I went ahead and purchased the Falcon kayak sail system that was mentioned in one of my earlier posts in this topic.
Because the Falcon sail has the same foot length as the standard Hobie kayak sail and the Falcon and Hobie masts are the same diameter, I was able to pretty neatly fit Falcon's carbon fibre boom to my Hobie Sport (2013 model), as shown in the following photo. (I still intend to also install the full Falcon sail system because I like the idea a very robust storm sail system that easily folds down to deck level when the going gets too rough.)
The Falcon boom came with a clam cleat outhaul and two padeyes (I think that is what they are called) as guides for the mainsheet and for the boom vang control line. I added a third padeye towards the end of boom and two small blocks that were attached to the boom through the padeyes using Dyneema loops. This configuration enables the rigging of the mainsheet to a ratcheting main block (unfortunately obscured in the photograph) that is attached along the centre line of the cockpit, around an arm’s length and a half in front of the seated sailor. This is a much better arrangement in my opinion than attaching the main block to the side wall of the cockpit that seemed to be the only feasible approach with a boom-less sail.
A mini v-jam block was also added to the boom vang control line, rather than taking the Falcon approach of attaching a clam cleat to the hull, because I hate drilling holes in my ‘yak. If you look carefully at the base of the mast, you can see a 7/8” (22mm) stainless steel boat bimini top hinged jaw slide attached to the mast that provides the bottom ‘tying’ point for the boom vang.
How does the boomed Hobie kayak sail system perform? Beautifully! I thoroughly tested all points of sail yesterday (12 January 2016) in wind conditions that at one point averaged 19 knots and gusted to 25 knots according to the Bureau of Meteorology website. The diagram below shows the sail path of the kayak and a summary of wind conditions over the 85 minutes of sailing (no pedalling). It was sublimely easy to keep both telltales streaming backwards; I revelled in my ability to make those little suckers seemingly dance to the slightest adjustments of the main sheet. I didn’t feel the need to furl the sail and I don’t think I was ever particularly close to capsizing. Gone were the leeward telltale seemingly stuck permanently at the 10 past 12 position and the ludicrously inefficient taco shape of the sail downwind. There were also far fewer undignified scrambles for the high side of the boat because the kayak’s responses to wind gusts are now much more predictable.
Maybe the same results can be achieved at a lower cost than I incurred. Perhaps Falcon will sell just the boom alone. But I will eventually make use of the complete Falcon sail system as a strong wind alternative. And I like pushing a little money the way of innovative companies like Falcon.
In summary, while the Hobie kayak sail works well enough straight out of the box, its performance can be improved markedly by adding a boom.