Safety is number one driver for my dinghy cruising. I feel I have three vulnerabilities:

🛑 Going too far forward, first capsize, anchoring, mooring and jib handling all sorted.

🛑 Not releasing the jib when tacking, second capsize, I was racing.

🛑 Down wind stability, sitting aft and goose winging help.

The last two issues could be solved with a self tacking boom jib.

International Canoes use a boom with a forward extension with a line running up to the hounds, tensioning this line controls leach tension. I used this system on my first IC. Modern ICs use a very expensive curved traveler to further control the sail, I fitted this to my second IC.

The other inspiration comes from a Swallow Yachts Bayraider. This mounts the jib tack forward of the stem head, the pivot further back down the boom. Think a triangular balanced lug.

I started with the IC system, minus track, £4.60 of timber from Wickes, cut down old sail from my first Proa

This worked ok, but the boom was close to the mast

Due to closeness of boom to the mast I tried the Bayraider scheme, this brought the boom well away from the mast but I was concerned about luff tension

I then returned to the IC scheme and found it stowed OK

On raising the jib again I realised that it was hard to get tension on halyard as it was fighting against the leech tension line. A cleat added to the end of the boom solved this.

A little bit of messing with the lines and addition of a line to pull the boom forward

This is just a quick mock up and hopefully get tested next weekend