How many booms is enough?

Hi,

After getting back into the sport 3 years ago and vowing to keep things simple i now seem to have 3 sails, 3 masts to match (+ extensions) but only one boom I share between the 3.

Do you have a dedicated boom for each rig or one good boom to go with you kit. Should i put my cash into buying one good carbon fiberboom or add a couple of good aluminium ones to the mix?

Cheers Chris

It depends upon the purpose of the boom with respect to profile and material. I have 3 booms to suit sails from 4.5-8.5. My biggest boom is carbon, middle is hybrid, both to suit slalom sails and are fitted with adjustable outhaul. Smallest boom is just alloy with no adjustable outhaul to fit wave sails. I try to keep booms with shortest possible extension to suit at least 2 sails and it is a minimum of stuffing around with harness line positions per boom.

Provided all of your sails are similar type and you dont have heaps of extension then 1 boom is fine. IMO you are better off getting a good alloy boom then replacing it at least every 2 years than having several booms and trying to get a longer life- corrosion still occurs if you aren't using the boom. As for carbon, alot of guys here are using carbon now and I can't say they are lasting any longer than alloy, they have their own reasons for failure. But yes if you are using either big sails or looking for that last x% of performance then go carbon.

think it's a good idea to have a back up of your most common stuff in Case you break something.

So 2 booms one good one cheap

and then 2 masts, 2 extensions, and 2 sails if your most used size

ive only got 6 windsurfer booms( 10 sails ) all trashed. by next year i hope to build a completely carbon fibre mini landyacht fron broken stuff just need a couple more broken masts
so get out there and sail hard, in fact do it tommorrow