The other day Greenroom showed up at the beach sporting a new universal joint tendon.

I thought I should check mine and was horrified to find that it was 3/4 of the way to snappage (and it was only 1 year old!). I hadn't noticed because the break was tucked up inside the plastic housing.

So just a reminder to you: Make sure your universal joint is in good condition before your next sail!

And watch out for any cuts in the boge type because all it takes is a small nick and next thing no more UJ.

Peace.

Lucky you discovered it before our next sail out huh

Try using a Toe Jamb, it keeps the UJ, especially the Tendon type out of the sun, UV kills the Tendon type.

Also use a UJ with a safety rope to avoid a swim.

Paul

Leech, i'm sure when the tendon UJ first came out there were different stiffnesses which were categorized by colours. Orange being stiffer than black.

I used to use them but broke/split them so often where the bolts went through the tendon that i returned to the older style.

Also its better to buy a better quality mast base to fix the tendon/boge joint to. Some cheaper ones are dodgy and can lead to a lot of heartache

I was using the NP tendon style, got hit by a small wave in a near onshore wind, knocked off the board, held onto boom, tried to waterstart, no board!

the tendon snapped, and so did the safety rope, which led me to swimming my rig in from about 50m offshore and watching my board catch waves into the beach by itself.

Anyways, as a result, and advice from my local shop, I switched to the Chinook cup system with bigger hourglass looking power joint with the webbing, looks a truckload stronger.

The said tendon was about 8 months old, now also it happened early in my wave days, so I was fighting the wave by hanging on to the boom, but....

MD74 -- Are you sure that the knots on the safety rope were done up tight? I bet they weren't. Every single uni-joint I've seen has these loose, open knots...

Hey Windy Miller, some people use loctite on the threads, so I think a bit of heat helps you undo loctite? Wonder what heat would do to the rubber though.

the safety ropes are kind of sealed in the fitting, and they actually snapped in the middle, was quite suprised when I saw it.

Elmo....your a riot

Thanks for cheering me up

i just want thus,fri,sat n sun with swell........................... is that too much too ask for......

Just to put this all into perspective and much to my embarrasment, this is not the first time it has happened me.

My previous attempt was when pumping a board onto plane whilst going over a wave just on the edge of the impact zone, I pumped, fell backwards with the rig, the board a Bic Techno 2 (it was light wind day) Launched itself for the horizon, I can assure you at this point those Beggers glide really well without the rig.

Seeing the board floating of into the distance, the decision was made, chase the "Floaty" bit (Rule Nº 1) so I set the rig as flat as possible (sinks slower) and paddled like a little red madman to the board and back again to the rig.

A 60+cm wide board is not easy to connect to your rig (6.6m sail) in the surf.

Life is not easy as Elmo (a name I picked up from my stand up surfing style)

Perhaps my name should have been "Stupid"

Alby

THE BOLTS! the pissy little bolts on the tendon joints commonly break and its not obvious.
The UJs that tighten down to the deck and don't allow rotation of the bottom tendon cup end up unscrewing the mast foot just from positioning the sail for a waterstart.
Mechanical UJs have their virtues.

quote:

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Originally posted by Leech

quote:

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Originally posted by elmo


Life is not easy as Elmo (a name I picked up from my stand up surfing style)

Perhaps my name should have been "Stupid"

Alby

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Nah, the new windsurfing move "the Elmo" sounds much better than "the Stupid"

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Nooooooooo,

It's bad enough that people are now referring to dinging up their new gear as "Elmo'ing" it.

Famous for all the wrong reasons.

Alby

talking of unis

Im looking for the older A.R.T. uni's and base used on Fanatics about the turn of the century ...around 1999 /.2000 etc..

happy to buy used or new [dealers please contact]

uni with A.R.T mast base with single square button that clicks into mast cup.[mast base most important can use one on a boge joint if needed.....plus bottom pin.[pin fits Fanatic,Mistral,F2 of period even 2003 Mistral Prodigy.[need it for my prodigy to keep in line with rest of boards...but may consider a Prodigy base if no A.R.T.]

will also like A.R.T mast cup

I have photo of my existing setup as comparison if you need.
cheers

Jesus good to see you again ...i knew your brother Bwian

Welcome to the forum.

Hey Jesus tell ya old man to sort this fkn wind out would ya