Fix for old roller furling BOOM?

[dennisvetter]

I have a 1970 C&C Redwing. The BOOM was designed to furl the main by rolling it around the boom. Although I don't use it (have been told by many people it's very hard on the sail), it has a tendency to rotate when staying on one point of sail for a while. This creates a real problem with my slab reefing as the reefing line binds on the cheek blocks! Does anyone know of a way to fix the boom so that the slot for the foot of the sail stays fixed at the top of the boom?
Many thanks in advance,
Dennis

[knotaloud]

I'm guessing you do not have a boom vang. You might be able to mount a simple vang setup to the underside of the boom and to the base of the mast. It would keep it from rotating, as well as give you some fine tuning capabilities. Of course, the option of roller reefing would be gone forever.

[sailingdog]

What does the roller furling boom rotate around... can't you drill a hole into it and insert a bolt to prevent it from rotating?? The boom vang would also work, but is a bit more expensive an option.

[gac1982]

Absolutely, boom vang is not that expensive. And if it's removable you could still use the roller reefing, although (a) it IS hard to do, and (b) sail shape is terrible when reefed. My boom vang attaches to an eye fitting on the underside of the boom woth a snap shackle - not the original configuartion, I installed it that way so I could use the roller reefing. Have since bought a new mainsail with reef points for slab reefing, which works much much better.

[tdw]

The old fashioned roller furling booms were pretty much complete rubbish if for no other reason than you can't fit a vang. Lock the boom (either do as SD suggested or re do the mast fitting) , fit a decent vang and slab reefing, preferably with lazy jacks. Make sure the vang has plenty of grunt, one sees far to many that are simply undersized and again, pretty much useless.
If feasible it's good to bring the vang control line back to the cockpit. Bringing the reefing lines back to the cockpit is a matter of personal choice.

[dennisvetter]

Thanks to everyone for the helpful replies. I actually have a vang and hadn't thought about the fact that it might be useful for that purpose! I'll give it a shot and, if necessary, improve my vang setup.
Ciao'
Dennis