The Peconic Puffin

A blog about a group of windsurfers and other water sports enthusiasts, and their friends. Established 1993.

recent posts

about

How Well Do You Check Your UJ?

Uj

I worry about gear breaking…in particular anything that would leave me unable to sail back to shore, and expecially anything that might separate me from my board (perhaps you caught my rant about two bolt bases.)   I've been fairly lucky in regards to uni breakage (it's only happened to me once…my safety line held, and I didn't trash the deck sailing back to shore) and I inspect my uni's regularly, but after reading a post by Andreas Macke about how he found quite the crack in a tendon, I need to improve my inspection technique.

Check out his story and see for yourself.

(Photo of Andreas' torn UJ swiped from his blog, G-42.)

Posted in

2 responses to “How Well Do You Check Your UJ?”

  1. Mike Burns Avatar
    Mike Burns

    It’s easy to find the cracks like this. The first thing I do when I pull my board out is put on my universal joint and bend it around. Yes every time I sail. If you look by the screws holding the joint in, both top and bottom screws, you’ll easily see if one is cracked. I found a few bad joints by using this technique and saved myself many swims to shore.

    Reply
  2. giampaolo Avatar
    giampaolo

    Swims to shore???
    Just replace the regular safety line with a spectra one and make sure you don’t use a UJ that has the ends on the top and bottom of the tendon in plastic (like the Chinook american double pin one… bad!) and you’ll never have to swim again.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to giampaoloCancel reply

Discover more from The Peconic Puffin

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading