Kicker boom soft attachment

[MarkR]

Good evening.
The attachment of my kicker at the boom broke off today in a gust. It looks a bit fragile for the load which is placed upon it.
I see some discussion in the forum and technical section about soft attachments and/or straps to spread the load, for example the Kicker Tang thread from February 2017. I think something like this would be a lot more robust. At least it will be more obvious when it is getting worn and less prone to unexpected failure.
Does anyone have any more updates or experience, or any more pictures they could share? What is the best way to prevent the strap etc from moving along the boom?

Thanks,
Mark

[Pete1177]

Hi Mark,

Kicker system breakage is a common problem especially if you sail/stress your boat regularly in the stronger winds. This is why it's in my list under 'Supernova upgrades' elsewhere in this forum.

The kicker boom attachment is also a failure point as you have experienced. I use a fabricated 'wrap' as used on Phantom carbon booms. Chris Gould at Creation Covers can make these (they are very good) - I think around £35-£40. You need a short dyneema leash from the wrap to the forward mainsheet block attachment to prevent the whole thing moving forward along the boom.

An equally effective but much cheaper version can be made using Dyneema and a couple of eye thimbles. This is wrapped around the boom figure of 8 fashion and looped through the mainsheet block eye (the forward one). I tried this for several months and it worked fine. The kicker is attached to the eyes. The eye splices have a decent bury and also stitched with whipping twine to make it nice and secure. Here's a picture:

Kicker Boom Strap

IMG_0224_small.jpg (15.75 KiB) Viewed 9640 times

Hope that helps.

Pete
SN1177

[MarkR]

Pete,
Many thanks, I will give it a try at the weekend.
Mark