curious too. So went to the boomkicker.com site ...in which they have a navigation link to a normal sail telltale product. Pic is the same as on the mauriprosailing link. So nothing more than that (telltales) but marketed within the boomkicker brandname.
I don't agree with you, any other boat I have been on with a "rigid" boom vang the end of the boom did not bounce up and down 12" when going over a small wake. They seem to use an air piston that may be dampened.
The boom kicker held up the boom fine with the sail up, but once the sail came down it only required a couple more pounds to cause the boom to drop a fair bit. Any kind of small chop on the water and the boom was going into a 12" oscillation between the top of the bimini and the end of the vang.
It would not have been easy to remove the halyard and attach it to the end of the boom as I would have had to collapse the bimini to reach the end of the boom. Also I like to keep the sail ready to deploy when coming back in case the motor should stall. (Something my sailing instructor drilled into my head.)
After trying the boom kicker I put the the topping lift back on. I felt I had spent the money needlessly on the boom kicker and wished someone had pointed out these issues to me before I bought one. On my next boat I found some shock cord between two loops in the topping lift worked better and at almost no cost.
As I said in my original post, many people have boom kickers and like them, I had one and didn't.
Bob
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