Depends on which harness lines you've bought. More and more of them are removable without removing the boom end, but not all. Which ones have you bought?

Yes

If this secondhand boom is so old or bad that you are scared to slide the tubes all the way out for fear of breaking something - I'd not be using it on the water!!

Mark _australia said..
If this secondhand boom is so old or bad that you are scared to slide the tubes all the way out for fear of breaking something - I'd not be using it on the water!!

I am not scared to take it apart just because I allegedly think it is old. junk. If so I wouldn't have bought it .In fact it looks in pretty good shape. There is hardly a scratch and the grip area is intact. It might be about 5 years old or so. Is it really old? I just wanted to have a sense if it is standard no-risk procedure to pull out the front end.
It depends on what it means for a boom to be old. Certainly in this day and age, technology advances so fast that it is in some way ridiculous that sellers lull us into nirvana by having us ( or trying to !) buy their new gadgetry and discard the "old" "nirvana" gadgetry which was perfectly OK last year.Bottom line, is it safe to remove the front end as a standard procedure?

Thanks

Francone

What Grant said: you remove the boom tail/back, not the front/boom head to install harness lines.

Grantmac said..
You remove the BACK end and yes it's a standard thing to do.

If it was a modern continuous front end boom (not, say, an old Chinook which I still have a couple), he'd have figured that one out pretty quickly.

Nautix and Patrick are good adjustable lines with camcleats. They don't need you to take the boom apart.
Patrick are expensive and need a degree to figure out how they wind on but are worth it..
I couldn't find Nautix last time I looked?