Boom height

clo126

New Member
Anyone know what the boom height should be? I just rigged it for the first time and the metal/alum stop is loose. I'm not sure if it's an exact height or just where the slack is out of the main sail.
 
I raise the mainsail all the way up the mast until it is at the very top and won't go up anymore, then I take the cunningham (downhaul?) line and pull it tight. This is done with the mailsail attached to the boom. Wherever the gooseneck is at that point is the correct place.
 
I doubt I do it right, but from my comfort position in the boat I can't easily reach the boom vang control. When I rig the boat before launching, I set the boom vang to a length that allows the boom to swing just shy of either shroud. if the vang is to tight, I can't get the boom to swing all the way out, if its to long, it whacks into the shrouds. I adjust the vang length then, when I raise the main on the water, I pull the main up until it's taut. Generally, this puts my gooseneck about an inch or so above the stop, and a few inches lower than the exit in the bolt rope track. Again, I doubt this is the proper method, but I have plenty of room to lengthen the vang, or shorten the vang as needed if I do this, also, the main halyard has room to manuever in either direction this way as well...
 
It seems that the height will vary a bit depending on your sail. You can get an idea from pictures (look at the boom kicker one) that Scott has posted in this thread:
http://www.capri14.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1620&highlight=boom+kicker

If you want the foot of the sail fairly flat and you follow some info given in the C14 handbook about setting the traveler at its max height of 28 inches, then you can figure from there. Take a look at the picts again in that thread above for how you can fix a loop in the traveler, etc.

I also took a quick look at pictures taken at the 2009 regatta -- these seem to verify that high traveler and relatively flat boom. There's a great pict in "Parker's Blog", scroll down to Sept 2008: (it is large enough, 2.5Mb, to get some really fine detail)
http://polenick.wordpress.com/
 

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