Update March 24, 2018

I decided to bite the bullet and get the gooseneck professionally redone by Pro-tech Yacht Services. I inspected the work today and I think it looks really solid; see below for yourself. Pro-tech, like many is a custom rigging shop that does both big and small projects. Their work is in demand, so it took nearly 2 months for them to begin work on it, but that seems to be typical for the “top shops” like this one.

Hopefully I’ll be testing it all out on Easter weekend!

Gooseneck Slider Height

Gooseneck slider height 4 1/2in.

Original Post

I am replacing a few parts around the gooseneck of my Newport 30 Mark 2 (a.k.a. N30ii, Newport 30 mkii, Newport 30-2, and the Gary Mull design) and will be logging information about that here. My boat has fairly good maintenance records and as far as I know all this stuff is original to the Newport 30-2.

The main motivation is that the gooseneck slider is bent, and may be cracked, but it’s hard to replace one part without either spending a lot of effort and/or money, or replacing the parts around it too. I want to avoid having too many patchwork upgrades, so I’m also going to replace the toggle, and maybe the boom end cap along with it.

Half the battle is identifying what I have, and so, in hopes of helping other Newport 30-2 owners, I have documented my measurements of the gooseneck assembly here.

Gooseneck Slider Height

Gooseneck slider height 4 1/2in.

Gooseneck Slider Depth

Gooseneck Slider Depth approx 2in.

Gooseneck Slider Toggle Height

Gooseneck slider maximum toggle height approx 1 1/4in.

Slider Track Width

Slider track width 1 7/16in or 1 1/2in.

Slider Track Depth/Thickness

Slider Track Depth/Thickness 1/4in.

There is a sheave for the topping lift that comes into the boom on the bottom at 2 3/4” from the end. That limits how deep the end cap can be.

Related is the spar section, of which I took a few measurements and pictures as well.

Spar Section Outside Height

Spar section outside height 4 7/16in.

Spar Section Outside Width

Spar section outside width 3 1/8in.

Spar Section Inside Width

Spar section inside width 2 7/8in.

In addition to photographing direct measurements, I traced the spar section and labeled it. The drawing is done on metric graph paper, where each square is 0.5cm. All measurements are written into the figure, including the following:

  • The sail track’s inside diameter is 3/4in,
  • The sail track’s outside diameter is 3/4in,
  • The sail track’s outside height is 13/16in,
  • All walls are 1/8in,
  • The screw holes appear to be 1/8in and 3/16in.
Spar Section Sketch

Spar Section Sketch.

The end cap that fits onto the spar section appears to be made of the same cast aluminum alloy that the gooseneck slider is made of. Bolted into that is either a chromed brass or stainless steel toggle-and-bolt assembly, which I have thus far found impossible to remove (have not tried heat yet). The end cap came off rather easily once I removed the 4 screws holding it down, including those passing through cheek blocks (don’t overlook them like I did!) and applying heat with a regular propane blow torch on a cold day. Rather than prying under the lip of the end cap, I tapped with a lead cannon ball on a long wrench passed through a gap in the cheek of the boom.

End Cap Inside

End cap inside.

End Cap Profile

End cap profile.

End Cap Front

End cap front.

End Cap Top

End cap top.

From this point forward I didn’t have my trusty analog imperial caliper handy, so the rest of the measurements are either metric, or decimal imperial.

I also traced the end cap fitting onto the metric graph paper, and sketched the lip and sail track parts. The measurements are written into the figure, including the following:

  • End cap fitting width 7.0cm (2.880in)
  • End cap fitting min height 8.3cm (3.532in)
  • End cap fitting max height approx 3.79-3.81in
  • End cap fitting dpeth 1.677in
End Cap Fitting Sketch

End cap fitting sketch.

A vertical toggle pin attaches the gooseneck slider to the gooseneck toggle, and the toggle attaches via eye-bolt pin to an eye-bolt made fast to the end cap. The bolt appears to be seized with adhesive, as well as held on with a lock washer and nut and perhaps lock-tite.

  • Toggle pin diameter max approx 0.3in
  • Eye-bolt pin diameter 0.369in
  • Eye-bolt pin length 0.904
  • Toggle outside width (i.e., the distance the eye-bolt pin has to cover) 0.773, inside 0.471 (i.e., the distance that bounds the width of the eye)
  • Eye-bolt flange diameter 1.184
  • Eye-bolt diameter 0.39
  • Eye-bolt nut 0.675
  • Eye-bolt eye protrusion distance 1.387

Edit: Roverhi points out in a comment that it looks to be a LeFiell boom, and indeed LeFiell has one with the same spar section. Probably more to the point is that the existing gooseneck assembly is inadequate and likely not complete.

Here is a copy of their spar sections, taken from LeFiell’s old website and used without permission. It’s pretty clear to me that I won’t be getting any OEM parts for this, so we’ll have to see what’s next.

LeFiell Spar Sections

LeFiell Spar Sections