Riser block

[dnus4925]

Does anyone make the carbon riser blocks that I have seen on a few boats?

[Geoff Sobering]

All the ones I know of were built by the sailor.
Maybe Jeff Kent?

[wnethercote]

Mine is a chunk of dead carbon fibre hockey stick.  If you don't have young hockey players of your own, troll the neighbourhood early on a winter garbage day.

[DN 5449]

What is the main purpose of having a deck riser?

[KB [us5219]]

Saw one break off the deck of a certain silver fleet racers boat.  It cost  him a possible win in one race. 
The rationale, is that more deck clearance makes it easier to get around under the boom, steer, tack, Jibe, etc...

[MICHAEL]

Not needed if you slide body forward and duck your head sideways during tacks and jibes. JD demonstrated this to me a few years back and it works!

[Geoff Sobering]

I put a riser block on my boat this season so I could rake the mast a bit further forward in high wind (I had run out of room to lower the sail any further).

I have to admit that the extra bit of room in the cockpit sailing in high wind is really nice.
I'm a big guy and with the sail down all the way some of the basic sailing operations (ex. switching the sheet from one hand to the other) become very difficult.
With the boom at a medium-wind height I found I could keep "my head out of the boat" all the time in the high winds at the NAs and my sailing was much better.

Cheers,

Geoff S.

[wnethercote]

My riser block is allows me to reduce rake to carry the boom nearer to horizontal without having the two front blocks come together.  More space for me is just a happy accident.

[Bob Rast DN1313]

I started using just a piece of 1x1 aluminum for a riser  and worked fine
Went to 2 inch height
It allows a little more height for boom and less interference with tiller and sheeting
Never liked the pinned in the boat with boom on top of tiller and shoulder
Easy getting under boom and better visibility as you can sheet out a little and look under the boom when crossing traffic
Mine pulled out on the NA twice which cost a couple of good finishes but that won't happen again