Bolo
Contributing Partner
As part of my spring boat inspection to prepare for this seasons sailing I do engine maintenance (oil change, filter replacements, new engine zinc, etc) and also do a visual inspection of the rigging. To my surprise I found that the clevis pin at the goose neck toggle (silver part in the photo) was halfway out! You can see in the photo that the front end of the toggle isn't parallel with the mast but leaning back. It appears that the cotter pin was missing and that allowed the pin to drift upward. In the photo you can see the head of the pin through one of the holes of the toggle and notice that the pin doesn't extend out the bottom where the cotter pin would secure it. This must of happened late last year because I didn't see this till this spring. No amount of coaxing was going to get the pin back in place and it also looked like it needed a few extra washers, all of which I added. In order to do the repair I relied on the topping lift to hold up the aft end of the boom and I wrapped the main halyard around the front end (just behind the goose neck fitting) to hold up the front of the boom. I also disconnected the main sail tack, a line holding the front of the sailing bag to the boom, disconnected the boom vang and loosened up the main sheet. All this to allow the boom to be pulled away from the mast fitting but keep it from falling onto the deck. Removal of the fitting from the part that the clevis pin runs through, the toggle, is accomplished by simply removing the single bolt that connects the goose neck to the toggle. The old bolt looked a bit beat up so I replaced the original 3/8"dia. x 2" long one with a 2.5" long bolt so I could add washers on each side which were also missing.
Moral of this story. Check your rigging throughly and often which I'm going to do now more then once a year.
Moral of this story. Check your rigging throughly and often which I'm going to do now more then once a year.