{"id":1907,"date":"2025-06-10T22:55:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T22:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?p=1907"},"modified":"2025-06-11T00:48:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T00:48:50","slug":"boom-repaired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/10\/boom-repaired\/","title":{"rendered":"Boom Repaired"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was horrified during my passage from Tahiti to Tonga that the plate that holds the gooseneck onto the boom was missing a screw (it had stripped out) and two if the remaining three screws were very loose. Furthermore, the gooseneck itself was missing a screw, but there was nothing I could do about it while at sea because the screw had a nut on the inside of the boom that had fallen off. The outcome could have been catastrophic had the plate broken free. I tightened the loose screws and monitored the situation for the remainder of the passage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have been in Tonga several days now and have managed to find the parts to fix the boom. I started by swinging the boom to the starboard and lashing it so it was not over the solar panels. I then lashed the mainsail to itself (not the boom), released the clew and the tack, and lifted it out of the way (up the track), before lashing it to the mast (to reduce the windage). I unbuckled the bottom of the stack pack and folded the port side up so I could see what I was doing. I secured the topping lift so the far end of the boom was about level and released the pneumatic boom vang. I tied a line about two-thirds down the boom, ran it through a block I had attached to the deck and back to a winch (so I could keep the boom from swinging forward). I ran the spinnaker halyard around and attached it to a loop that was near where the boom vane attaches so I could lift\/lower the near end of the boom. At that point I removed the remaining three screws on the side of the boom and used the winch to separate the boom from the gooseneck plate.
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Once inside I discovered my plan to put a threaded rod through the hole that was stripped was not going to work because there is a tube welded inside for the gooseneck that is in the way. However, I decided to tap the stripped hole to 10 mm. I did not have a 10 mm tap and I didn\u2019t want to spend the $150 to by a set, so I took the 10 mm 316 stainless rod and fashioned a tap, which wouldn\u2019t work for hardened steel but was just fine for aluminum. The thread is not complete because of the rounding of the hole when it was stripped, but I believe there is enough thread to hold. All of the 5\/16\u201d screws were replaced with 5\/16\u201d bolts with lock washers, except for the stripped, which was replaced with a 10 mm bolt and lock washer. Before I put everything back together, I searched for a 7\/16\u201d bolt (I have a 7\/26\u201d tap), but could not find one. I have 1\/2\u201d bolts and taps, but did not want to remove that much material from the boom. I had to be careful tightening down the bolts because there is not much aluminum in the female thread. In fact, when putting in the second bolt in on the port side, the same side as the stripped thread, I found it too was stripped. I tried putting in a 10 mm bolt, but it did not feel secure, so I put a 10 mm rod through the boom and used nuts to secure it. That certainly is not going to fail.
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Putting the boom back on the gooseneck was a challenge because of the weight and forces involved and the fact the alignment had to be perfect to pass the pin through it. I ended up using the windlass capstan to drag the boom forward to align the holes. I could tell by the forces on the rope I was using that I could never have done it by hand. The rest of the job was easy, just putting everything back together. What I find during jobs like this is you take one step forward and two steps back. I discovered a zipper on the sail pack needs to be sewn and I saw one screw was missing, one had the head broken off and several others were loose or stripped on the boom vang. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was horrified during my passage from Tahiti to Tonga that the plate that holds the gooseneck onto the boom was missing a screw (it had stripped out) and two if the remaining three screws were very loose. Furthermore, the gooseneck itself was missing a screw, but there was nothing I could do about it … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Boom Repaired”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-timeline-of-aegir-ran"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1913,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions\/1913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}