g'day.

I've have 3 engima wave booms 140-190. Always loved them, stiff, light with great fittings.
Its come time to shim the head, as it's starting to feel a little sloppy on the boom.
Ive tried tonight, but the nut keeps spinning in the plastic head of the clamp.
It's either corroded or too much thread locker !, or both !
Any secrets for getting it undone without damaging the red plastic hinge??
ive tried, a small flat blade screw driver to
wedge the nut no luck so far, WD-40. I can't remember ever having this problem before ??, any advise ??

Drill two holes into the nut on opposite sides. Start small and go as big as you can. Your trying to split the nut but not damage the bolt. Wedge in a Std screwdriver to crack it open. Unscrew . A freeze spray might help too

How do you shim the head? Ive got a Gaastra head thats very loose.

The guys at Zu Boardsport got mine off when it was doing the same. Can't remember what they did but worth giving Paul a buzz.

I just gave mine a couple of coats of West Systems Epoxy to tighten things up again.

If the nut is spinning, then fill with around edge of nut with araldite, wait, then remove bolt.

Hope that the head shim is worn not the actual carbon head.

The red clamp lever is already damaged so why not replace for $5 or so?

Then either:
a) buy new head shim and new clamp lever, or
b) buy new clamp lever and add thickness to boom head with bicycle tube
c) buy new clamp lever and add thickness to boom head like this ..

I've rung severne in wa and they sent me new boom bolts & parts next day.

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regal1 said..
I've rung severne in wa and they sent me new boom bolts & parts next day.

Same. Great service as usual from Paul

Thanks all, I don't like my chances of drilling a small stainless steel out nut, but the aralite sounds like a plan, if it doesn't do the job, I'll drill it out.
all good, I get the stainless nuts for bolt shop, easy as. Great boom, with heaps of thought into all, maybe a future update could see a better arrangement for this part ?
Shimming the head, I'll just clean out the sand and carbon dust, use elec tape to build up boom thickness and re assemble so the clamp doesn't have the previous play in it !!
thank you all !!

I usually deal with the issue of the nut-bolt spinning by grabbing the plastic around the nut with a set of vice grips to tighten or loosen. The plastic will deform, maybe bruise slightly, but I've never had it break or cause issue while sailing.


I replace the entire plastic head every couple of years. Recently the new head arrangement sat loosely over the carbon when fully tightened, its a sign the carbon underneath the head was excessively worn. Image below indicates wearing of 1.5 & up to 3mm in some areas, in my book thats too much missing carbon. So I bit the bullet & cut back the grip, sanded+prepped the area & rebuilt this zone with carbon.



This can be fixed by rebuilding the carbon and your good to go again. Images below are after laminating then sanded and head refitted with no more sloppy alignment. Structurally good as new again

One option


My enigma does the same. I think I'll try silicon tape on it.

My NP X9 boom head is still fine, OTOH. I wonder if the fact that it's a carbon head has anything to do with it.

Wonder if the "galvonic corrision " applies to coke cans ?
Surprisingly my shonky push bike tube is still going strong , I had to laugh when wind012 suggested it as a second option- maybe it's not so shonky after all , at least there's no more clamp reaming

The shim probably won't be too happy for long, carbon has high conductivity & salt water is a great medium for dissimilar surfaces to get all worked up. In most the testing & real world stuff I've witnessed in the marine sector it will be the metal that suffers the quickest & most detrimentally. In this case the shim will be the first to crap itself. Only issue I can foresee is how long to leave the ali shim in place. If it gets sh!tty on the surface or the edges, it will likely fast track any abrasion of the adjoining surfaces during any rotation.

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HotBodMon said..
Surprisingly my shonky push bike tube is still going strong , I had to laugh when wind012 suggested it as a second option- maybe it's not so shonky after all , at least there's no more clamp reaming

I think your idea was great (although I have never tested)

The movement of the head must be minimal whilst sailing, so I think it will work well .. and afterall, the bushings on many booms are similarly just made of a similar flexible 'rubber' type product - take a look at the streamlined boom head for example.

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Brent in Qld said..
The shim probably won't be too happy for long, carbon has high conductivity & salt water is a great medium for dissimilar surfaces to get all worked up. In most the testing & real world stuff I've witnessed in the marine sector it will be the metal that suffers the quickest & most detrimentally. In this case the shim will be the first to crap itself. Only issue I can foresee is how long to leave the ali shim in place. If it gets sh!tty on the surface or the edges, it will likely fast track any abrasion of the adjoining surfaces during any rotation.

I've used it a couple of times since. (It may be the lightest boom, but I'm used to skinny booms now and I don't like the shape when sliding my hand to the mast during gybes. It's a great boom for small sails with a lot of shape up front like North Heros... or any Ezzy sail.)

FWIW, this was the starting point. The boom was bought used, so maybe it's supposed to have some sort of shim. But if it's not, then the design is downright stupid - the head's sharp plastic ridges are bound to make grooves in the carbon.

Pain in the ass getting the recessed hex bolt to stop spinning. I ended up carefully cutting the bolt in half with a Dremel tool.

Booms and everything else aren't magical items they require maintenanc.

I have a loose boom head on a used enigma boom and have both glass cloth and carbon to repair the worn spots. I was going to use glass as it seems to resist wear better than carbon. Is there any reason I should stick with the carbon over the glass?

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MrA said..
I have a loose boom head on a used enigma boom and have both glass cloth and carbon to repair the worn spots. I was going to use glass as it seems to resist wear better than carbon. Is there any reason I should stick with the carbon over the glass?

Just use glass much better wear resistance.wrap tightly with tape until cured for minimal sanding.

i just stick the screw driver next to the nut like Zubby did, usually holds enough to undo it.

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Foghorn said..

MrA said..
I have a loose boom head on a used enigma boom and have both glass cloth and carbon to repair the worn spots. I was going to use glass as it seems to resist wear better than carbon. Is there any reason I should stick with the carbon over the glass?

Just use glass much better wear resistance.wrap tightly with tape until cured for minimal sanding.

Thanks Foghorn