Where To Install A Preventer On The Boom

Where to Put a Preventer On Your Boom.

On this episode of Ask Precision Sails Matt, from MJ Sailing (One of our YouTube Partners) discusses where a preventer should be installed along the boom.

First Of All, What Is A Boom Preventer?

A boom preventer is a rigging system which prevents the booms ability to move past the cockpit when any accidental jibing or tacking action occurs. It works by restricting the range that your boom can swing.

This is important to help prevent damage to your vessel, or harm to your crew. You don’t want your boom swinging back and forth from an unexpected gust of wind taking off your crew mates heads and knocking them overboard!

A boom preventer mechanism is typically more important for downwind sailing because of the smaller differences in true wind to apparent wind speeds. An unexpected change in wind speed or direction, without a boom preventer, can allow the boom to quickly move from side to side in a violent matter.

Boom preventers can also be useful for “set it and forget it” sailors or ones that are doing long voyages with not as many tacking/jibing maneuvers.

Where Should I Rig My Boom Preventer?

Many sailors install their Boom preventer at the mid point of their Boom. This can create an “hard spot” midway along the boom and a lever arm after, this isn’t as efficient when transferring the forces into the boom preventer. A better position is to attach the boom preventer to the end of your boom. This puts all those jibing and tacking forces onto the preventer and doesn’t distribute the force back along the boom. While each sailor has a unique approach, Matt and Jessica pull from their experience from sailing offshore and recommend this method of installation.

If you have other questions email us at info@precisionsailloft.com or call us at 1-888-958-5638!