Severne Chocolate

I've been persevering with ally booms for a while now and they keep snapping off at the clamp end. The thought of spending over a grand on a carbon boom horrified me for a long time but even my senior moment maths could see that the so called cost savings of ally booms wasn't adding up as they were breaking way to often. And in addition I hate being off the water due to broken gear as it is inevitably windy while waiting for new gear to arrive.

The main problem with ally booms as I see it is the move to 28 mm tubing, especially at the mast clamp end. This slight reduction in size makes a big difference to the strength of the boom. Personally I don't think 28 mm tube is a good idea on ally booms. Neil Pryde booms attack this problem by expanding the tube diameter at the clamp end which helps but I have still managed to break a couple at the clamp end.

So I said to myself it's time to bite the bullet and just get some decent booms so I lashed out on a Severne enigma 210-260 and a Pryde X9 220-160. I Think it is very possibly the best money I have ever spent on gear. I felt a bit of an idiot actually as it never really dawned on me what a vital part of the rig the boom is. I can now sail a bit over powered without fear of breakage and I can rip into it when I get a gust instead of sheeting out and then bringing it back on slowly. The whole rig is just better and I can generate more power than is possible with an ally boom.

Sell your family members, sell your body, kill who you need to just get a carbon boom you won't regret it. They are worth every penny.

On the subject of Severne booms, I am very, very happy with the enigma I bought. It's a beautiful masterpiece of engineering and I love everything about it. The Pryde X9's are really nice and I like them a lot but the enigma is on another level of quality, ingenuity and function and is a few hundred bucks cheaper as well.

I feel I also have to mention Sam and the guys at Windsurfnsnow as I only budgeted for one boom but thanks to a nice discount I was able to sneak the second one in.

Bent, broken plenty of alloy booms from jumps, hitting sandbars, catapults etc. Being heavy does not help so went carbon and 12 years on my most used one is still going strong even after hitting a sand bar and breaking a line in the process.

Looking at the top pic, your harness line placement with nil or little spread usually increases the point load on the arm. This load is increased more so when one is catapulted etc, and hence the heavier you are the more force/load/fatigue and likelihood you are going to bend/break the arm.

So unless freestyling or wave sailing where you use more of the boom, your probably better off with them spaced apart a bit to spread the load.

I remember the German surf magazine did a test a few years beck where they measured the stress on boom arms during jumps. They measured forces as high as 900 kgs on the boom arms for 80kg windsurfers landing a jump. I would assume the forces during a catapult, even a mild one, would be a lot more.

Not great when a boom bends but I even managed to bend chinook alloy booms in the past which were considered unbreakable.

Get a carbon boom. It's well worth the money.

just to shatter your Aeron V Grip illusion, I thought they were so good I got 2!...loved it...but..they bend too!

lose weight fatties

Wow, how did you get the boom to bend like that?! And why two harness lines on both sides?