Our Selden boom is about 20 feet long. I made up two 3/8″ Dyneema preventer lines that attached to the rear of the boom. I hadn’t engineered the method of stowage while not in use at/near the mast, but I had seen some cruisers using various bungees. My biggest concern was minimizing sag while in stowage mode and simplicity/reliability when needing to deploy the preventer.
My friend installed a system using Tylaska snap shackles aboard his Morris 36 “Aurora” which I liked. So I picked up a couple of them for about $25 each.
I purchased 10mm marine bungee/shockcord and hogs then wrapped them around the forward part of the boom. I effectively eye-spliced the 10mm bungee around the boom and around the snap shackle and used 12mm and 19mm shrink tubing to seal up the connections and to give a clean and waterproof seal.
When we are not sailing, it is easy to remove the Dyneema lines and tuck the preventer stowage snapshackle systems into the flake of the mainsail to prevent UV damage.
I added brass strips to the stern toe rail to add some protection when entering or exiting from the transom area. The boat came with several of these brass strips in the bilge as “spares”. I made up a jig with plywood to help form the slight curve that I would need the brass strips to take. Then I used a propane torch to heat up the brass strips to make the curve formation easier. I screwed down the hot strips to the wood jig and let them cool down. After a few hours or longer, I pulled them off the jig and they were ready to install.
I think they turned out pretty nice and look original to the boat. You don’t think of it when you are sailing, but when you are trying to move items onto the boat during the Winter from a ladder, you end up setting boxes and things on the toerail and then sliding them across. This should protect the toerail from that type of situation.
Lastly, I finally made use of the Ultra Marine anchor retaining hook and eye-spliced a 3-strand rope. Previously, I only had one retaining mechanism which was to tie a line around the anchor and to the pulpit. This hook provides a secondary method to retain the anchor. I enjoy doing eyesplices and simple weaves. I wrap the bitter end of the new retaining hook system to my capstain and winch it tight.
Now we are ready for our big Labor Day trip!
The Loxodograph 