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Selden boom outhaul STUCK

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8.4K views 18 replies 9 participants last post by  OntarioTheLake  
#1 ·
Hello all,

I have a newer (1 yr old) Selden mast and boom. The outhaul is not working. The outhaul car is currently at the end of the boom and will not go back toward the mast.
Upon inspection, it looks like the outhaul line is wrapped around something in the boom end closest to the mast. Pictures attached.
I was hoping to get a diagram of how the lines and wire is supposed to look before making any attempts to fix, but Selden has been a bit slow in getting any details back to me.
I am just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and if anyone has an idea how the outhaul line should be run inside the mast.

Thanks,
Dennis

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#2 · (Edited)
Hi Dennis,

One of the most important things about boats imho is that they can be easily repaired.

The Seldon in-boom outhaul, if yours is the one I am thinking, is the most stupid feature ever put on a boat and only an idiot could possibly say they are useful in a maintenance sense (Cue Drum Roll as some internet troll say how wonderful this utter piece of garbage is)

The only way you can repair this is by drilling out the pop rivets from the end of the boom and pull the whole thing out. If as you say, its the mast end thats broken then you need to drill out the gooseneck too.

When I had mine done in Febrary last year it took two riggers one at each end jiggling the stupid thing. These guys knew exactly what they were doing. Theres no way I could have done it, nor by myself.

If your boom and mast is only 1 year old I'd knock them up for a Warrantee job. Let those "nice people" pay for the 2 riggers!



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#3 ·
I will piggy back onto Mark. I have a Selden/Kemp mast boom from 1988. I went to replace the outhaul line, not knowing what i was getting into. For the love of god. My boom had a couple blocks inside. while i was running the mousing line through.... it jammed up. I ended up having to drill out the rivets on both ends of the boom.

I can appreciate having all the lines tucked inside the boom, makes thing nice and clean. but, why in the name of god would you have a line deadmaned inside the boom with no way to repair/replace with out taking the boom apart.

her is an image of what the inside of my boom outhaul blue lines...

frustrating but easily fixed. use the topping lift to hold aft end of the boom (wrap around boom so end cap is free) and then use the main halyard to support the gooseneck end. Drill baby drill. then ease the vang and it should separate with minimal effort, given the age...

I had it easy as I had the sail off the boat...

Before you drill rivets though, I would try to tug on the wire from the car end to see if you can free up the block and get it to move aft. Also tighten up all of you reefing lines to ensure that you don't have any lines loose and laying on top of the outhaul tangling things up... if you haven't removed any lines or restrung anything. its just a tangle... and since it got tangled inside the boom with out taking anything apart, it should untangle without taking anything apart. unless a like has jumped off the block and is now jammed

I ended up drilling out both ends just so I could get a better view of everything.
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#5 ·
To begin with, over the years, and possibly still, Selden has made several different series of booms and boom fittings. I recently redid a 4 year old boom, to add more purchase to the outhaul. It was very different than the roughly 15 year old Selden boom that I helped with some years before that. The modern boom has a series of tracks and specialized plastic cars inside the boom with the sheaves for the outhaul and single line reefing systems. The cars ride in raised grooves at the top and bottom of the boom. They are configured so that they can bypass each other without interference. But because of this configuration, it is critical that the cars be installed facing the right direction and that the lines are reeved perfectly. If not they collide with each other rather than bypass each other. The 4 year old Selden boom that I worked on was assembled wrong so that the outhaul car would collide with the shuttle block for the single-line reefing and would jamb at some point and randomly not work properly at other times.

The reef lines and sheaves dead end on removeable pins. The one at the gooseneck is accessible without removing the gooseneck. On a a 2:1 outhaul or 4:1 outhaul, the outhaul dead ends on that pin at the gooseneck. On a 3:1 or 6:1 outhaul, the cascade dead ends on the pin at the gooseneck and the outhaul dead ends on the car inside the boom. You can see the configuration of the cars here. Unfortunately it does not show an end view so that you can see that the cars (sliders) are shaped so that there is a car that faces the exterior of the boom and a similar car that faces the interior and you need to use the right car for each track.

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The new booms use Allen screws (aka socket screws, AKA hex key screws) to keep the boom end fittings in place. (I can't tell whether from the photo whether those are rivets or allen screws.) Once the allen screws are removed, the boom ends slide out easily. You need to be very careful when you slide the ends out since the pin that holds the sheaves is not captive and can slide out making it easy to lose the pin or the sheaves over the side.

