Boom Downhaul

[Roamer]

Hi, finally ready to get my boat in the water for the first sail. Bought it last fall (well used!), and have spent the time since making numerous repairs. While practicing rigging in my driveway, I found that the boom has a short length of line through a ring on the bottom of the gooseneck, but there's no obvious place to cleat it. I can tie it to the bail on the mast for the boom vang, but this doesn't seem right. Where does the boom downhaul go?

thx for your help...
George

[JimW]

Mine has a horn cleat at base of mast:

mast.jpg (136.32KiB)Viewed 22547 times

[Roamer]

Aha!! So I am missing a piece of hardware... I'll see about getting one. Fits in sail track like a sail stop?

Thx, George

[JimW]

Yes, I think it fits in the track--must be a couple nuts in the track (I don't have boat nearby at the moment, but that's my recollection).

I think it looks like PN "MCleet" here: http://www.sjsailboats.com/parts.php.

[kuriti]

I never had a cleat and only used the boom vang until i made a bridge for re-routing lines into the cockpit. Now i run it through a block at the mast organizer to a cam cleat on my aluminum bridge. you can see the bridge and mast organizer below to get the idea, but the mast and downhall are not present:

[Roamer]

I've ordered a cleat from Stephen at sjsailboats.com, and while puzzling over this little rigging problem, another question popped into my mind. Why do we need a 3/8" double braid dacron line for the main halyard, and then oppose that force pulling up with a little 3/16" single braid downhaul? If 3/16" line is strong enough for the downhaul, why have the more expensive and heavier halyard? This all seems even more odd when you look at the strength and lack of stretch in materials like Dyneema. Does anyone have an idea about the maximum pull you should put on the mainsail luff boltrope without damaging the sail?

[kuriti]

I would guess the main reason is your hands. Putting a lot of force on a 3/16 line hurts. Also, just more life in the line as it wears.

[Roamer]

Just to close out this thread, I bought a cleat from sjsailboats.com that mounts in the groove of the mast, and it works great! Thanks to everyone for their advice.