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WOW DAVE!
You've created a fantastic boom part.
The engineering is brilliant and the craftsmanship exquisite.
This is a major upgrade to a HPL boom. The improvement
to rig control and handling is immediately apparent.
The lateral boom deflection is greatly reduced. The
boom to mast connection is really tight without excessive
compression on the mast.
The retrofit took 15 minutes, 3/4
of which was removing the stock HPL boom head. My only
comment for improvement at this stage is that the recesses
in the casting for the nuts could be smaller (or the
nut larger) so that the nut does not fall out when the
cap screw is removed. There is enough space around the
nut within the recess that the nut is almost free to
turn. Minor point, but I did have to crawl around looking
for a couple of the nuts after they fell out.
The webbing strap adjustment was a
bit fiddley the first time, but it doesn't appear that
it will have to be adjusted again now that it is set
to the right length. Nice webbing by the way. Does the
webbing have a rubberize coating to it?
I sailed yesterday for 3 hours with
an 11.0 m2 sail, purposely over-powered in 20 plus wind
conditions, to check out the stiffness of the boom to
mast connection. The rig felt great. I switched off
to a stock boom to compare the rig stiffness and handling.
The difference isn't subtle. The stock boom head flexes
enough that to affect rig control - I felt more overpowered
on the stock HPL boom. Switching back to the boom with
your head piece confirmed this. A stiff boom to mast
connection improves rig control when over powered.
This is a great boom head Dave. Well
done! By the way, by what name are you calling this
part? Are you in production of these yet? Have you figured
out a price yet? I would like to order 12 more boom
heads to retrofit the rest of my booms and those of
Dale Cook, my sail test partner. I'm not looking for
freebies, I'll write you a check for them today.
Fair winds,
Bruce Peterson
Sailworks R+D
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