Is it good or bad?

A year ago I bought a 13" sit on top kayak for fishing. Then I added a kayaksailor sailing kit ( includes leeboards), and outriggers. I have enjoyed this setup for sailing and fishing, so much that I decided to improve it, adding a mizzen sail. I used a 0,4m2 genoa I had as sail, a pvc pipe for mast, and a fiberglass stick for boom. I had a maiden voyage 3 days ago, and everything worked flawesly, but then I realized looking at the footage from that day,( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLCNBK2YJQU ) that this fiberglass stick flexed when the wind load was high (as in gusts), somehow "changing the sail geometry". Now I keep wondering if this flextion of the boom is good or bad..... would it be better if the boom was rigid?, so what do you think?


PD: sorry about my english, I'm from Spain.

 

looks like a well thought out system, even if complicated. the outriggers make it work well, otherwise I would advise against putting a sail on a kayak.

as long as your mizzen boom does not fail, it will actually unload the sail during gusts and make it more forgiving and controllable. If you want maximum performance than a more rigid boom would be required, but that also means more force would be transmitted to the rigging and hull during transient gusts, which could overload other parts of your system, including perhaps driving your outrigger below the surface.

good luck

 

Petros I do not usually argue with you, but in this case..................

You said that a bendy boom will unload the sail in a gust. Yes it will and no it won't. Depends on what part of the boom the sheet is attached to. In the vid, the main has about mid boom sheeting and yes it will unload in a gust because the clew will fall off to leeward and , depending on the relative lengths of the components, it may even flatten the sail. But the mizzen has end boom sheeting and the sail will become fuller when the boom bends.

 

So, that's the source of my doubts. As messabout says the sail becomes fuller when the boom bends. Should that be an efficiency problem? I mean, with a rigid boom the complete force that bends the boom should apply to the foot of the boom... would that force add to the lift?....
Thanks a lot for your opinions.