I'm no engineer, but I would think it is. Its only purpose is as a turning block. It doesn't have the same pressures as the ones between the boom and traveler.
I had the original curved track traveler so I re-aligned my mainsheet control to the traveler car. Now that I have the straight track travaler (Garhauer; fantastic!), I don't need to keep it there but I still do. You should seriously consider adding a boom vang. The midboom doesn't hold the boom down quite as good as the end-boom. Your sail shape will be much better with a vang. Bob -------------- Original message -------------- From: "Joe McCary" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> As they say a picture is worth a million words (hey I am a photographer so I tend to inflate the value of a photo a bit). The image I am referring to is: http://www.delanges.com/Catalina_27/images/Traveler_2.JPG Its from Steveâs website and shows his mid boom traveler. My rig will be slightly different, with double ended sheeting. The folks at Catalina Direct suggested I run the sheet from the edge of the cabin top (near the handrail) forward to a spinnaker block on a spring then at a 45° to the first blocks on the boom and so on. In the image above, while just single sided, he runs his sheet to the mast then down through a turning block then to a deck organizer then to the cleet. My question to Steve was, it appears the block closest to the mast is held in position by a small stainless strap with just 2 sheet metal screws instead of a full through bolted bail on the boom, is this strong enough? Joe McCary Aeolus II West River, MD [EMAIL PROTECTED]  From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 12:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: catalina27-talk: Cruiseair on C27-alternative method Joe, you should have a boom vang running at 45* from the boom to near mast base. Running the mainsheet across this same area then makes sense, plus eliminating one block from the whole setup. I think you can see what I mean from pictures on my out-of-date website: mywebpages.comcast.net/sailrmann Bob Mann Windcatcher '85 #5928
