X9 boom head reinforcement

What if your favourite X9 carbon boom starts to fail and it is no longer in the warrenty period?
Some repairs can be done by yourself as you can read below.

Please note that this story does in no way imply that quality of the X9 boom product would be below standard!
Judge that yourself.

This story just shows what you could do about cracks inside the monocoque boom head.

If the so-called T-joint does no longer fit the tube as a glove, but more as a suit 3 sizes too large... then it is time to check toroughly!

Unscrew the boom head totally and examine the monocoque tube where the T-joint sat. If you can see few small longitudinal cracks and material missing from the tube, there is obviously too much play. In my case there was over 1mm of material missing, not very nice.

When sailing this play will get worse and eventually your nice and expensive boom will break...

I didn't find the solution myself, but as you can see in the Neil Pryde folders, pictures etcetera, just look for pics of Antoine Albeau with his race sails.
You can see there is extra carbon around the heads, reinforcements.
The result is a stiffer boom-mast connection and a more direct and powerfull feeling when using full carbon reinforcements...

What do you need to do?

• Cut off about 5cm of the grip starting from the head. (be carefull not to cut yourself in the wrist and almost drain, as I did accidentilly... butterfingers!)

• Clean, sand off till smooth and clean with cleaning petrol. Leave to dry in a well circulated area. During sanding use a cap over your mouth to prevent inhalation of the carbon particles. Not very nice stuff.

• Cut a piece of carbon mat. Length has to fit lengthwise over the tube, width has to go one and a half times around the tube, depending on wear of the tube. Aproximately 30 by 20 cm.

• Mix the epoxy components. Use weighing scale, smooth cups, latex gloves etcetera. Also wear safety glasses and a dust cap over your mouth at least.

• Put some epoxy on the tube and spread it out, it is like painting...

• Wrap the carbon mat around the wet tube. Just tight enough, don't tear up the mat.

• Wrap so-called peel-ply around the wet carbon mat to squeeze out too much epoxy. Also the peel-ply will push epoxy all the way into the carbon mat till it is totally covered.

• Leave to dry for a day.

• When dry and rock-solid peel off the peel-ply and behold a very well finished surface.

• Try to fit on the T-joint.

• If it fits tight, you should be fine for some time to use your boom again.

• Don't forget to add a finish paint layer to protect the epoxy against UV. Good sailing!

• If it is still not tight, don't worry. Just add an extra layer of material. You could use carbon for maximum stiffness, glas for a layer to wear off in time. Or do it really good and use carbon-kevlar combining stiffness, protection against wear and bulletproof connection. Very important when sailing in military areas...

Just to comfort you: this is a temporary solution, but it can hold for years. If not performed well or if your boom was already really bad, then make sure you keep inspecting your material on a regular basis.

Happy sailing!