If you look at the thumbnail below you can see that the boom is pretty much horizontal. When I raise my main and let the topping lift go the back of the boom hangs a good 8" lower than the front.
When I raise the main I pull it up a much as I can, there is still a little slack in the luff but the leech is as tight as it can be. Anyone have any idea what is going on here? Is the sail just not going up all the way?
Excuse me if I miss on some of the terminology. Sounds like what you need to do is rig a downhaul to the gooseneck. On my 22 there is a ring on the bottom of the gooseneck for that purpose which lets you tension the luff. Raise the sail to the top then tension the luff till you get one vertical wrinkle running from foot to head just aft of the luff and the problem should disappear.
"I feel no need to go anywhere the ice gets larger than will fit in my glass"
I cannot picture if the gooseneck is adjustable or not, I did rig a Cunningham which tightened the luff and I also have a boom vang installed. When looking at some photos of my boat by some others i notice the mast does lean back quite aways so I'll have to tighten the forestay and hopefully lower the gooseneck. Thanks for the tips.
Do you have a fixed gooseneck or the sliding variety? If it's fixed the downhaul doesn't work for you. It becomes a matter of unscrewing the boom fitting from the mast and reattaching it at the proper location. Mine slides so I can just cinch it down to tighten the luff - once I get it put together.
Back rake on the mast could make a difference. It doesn't take much of an angle change at the fulcrum point (mast & boom intersection) to make a noticable differnece at the end of an 8' boom.