Boom Brake

We have been trying to rig a preventer and or boom brake on vs Honey Ryder for some time with varying degrees of success.  A preventer keeps the boom from doing an accidental jibe - which is a very bad thing/very dangerous/can kill someone/de-rig a boat!  We find that even on a good point of sail, ocean swell can cause the boat to roll enough to potentially have an accidental jibe.  Therefore we always rig a preventer.  Generally Tom goes out on deck and ties a line from the boom to the toe rail forward.  This works great until you want to tack and go a different direction.  We needed a better system.

For the passage down to the Caribbean, we used a line off the end of the boom rigged on both sides, the idea being that we wouldn't need to leave the cockpit.  It worked....ok but still needed improvement.  Additionally it chaffed on the brand new dodger - argh.

We then started seriously talking about a boom brake.  There is one on the market and we looked at it in a chandlery in St Martin.  It's really beef, which isn't a bad thing but the cost was beefy as well!  Cha-ching Cha-ching!

Then Tom got to thinking.....ours doesn't have to be that beefy.

Who else uses something like this?  Bing!  Mountain climbers.  Baxter on Sv Terrapin has done some climbing in his day to put it mildly.   He and Tom talked through the concept.  Tom ordered a Super 8's from REI and our friend Michelle brought it down when she visited us in St Martin.  The price was so reasonable that Tom decided to order two.  Take the word marine out of a product and watch the price fall to something reasonable. 

We are still testing and tweaking.  Remind me down the line and I will try to report back how it is working.