Do Booms typically brake?

[www.NjWind.info]

Last weekend my boom broke and this was the first time for me. I was far out in the bay and had no issue swimming back to shore. However, if it would have been the ocean, it could have caused some serious trouble. Now when do I know they are starting to go bad?

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[RPM7]

Gonna need some more info to even begin to answer your question:

Was the boom aluminum or carbon?
How old was it?

[beallmd]

You wrote do booms brake. Brake means to stop or slow down (decelerate). This is what your boom does to your ribs-cause a sudden deceleration. Unfortunately this turns out to be very painful-sometimes for days on end. I think you meant do booms break and the answer is YES! This is why, if you are sailing deep into the SFO bay or offshore, you should have a fairly new boom and check it to see if it is loosening up; usually where it inserts into the head-the part that attaches to the mast. Most failures are going to invove the head area.

[LeeD]

Yeah, all booms CAN break.
Usually with extreme loading for long periods of time, bad manufacturing (Monday or Friday made), or susceptibility to hard knocks from car, garage, sailing, or little elves with metallic hammers.
Aluminums typically break from the first.
Carbons more from the other causes, but some older carbons had aluminum front ends so a whole can of worms involved.
When in the water, breaks usually, not always, leave ONE side intact. So just sail home on that side, slogging NOT planing, and you're fine.
Or you can use your uphaul or spare line to tie the broken parts together, then carefully up or waterstart, and SLOG home with light loads and wide spread of grip.
SLOG home with ANY broken part of the rig.
Most of my windsurfing years, I break between 1-4 booms each season.

[www.NjWind.info]

Pardon the typo. Yes, the boom was aluminum and it came off on both ends. Luckily it did not put any holes into the sail. Never really used carbon before, but I heard they go bad the same way.
What I am mostly concerned about is knowing when to check for signs, and what are these signs. The boom was in perfect shape. No loose feelings or marks. It was also about 4 years old.
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Windsurfing NJ a Windsurf Website for Windsurf Spots and Windsurf Locations

[LeeD]

4 years is normally a good lifespan for aluminum, depending on how many days you actually used it.
Signs are tough to tell, as they always seem best just before they break.
Looseness in the joints, creaking sounds, bends or creases, stuff always seem to break just after it seems sound.
Obviously check for loose rivets or screws, cracked plastic parts, all that stuff.....

[swchandler]

The thing to remember about aluminum booms is they suffer from metal fatigue from all the flexing over time, and they corrode from the inside out. I stopped using aluminum booms in 1992 because I had so many problems with them. Still though, my carbon Gulftechs included a front end component that had an internal aluminum core, and I still suffered because of the aluminum. I avoid aluminum booms at all cost because it's just a matter of time before they self destruct. Carbon booms aren't perfect, but much more dependable from my experience.

[coachg]

Use full carbon in salt water. The aluminum corrodes fron the inside out so it is hard to tell when the boom is bad. As LeeD and swchandler noted, some carbon booms were made with aluminum front ends so same problem as metal. Harness line placement and how you sail can also affect boom life. Do you land your jumps hard or soft and how much do you weigh? We have aluminum booms at my school that are over 15 years old and still going strong. But then it is fresh, flat water sailing.

Coachg

[beallmd]

About 65% of the booms they rent on Maui are alloy, so they find they work fine in salt water. OTOH they probably replace them every 1-2 years.

[victor]

booms brake and break, too. i've had three break. every time it was with no warning and i wasn't far from shore.

aluminum booms seemed to last me 2 years(in salt water). i'm on my second year with a one piece carbon boom. had another carbon boom come apart at the head, which shouldn't be a problem with the one piece boom.

checked the price of a carbon boom, lately? i haven't broken mine, yet, but i will probably replace it with a one piece aluminum alloy boom when the time comes. it's getting close to 3 times the price for carbon.

if your boom breaks on the side you need to get back to the launch you can flip it over in order to make it back. ideally, you can accomplish the flip before the current has taken you too far away.