Imax1 said..
From a technical box head view about aluminium , which I know a little but enough to get into trouble about ,
The technical meaning of alloy is , a mixture of metals , Now were over that ....,
Aluminium is produced in three ways , cast , which is totally crap , forged , it's great but not used in booms , and extruded .
Boom type material .
There are variants to alloy tube and all have longways strain . Easy to crush, hard to bend.
When anodised , ( rust resistant shell ) , ( boom tube ) , produces an even stiffer tube , a tiny bit , but now hates bending even more . This is done after bending .
To sum up , after extensive waffle , I would not try to straighten bent alloy boom of more than a couple degrees , and even then , would seriously weaken the tube .

All aluminium has some "anodising" . Cast for instance has a naturally forming one that occurs as part of the cooling . What we refer to as anodised Aluminimum is in fact "electrolytic passivation" Ali where the natural oxide coating is increased and stabilised (sometimes a dye is added like on cheap carabbeners key rings or bottle openers. The white salty crust that grows on old Aluminium tea pots or coffee post is the result of natural oxide salts adhering to the natural anode skin on the old Ali. Ali is a base mettle it corrodes in the presence of a cathode or more pure mettle e.g stainless. Pure Ali is a soft as wet tissue, we buy an alloy as stated. Some Ali is hard as hell and will blunt drill bits. Hard and strong are not the same, hard is brittle and will fail under repeated strain (mettle fatigue) strong is somewhat malleable, i.e it has give. Cold bending weakens all mettles (think fencing wire bending back and forward till it snaps). Some clever bloke somewhere has come up with the ideal recipe for the best for booms or bike frames or what ever. More importantly is temper. After welding frames or bending booms they need to be tempered to give them the best qualities. Once bent out of shape you can (but Id doubt yours would go back!) return it but it is massively weaker and prone to failure.

Tardy said..

MagicRide said..
Tardy said in his post he was using an alloy boom. So Tardy, could you reiterate this for us. After all, this is your boom. Thx!

By the way I had an alloy boom as well Tardy that bent in that exact spot. I would of thought the carbon boom would have just snapped and broke in 2 pieces with enough force. My experience with alloy is it bends when a blunt force attacks it. So that pic looks like the behavior of alloy bending in my own opinion. Based on your description, you slammed that boom down hard at full speed. Looking closer at your boom tail, that looks like alloy to me.

yes this is a new alloy boom ...and I was amazed it didn't brake ,but bent instead .this was the biggest spill I'VE HAD IN YEARS .
there would of been no corrosion in it .
i couldn't tell you if a carbon boom would of broken or not .My carbon booms are also naish ,just don't ask me to be a crash test dummy .
but i doubt if they would of broken ..specially on minimal length as i have 180-240 's carbons and i only had a 7,0 on ,with a boom length 196,

i only have this alloy boom because I don't use my small sails much and didn't want to spend extra ...i still rate the alloy as a pretty good boom .
the naish ones are pretty solid .55 kms /hour and my weight at 93 kgs stopping all of a sudden ,I'm not surprised it bent ..it never broke .and sailed home .

I reckon i will replace it with another 300$ boom ,most naish boom rear ends are painted in black ,

after i hit ...i had to swim back 5-6 metres to see what i hit ..I felt like a stunned mullet .
i was just happy not to put the boom head through my board ...and walk away unharmed ,

i went back the next day ,and it was a fishing bin lid made of wood and fibreglassed ,washed up on the beach ,bloody **** of a thing .

As you know, I'm a fan of the Naish brand, but have you had or looked into the Chinook Pro 1 Alloy boom? They rave about it as one of their toughest, Alloy booms used in the Columbia river gorge. That's the boom I have had. Never have broke one yet. This is my second Chinook Pro 1 Alloy I've had now. The first One I had still works great, but I ended up getting the next size up, still accommodating all my sails, but to have more tail of the boom inside the boom for more stiffness
For $250 per boom, it's a great value. Now I don't recommend the Chinook Sport Boom. I broke that boom on a catapult on its 2nd session. Talked to the guys at my shop and they took it back which was really nice of them. They told me about the Pro 1 Alloy being stronger than the Sport Boom, so I tried it and loved it ever since.

holly sheet ... epic ...good find ...

peterowensbabs said..

Swindy said..
I found these for sale on market place.

Seriously, did anyone love these? I always coveted one back in the late 80's. Were they good? I always thought the idea was good myself but have never tried one.

NO ....bloody awful ...felt like riding a harley with ape hangers

peterowensbabs said..

Swindy said..
I found these for sale on market place.

Seriously, did anyone love these? I always coveted one back in the late 80's. Were they good? I always thought the idea was good myself but have never tried one.

Hell yeah - don't listen to Tardy only issue I have is now I always go underhand when flipping the sail then I swap back to the less uncomfortable overhand of a "non Z boom"

Tardy said..
LOL....oh no ...i have two friends who still use them ...and one is so scared ....if they don't keep making them ...he's brought every one he can get his hands on ...they just felt weird to me and front hand heavy ...but its part of windsurfing history ... could be quite trending in a few years ...$$

nice pic

Your friend is out of luck, production stopped 10 years ago
A guy in the States bought 6 so he would never run out, that's about 120 years supply, they just about last for ever