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Windsurfing Booms

Windsurfing booms are the part of the board that a windsurfer comes into contact with the most… aside from the board itself. The boom is wishbone shaped in windsurfing, which means that it comes out to either side of the mast near the bottom of the sail. The original purpose of a boom was to keep the bottom edge of a sail flat when the sail is out of line with the direction of travel of the craft.

In windsurfing, the sail is not given enough slack to be able to billow in the wind, and most windsurfers do all their sail adjustments before they hit the water. So what’s the purpose of the wishbone windsurfing booms? They’re there for grip and stability. They bring stability to the sail by offering an attachment point for the apex of the trailing edge.

But the most logical reason for a windsurfing boom to be wishbone is to give the windsurfer more grip choices. Since there is no deck to speak of in windsurfing, there are no mooring points that you can tie the mast/boom into a certain position with. So the windsurfer has to act like the ultimate adjustable mooring point. The more options a surfer has for boom grip, the more angles of attack he can take. That is the essence of why a windsurfing boom uses a wishbone configuration.

 

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