One of the decisions that must be made when restoring a classic sailing craft or commissioning a new one, is what to do about supporting the boom when it’s not in use.
Four choices immediately spring to mind. The first is to follow the lead of the Bristol Channel pilots on their 50ft (15.24m) cutters. These redoubtable mariners opted to have nothing to do with superfluous hardware. Instead, they were content to leave the spar hanging in its topping lifts. I adopted their approach for 15 years with an original example and can report that there is a lot going for this solution. Their conclusion was that a permanent, the 40ft (12.1m) cutter that replaced the old pilot boat, we followed suit and rigged her with no boom support. We never missed it except when lying at anchor in an awkward sea. The boom then had to be restrained in two directions. A quarter-tackle rigged temporarily worked wonders.
