Boom Up or Down?

Boom up and trail with the cover off.

My old wooden fireball has a boom up cover, and its just a pain to tow that with the cover on as it fills with air. Also, being boom up, it ends up looking like hovercraft when the msat is down, as all the excess cover just hangs down.

What do you ahve currently?

Originally posted by Noah There's absolutely NO WAY I'll trail without the cover on. That way lies madness.

Totally agree. i did once see an over boom cover with a a few bits of webbing on the inside, then it was tied to the toe straps to take the slack out of towin. looks really neat and it didnt flap about. this was for an ent though. only downside is you have a gurt well to fill up if it rains lol.

id just go for a normal cover with loops to tie a halyard too to and haul it up. if ur worried about water on the decks put some fabsil on the cover where it touches the gunwhales, that works well as the cover never soaks water up

Originally posted by Noah Villan, There's absolutely NO WAY I'll trail without the cover on. That way lies madness. Right now I have a tired old heavyweight PVC boom up cover, which trails OK-ish, but it does tend to flap about in a 60mph breeze! I've found the best way is to make sure the under-boat straps are REALLY tight.

Sorry but why would you not tow a boat with a cover on? I can't see a problem with that, after all it saves the cover been knackered.

I would though trail with my Laser cover on cos the spars are kept on the decl for trailing.

Originally posted by vscott I know someone who puts an enormous plastic sheet between the boat and the undercover - to make sure diesel fumes don't go through the cover onto the surface, then no cover on top, just lots of undercover lacing keeping the excess plastic sheet from flying around - and it works!

bit ott aint it lol. i take a bucket and sponge for that lol.

 do the sheets and ropes slap about when trailing topless? is there much windage back there when towing? i guess if you had a forward qand aft hatch it would be a great way of drying your boat, even better on a roof rack. I dont really know why i wouldnt tow topless apart from the fact id be scared of everything falling out. i gues i wouldnt want a pidgeon taking a dump on it either

Yup, Its fine towing without the cover as long as everything is secure. Foils in the car (Wouldn't EVER leave them in the boat anyway), boom tied down, sails tied down.

Its a lovely deep cockpit on the Fireball, so the sails will fit in nicely under the thwart / fordeck. Kite in the car of course.

I currently tow the Vareo with the cover on, but thats still got a decent boom down top cover. When we took the boats up to the Tiger last year, the Fireball had no covers on at all! (But then it was shielded from the road by 5 ft and a Laser 5000! )

I might dig that photo out later ... That was a very silly weekend! I'm glad we had a Disco towing that beast!

[edit] Here it is .. all the sails were in the 5k, tied in, all the Fireball had was boom tied to mast gate and thwart, and padded at the transom end. Cover was on as this was taken the day we loaded up, and it was forcast to rain. (Didn't want the boat filling up over the course of the week)




Edited by Villan