RG,

I serious doubt that the cost of a curved traveller is less then a those of a boom. Afterall the later is nothing more then a piece of plain round alu tubing.

The solution to this parent whishes is probably better served by a wishbone boom see picture on a landyacht.




Basically it is a windsurfer boom that is fitted higher up the mast. The wishbone boom can angle downwards towards the clew corner arriving at exactly the same mainsail surface area as a normal boom. This wasn't done on the landyacht as a person is sitting up straight beneath the sail and his head will otherwise be in the way.

The attachment of the wishbone boom is extremely simple. It is just a loop of some high strength line that goes around the mast. A single line at the rear (hook ?) sets the draft and the mainsheet is directly hooked to the sail and not to the boom itself.

It is not even hard to modify a boomed sail to take a wishbone boom. Just have to cut the sleeve open and reinforce it. The rest can remain unaltered.

An additional advantage of the wishbone boom is that the need for a kicking strap or ram vang has been negated. The luff of the sail itself will act as a kicking strap and prevent the boom from rising up to far when the mainsheet is released.


For enthousiasts and designer looking to use old windsurf masts. I have less then encouraging news. I've been trying such masts on this landyacht and found that nearly all plain windsurfer masts are far too flexible and will "pump" in unstable winds which is not a nice behaviour for a landyacht or sailboat. Basically these masts will have to be reinforced to make the stiffer. Inserting a second mast of same taper is one of the ways to achieve this. This does add weight and you will have to open the mast to take the local boom location reinforcing out.

Wouter