Boom straightening, the easy way.

[shorefun]

The 1996 Sunfish came with 2 bent booms and a bent mast.

I just took the sail off the booms and looked close at the booms. After trying a few different things, I found the hitch arms on the front of my Harbor Freight trailer would work fine.

The trick to straightening the booms or many things is to do a little over a long distance and repeat.
So I sight down the tube and figure out the bend point and make it go down. I estimate the distance between the arms and bend little over a couple of feet and repeat. I took like ten passes to get the one fairly bent boom straight.

I will need to sew 2 rips in the sail, patch a minor hole, get rid of a lot of silicon sealant then put all over the splash guard and buff the crap out of it for next spring.

First I need to do some repairs on the other sunfish.

 

[L&VW]

I had occasion to repair a sail with zig-zag stitching. First, I covered the rip with sail tape, then stitched over the repair. The needle tended to gum-up, but with a spritz of WD-40, it cleaned up and went well. (Also spritzed the thread in the tensioner—no more thread-breaks).

When you go to paint, you'll find where the silicone was placed!

To straighten spars, I'll use a pair of trees that has a common base/trunk. 'Never had to straighten a mast, but I did have a mast that needed assembly!

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