Heavy jibe snaps my boom off the mast

 The gooseneck connection linking the boom to the mast finally busted during an abrupt jibe on a 25 kph sailing day while heading back into the Mission Bay jetty. No one was hurt.

The cotter pin holding the boom to the mast snapped...

      The hard part of this fix was removing the galvanized steel plate from the front of the boom. This plate had clearly never been removed in 38 years (the steel bolts had weather welded to the steel plate). Once removed (by drilling out the bolts), I could see that the cotter pin holding the gooseneck connector in the boom had snapped.
   So, a relatively easy fix.
   It could have been much worse.