Boom height?

[Cornishmuttley]

I am nearly ready to put my greatly refurbished but so far untried Atlantic 28 (Macwester 27) onto its floating buoy. But I have a dilemma. How high should the boom be? I am told to pull up the mainsail and when it stops - that's the right height for the boom. Is it a problem? well it does come very close to the top of the spray hood but otherwise just looks a bit low. All advice greatfully accepted. Meanwhile I'll be in the lounge.

 

[sailorman]

is the boom gooseneck attached to an adjustable track

 

[eastcoastbernie]

Surely the height of your boom will be governed by the cut of your sail? If you have a big mainsail your boom will finish up lower than on an identical boat with a smaller mainsail. Your sailmaker and/or sprayhood maker should be aware of the height of the sprayhood/cut of the sail. That's to say, a sprayhood maker should find out how low the boom will be when the sail is cranked in hard on a beat and make the sprayhood no taller than the space left between the coachroof and the boom.

I don't have a sprayhood simply because there is so little space between the boom and the coachroof when beating that there would be so little sprayhood it wouldn't be worth the expense.

 

[Cornishmuttley]

It runs in the same groove as the mainsail and has a wingnut type tightener.

 

[geoffatstanpit]

My hood would foul the boom with the sail up and topping lift off. But if I sailed with the hood up I wouldn't be able to see where I was going! The hood is to keep the rain out of the companionway when moored!

 

[William_H]

It seems like you have an adjustable gooseneck. What you do then is haul the mainsail up the track with the gooseneck in it's highest position. You should have room above the head of the sail for it to go up even further.
This can be confirmed by disconnecting the tack of the mainsail at the gooseneck so that there is nothing stopping the mainsail going up further.
Assuming you have enough mast track then the sail connected to the gooseneck can be set with the gooseneck at a suitable height to clear the spray hood.
You need to have room at the top for further raising of the mainsail so that in a strong wind you can pull the luff to stretch it tight.
Adjustable gooseneck is often used so that again in a blow you can pull the gooseneck down to stretch the sail luff so flattening the sail. There may bea small tackle provided to do this. This does the same as a Cunningham eye.

If you run out of space between the top of the sail and the mast head sheave you can sometimes get a bit more hoist room by modifying the halyard attachment. ie removal of shackle etc.

I have a wire halyard and ran out of space when I got a new mainsail. I devised a system where the thimble eye on the end of the halyard is bolted to the side of the head board of the mainsail. I made a small ss bracket that hangs on the wire itself above the swage to balance the pull. This gave me about 50mm more room than with a simple shackle on the wire end.

good luck with the new boat olewill