I was wondering when someone would point that out.
-Sven
This always gets me to pondering ( potentially unsafe activity for my aged brain
)
about the foot on mains and how much "support" they give the boom. I was racing a small keel boat in the late 70's when the
shelf foot became popular. This let the main have its designed-in foil shape all the way to the bottom, and the flat part of the bottom was sewn out of "bag cloth" as I recall the nomenclature from the sailmaker. My point, and I may have one, is that with the general acceptance of that particular sail improvement the length of the boom no longer received any "support" from the foot of the main sail.
I honestly do not recall if our boom displayed any visible bend on windy beats in those days when heavily loaded.... our boat had the main sheet attachment about 2/3 of the way back, and thence straight down to a traveler on a bridge deck. No one ever bent a boom though.
I recall that when I bought a new main for the Olson and asked the sail maker about his recommendation for a loose foot and putting, IMO, "all the pull back to the clew and the slider at the end," he reminded me that the end of the boom carried all of the force when reefed in really heavy air. I had one of those "Duh" moments at that point. In past threads about this topic here, Seth has already provided excellent commentary, and some site searching might be helpful.
Best,
Loren