All:
When I went out to my 1989 Mk I today, I noticed that the boom was resting on the Bimini, and the rigid boom vang was broken in two. I used the main halyard as a temporary topping lift for now.
After removing and disassembling the unit, it appears that salt-water corrosion inside the lower aluminum tube weakened it enough so that it just separated about 3 from the mast end. There was lots of aluminum oxide collected and caked inside the lower end of the broken tube. This might be something those of you with older boats might want to inspect.
Anyway, I was thinking I could replace it with a very nice rigid unit from Garhauer for about $400, or change it to a conventional (block and tackle type) boom vang, and run a topping lift from the masthead.
The only advantage I can see for a rigid vang is that you dont need a topping lift, unless, of course, you have a Dutchman, as weve discussed before. On the other hand, a conventional boom vang can be rigged as a preventer when running downwind.
Id appreciate anyone's point of view on this.
Thanks,
Bob Pignatello
Centuria, #100
Treasure Island, FL
When I went out to my 1989 Mk I today, I noticed that the boom was resting on the Bimini, and the rigid boom vang was broken in two. I used the main halyard as a temporary topping lift for now.
After removing and disassembling the unit, it appears that salt-water corrosion inside the lower aluminum tube weakened it enough so that it just separated about 3 from the mast end. There was lots of aluminum oxide collected and caked inside the lower end of the broken tube. This might be something those of you with older boats might want to inspect.
Anyway, I was thinking I could replace it with a very nice rigid unit from Garhauer for about $400, or change it to a conventional (block and tackle type) boom vang, and run a topping lift from the masthead.
The only advantage I can see for a rigid vang is that you dont need a topping lift, unless, of course, you have a Dutchman, as weve discussed before. On the other hand, a conventional boom vang can be rigged as a preventer when running downwind.
Id appreciate anyone's point of view on this.
Thanks,
Bob Pignatello
Centuria, #100
Treasure Island, FL
and it went smooth. As I recall the mast base fitting required a but of work as the mount pin was fed up from the bottom as described in a earlier posting. I cut the head off and replaced the pin with a SS bold. It did require a bushing as I recall but it was no problem making it from a piece of tubing. Not exactly a bolt in but not too bad. We may have also had to relocate the tang on the bottom of the boom but I'm away from the boat and can't check on these things now. When I get back late next week I'll look it over and post an update. We really like the Garhauer vang. The springs are enough to hold the boom up when we are furling the main. We pull it down almost to the dodger with the mainsheet, then once it's all bundled up we use the main halyard as a topping lift to get some headroom and keep it from flopping around.
