Toe Rail Tough Enough For Preventer?

[Snowpetrel]

Ha andrew. Nice to see you endorsing the bridle idea . I also wonder if another appoach to spreading the load across a large area of toerail would be to make up two aluminium strips about 2 foot long that could be bolted through the toerail slots. They could either have nicely rounded holes for a spectra strop made. Or a decent lug bolted onto them for the preventer.

[Andrew Troup]

Hi Ben

I thought it would be disrespectful not to tip my hat to your bridle idea (a conditional endorsement, if you read carefully :-)

until we'd arrived at some sort of understanding.

In principle, I continue to see it as a brilliant suggestion. It's often done on spi poles, as you will know, and they are pivoted at the inboard end, like a boom.

I did write a post for the thread where you suggested the idea, but my internet connection dropped and I lost it.

When i get a bit of spare time I'll try and recreate it. The gist was that if a truly 'mid' boom position (ie something close to L/2) is feasible (wide beam, short boom) I can see lots of merit.

However most toerail preventers have to attach (in the absence of a bridle) at about the vang attachment point, typically about L/3, and in that case, a bridle would have to be so compact that I question (for a metal boom) whether it would be worthwhile, given that the reinforcing would probably have to be longer in total than for a single tang point.

In my earlier post where I threw tepid water on the idea, I had initially written another para where I said that an isosceles (60 deg) bridle would perhaps be a good compromise, so it was good to see you independently making the same case.

I deleted it before posting because I didn't have time to work through all the load cases and implications, to reassure myself it was ready to go 'live on air'.

Reinforcing the toerail seems like another good option.
I would imagine you're thinking of maybe a "T" section?

I don't think flat bar - unless laid horizontally - would add enough resistance to bending to be worthwhile....