BOOM BRAKE

Boat handling, ideas, questions...
Mike Holibar
Posts: 174
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:41 am

Re: BOOM BRAKE

Post by Mike Holibar »

Hi Brian, great to hear from you and to hear about Paradox. You covered a lot of ground in your post and I will respond when I have a bit more time. Your engine temp is a concern though, it should be no more than 90. I would suggest a quick visual check of the raw water discharge at the exhaust, and if it looks like a reasonable flow, check thermostat, then heat exchanger tubes. Something must be disrupting the flow of either FW or Sw somewhere. The other possibility/concern may be propeller pitch. The M50 develops its full power at 3000 rpm and the prop should be pitched to allow this to happen. For us this gives cruising revs of 2000 -2500 -5.5-7.0 knots depending on conditions. If she was seriously overpitched (say) limiting revs to 2000 rpm max, then the engine will be seriously overloaded as you approach those rpm and might overheat. Typically their would be quite a bit of black smoke too. With the Maxi-prop that could well be fixed by taking off a bit of pitch.
BTW I used to live in Shoreham (Old Fort Road) in the 1960s. Do you reach your berth through the Adur river mouth and the locks at the Brighton end? As I recall the tides were 24 feet and you could only come and go on the high tide. I will be in touch soon. Kind regards,
Mike Holibar
S/V Fyne Spirit of Plymouth (Freedom 39PHS-1989)
Lyttelton
New Zealand

AlanK
Posts: 127
Joined: Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:59 pm
Location: Freedom 33 Boston, MA USA

Re: BOOM BRAKE

Post by AlanK »

I have now used my boombrake on my F-33 mizzen on a roundtrip to Bermuda from Boston. We had some heavy weather and a few jibes (intentional and otherwise). I'm extremely happy with it. It also keeps the mizzen still when not in use. It took a bit of adjustment to get the line tension and the adjustment knob properly tensioned and to learn when to adjust for conditions and to use as a preventer if desired but after the learning curve its great.
On the F-33 its very unobtrusive including the lines.

gcantori
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:17 am

Re: BOOM BRAKE

Post by gcantori »

Finally installed two dutchman boom brakes on my F39PH schooner after two schooner races downwind where we had two too many accidental jibes in 30+ knots. They work like a charm after some experimentation in where to attach to the toerail. Both brakes are right behind the ridgid boom vang attachment (about 1/3 along the booms) on a boom bail that is thru bolted. The tension is adjusted by block and tackle along each side deck over by the aft cleats so I can easily adjust from the helm.

DaysailorJ
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 4:42 pm
Location: Stonington, CT

Re: BOOM BRAKE

Post by DaysailorJ »

I have decided to sell my Dutchman boom brake, if anyone is interested. It is the BB750, which is the largest size, for use with a rigid vang. I like the design, but could never seem to get it rigged to my satisfaction on my F40/40. In order to get the optimum angle from the boom to the rails, and avoid chafing the mainsheet, I had to drop one of the bails from the mainsheet tackle, which redistributed the load on the boom.

If any one of you thinks you could use this on your rig, I will let it go for the best offer in the upper $300 range, and throw in some some good new (red) 1/2" line to rig it.

John

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