Preventers

More thinking of future sailing, up to now Lynne and I have very casually rigged an ad hoc boom preventer to avoid or ' prevent' the boom crashing across the boat when sailing down wind. On one notable occasion this meant Lynne having kittens watching me leap around on deck in horrible waves, suffice to say she wasn't happy with this display of macho bravado!

  Crossing oceans in the trade winds will require a different approach, a bit more considered taking into account that downwind sailing will be the norm rather than hammering upwind in a gale or motoring through flakey headwinds or non existent breezes. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be able to sail aboard one of the BT Challenge boats that raced around the world, 72 foot steel racing machines. They had permanently rigged preventers so I thought a bit and adapted and expounded on the original idea.

The basic theory is that it should be possible to rig a boom preventer without having to stand up at full stretch attempting to catch the end of the boom on the 'downhill'  side of the boat, a potential disaster!

A look at my very bad sketch should make some points clear.

  The basic idea is that we will have two permanently rigged lines on the boom, one port the other starboard. We also have a line on deck rigged from a block forward to somewhere adjacent to the mast. This will run back to a third winch on the port side to tension the preventer. From the base of the mast and safely secured It will be possible to attach the deck line with a bowline knot to the boom line, this will be a very strong Dyneema rope with a breaking strain of around three tons, it also being Dyneema doesn't absorb water. This is actually quite important when big swells mean you are dipping the boom in the water. All this should be safely accomplished from a secure position at the base of the mast rather than any ariel gymnastics balanced on the edge of the boat.

I think this a very important modification, so important I am going to get riggers to do the splices as I have no experience of splicing Dyneema ( this stuff is stronger than steel, as long as the splices are good ).

Apparently there are over twenty casualties a year from being struck on the head from the boom or associated tackle. As we are essentially short handed permanently we need to look after ourselves and make the whole process of rigging a preventer safe and easy. I'll post a picture when it's done!