While I was not enamored with the overall engineering of this system, the nice thing about this system is that, if reeved properly, the lines cannot get twisted up inside the boom. That means that when the boom is being assembled, you need to be extremely careful to feed the lines without twists and without catching other lines within the boom. This takes some care and concentration since you are holding a series of loose parts in your hands as you are reeving the system. I also do not love that all of the parts are proprietary and, based on my experience, it can take quite a few weeks to get even a simple replacement part such as a sheave or one of the cars.

Another issue with this system is friction. The sheaves only accept a relatively small diameter line. We ended up using a dyneema cored line and stripping the cover off the part of the outhaul that is always in the boom which helped a lot. But that small diameter line tends to slip in the clutches and so we are planning to bulk up the cover at the clutches.

I will also note that SanderO's boom configuration is probably the one that went out of production in 1991 and Mark's boom configuration is probably went out of production in 2007 or 2008.

I am not sure whether or not this helps,
Jeff
 
#6 ·
Selden boom hater here too. I have over 10 hours into trying to get my lines to run free, and gave up.

As Jeff_H said, the design and components have changed over time. Our 1994 boom all the lines and shuttles are just flopping around. BTW our end caps are held in by big stainless slotted screws (stupid, and stupid); I bought a large slotted head for the impact driver and couldn't budge any of them. Glad to hear they went with allen heads at some point.

Back to the original post, I'd say start poking that loop in the line with a rod and see if you can free it up. See if you can pull it out. Anything...but don't crank on the outhaul any more.

I'd love to see this thread become "The Comprehensive Selden Boom Thread". The same comments can be found on the internet, but the combination of comments and time-period / design images in one place is awesome. It took me many hours to find a diagram of our boom.
 
#12 ·
This seemed to morph into a complaint fest on single line reefing, one is bad enough then they put two in there. I can see the needless overcomplication for convenience, but if its just an outhaul as the OP stated is should be easier to sort. IMO Allen head fasteners are the only way to go, use some tefgel or similar on any fastener on the boat, dissimilar or not. My boom comes off every few years for service. I don't do single line reefing but there are lines straight through to boom for the leech lines (and outhaul) but no shuttles.
 
#13 ·
I would suggest that it morphed into more a complaint fest on Selden and the complex manner that Selden chose to engineer their latest version of single-line reefing and outhauls. Because of the way the internals of the Selden boom are engineered, the issue with the outhaul is potentially (probably) related to the single line reefing system. The outhaul on a Selden boom is typically either 2:1 or 3:1, and uses a car on a track. The single-line reefing relies on a shuttle car on an adjacent track. The outhaul can jamb when the two cars are not reeved properly and/or the position of the shuttle interferes with the ability of the outhaul car to be fully retracted. Also if the single line reefing is left loose in the boom, the outhaul can also grab the reef line and jamb it at the block at the end of the boom.

So while I personally don't like single-line reefing, that is not particularly relevant to the issue here.

Jeff
 
#15 ·
Have you ever used single line reefing? I think if you ever tried a properly set up system you would be sold on it. What's not to like about the ability to put a reef in without leaving the cockpit?

The OP's problem seems to be a simple case too much slack in the outhaul system allowing a loop of rope to get out of place. It doesn't look like the boom even has single line reefing, so not sure why everyone is blaming the problem on that.

If there is a problem with how the outhaul system has been reeved then it should go back to the rigger that set the boom up to fix. (Assuming it is not just a simple matter of fishing the stray loop out of the jam)

Sent from my SM-G981W using Tapatalk
 
#16 ·
Yes, the outhaul problem has nothing to do with the single line reefing, or any other reefing. All reefing lines go straight through the boom. The outhaul does not. Its in 2 seperate pieces of rope neither that are free but around blocks and anchored inside the boom where you cant get at them.
As my friend on Aquaholic says: They need to be getatable.
 
#17 ·
An old thread that seems to keep being relevant.

I have a 1985ish vintage boom. Boom is marked KEMP, ends marked SELDEN. I have no complaints.

However the outhaul slide is wearing, getting kinda thin. I would like to replace it. ButIncan not seem to find any info on this boom or the fittings.

The rough section is 180 by120.
The mast/inboard end is 509-032 (the 3 is hard to read)
Thouthaul/outboard end is 500-009 - clear as day.

i have found a “old” Selden data sheet but nothing matches. The part number format is correct, but not these exact numbers or sections.

As the boat is in Antigua I have sort of limited repair options.

If all else fails I will remove the slide and have the welder stick on a new top.
But the wheel under neath are pretty crappy so it would be nice to replace them also. The catalog slides all have wheels about 21mm D. These wheels are about 16mm D.

Is there some one who manufactures these gizmos? I see Jenauue uses Rutgerson cars that are gery similar but Incan not find them in thr Rutgerson catalog.

Any other spar providers you guys can think of? Google is not being helpful.