Greetings , I have been thinking about a boom tent design for "hula pie", [M17 w/o lifelines] that would use the main halyard to pull up on a tab at the peak of the tent giving greater headroom and using a couple of fiberglass battens or 1/2 inch PVC pipe across the boat and tied down to the rails to give it some arch for rain to run off. I would try out this idea first with a tarp or some Tyvek first. What do you think? Maybe connect a sail slide to the end of a batten that ran longitudinally and connected with a T or passed under the cross battens. What would be really slick to use are those bungee/ aluminum tent supports that pull apart and fold up to about 15 inches long. Thanks to all for the exchange of info, photos and ideas, Ron and Cathryn Goodspeed M17 #025 "hula pie"