Traveler boom connection

Hi experts,
Hopefully someone here will have solved this problem before...
The previous owner had the traveller connected to the aluminium boom with just a shackle. It has worked its way through the metal enlarging the hole. I have attached it at another point that has a stainless sleeve in the hole to stop the wear. Its not an ideal angle for the traveller however. Any ideas where I'd get a sleeve and how to fit it and repair the hole? Pictures show the damaged hole and what i want to do.
Thanks

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Jode5 said..
If it is a loose foot main, you can use a webbing bridal round the boom. The will also spread the load.

+1

I like the webbing idea too after tearing the end of the boom open from the load on the hard point of the mainsheet turning block on the boom.
Or an alternate is to take your boom off and go and get your hard point spot-tacked to give it more metal. I'd then get rid of the metal shackle block in a heartbeat and replace it with a soft dyneema shackle block. No metal on metal wear and tear.
In regards to strength, the 6mm dyneema shackle that held my mainsheet to the boom did't even break when we had our little moment, the boom was actually the weakest fuse.

Buy (or make) 2 x small soft shackles (4mm will do and Marlow have very cheap ones, distribute by Harken in Oz)
Drill two holes as high as you can, in the top corners of existing plate, just big enough to pass soft shackle through.
Round hole edges.
Attach soft shackles to block shackle

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rumblefish said..
Buy (or make) 2 x small soft shackles (4mm will do and Marlow have very cheap ones, distribute by Harken in Oz)
Drill two holes as high as you can, in the top corners of existing plate, just big enough to pass soft shackle through.
Round hole edges.
Attach soft shackles to block shackle

Hey Rumblefish on the subject of soft shackles I have been trying to track down would you recommend adding them to my main sheet hoarse/bridle? And what is the breaking loads?

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2bish said..
Wow, what a mess, you really did a number on that! How did it happen Shaggy, accidental Gybe? Got any pics of your webbing setup now?

G'day 2bish,
Embarrassingly, it was on a controlled gybe in fresh winds with a tired skipper and crew. This is what happens when you get lazy and don't grind in the mainsheet to near centreline before a gybe. The traveller was ok, it was centered and locked, but there was enough free-play in the mainsheet (about 12ft at the time) for the boom to really accelerate as it came over the boat in the gybe. We don't ever sheet it all the way in as this would most likely result in a spectacular wild broach, as of course you're powering up the main the more you grind it in ! But nor can you leave that much slack without shock loads doing things like this. 100% my fault, I was tired and slacked off on my normally anal checking of everything before throwing the helm over.
It didn't help that it was blowing 30 knots, we were surfing down 2-3m swells and had just shaken out a reef so we were under full main and kite.
I'll take picks of the new boom and solution next time I'm down there!