VIDEO – Safe gybing with boom brake

Safe gybing with boom braking is the theme of the new video-episode of SAIL School. We had already seen in the article explaining how to rig a boom restraint, how to avoid an invontariable stramabta. Today’s video, illustrates the operation of the boom brake, which is a tool for slowing down the boom’s change of tack, in an unintentional downswing.

The safe gybe with the boom brake

Boom brakes are metal components in which a line runs, with friction (in Walder’s case, the line is coiled along a drum). Tensioning the sheet increases the friction and thus the braking force of the device. The base of the moorings are often used as the anchor point, and the brake is attached to the center of the boom.

The boom brake unlike the restraint, does not constrain the boom, but slows its swing. The kinetic energy of the boom is dissipated into heat, through the friction of the lines passing through the brake. One is thus able to achieve safe weaving with the boom brake.

The disasters of an unintentional jibe

It is good to remember that on a cruising boat, the forces involved in a weir (uncontrolled stern turn) have catastrophic consequences. The boom passing uncontrollably from one tack to another can cause the following damage:

• Injuring (or killing by trauma) or dropping overboard, anyone in the path of the boom during the gybe.
• Damaging or tearing the sheet blocks, mainsail carriages, vang piston
• Striking the shrouds or having such violence as to cause dismasting
• Unbalancing the boat’s buoyancy causing a subsequent strake, a second stramabata.

The correct maneuver for not jibing:

Correct maneuvering on cruising sailboats to tack aft correctly and not gybe involves:

1. Slack gait. Ready to Jibe!
2. All crew in cockpit with head well below boom height
3. The mainsail driver brings the mainsail to the Center
4. VIRO. The helmsman calls the Stern Turn and slowly leans toward grenlasco, stern.
5. Jib passes, the jib passes on the new tack and consequently the jib sheets.
6. Pass mainsail, the mainsail, center-tied, passes over the new tack.
7. Slack on the new walls, the helmsman finishes the maneuver and holds the big slack.
8. Mainsail luff: the mainsail is set by slowly leaving the rando sheet.

The boom brake, Walder shown in the video, is distributed in Italy by FBYachting

18th video episode of SAIL School

Today’s video, as well as all previous episodes of SAIL School, are available on the SAIL Newspaper youtube channel there are both beginners and experts!