Stay Adjuster Alignment

[Scott]

Catgale said:

Again, my advice is to not take this too seriously for season one or two...spend your time handling your boat and having fun. The first 90% of sailing is learned in year one, the next 10% the rest of your life (Ghandi said that)

I have to chime in first and state that I did not know that Ghandi sailed much.

That being said, here is a copy paste from an earlier post I made.

More important than the chicken or the egg is what task you expect each to do.

forestay controls mast rake

Lowers control lower mast lee sag and to a degree lee bend, (if thats an accurate term) They are different.

Uppers control upper mast lee sag and contribute to Mid to lower mast bend (fore/ aft) and they control forestay tension.

Back stay contributes to mid to upper mast bend (fore /aft) and helps control forestay sag.

I will add that near if not all sites and books state that uppers are tensioned, lowers are set at or near zero.

[Frank C]

... The shrouds seem much tighter than before. So I got out my newly purchased Loos Tension Gauge and checked out the tension. Came up with 200# on the lowers and 220# on the uppers.

I think rigging tension relates more to wire size than the boat. Just to remove a stainless rope's inate stretch (inherent in its twist) takes 5% of its minimum breaking strength, while normal rigging tension targets 10 to 15 percent. Size of wire dictates appropriate tension. Breaking strength of 5/32" wire is 3,300 lbs, making the guideline rigging tension 330 pounds, minimum. Mine are about 365 for uppers, 300 for lowers, clearly under-tensioned by the guideline standards.

Brion Toss' website has lots of good info, and you can look up specs for 1x19 stainless wire rope at [url=http://www.loosco,com] Loos Company[/url]. Read Bruce Whitmore's Rigging Primer, filed under Heath's Special Articles button, to get a good summary of the Brion Toss video.

IMO, it's a bad idea to increase shroud sizing on a Mac 26 because the hull, by design, isn't so heavy & stout as an average keelboat. It cannot well withstand the tensions required by larger wire. For example, appropriate rigging tensions for 3/16" shrouds are 470 to 700 pounds, based on its min. breaking strength of 4,700#. That's well beyond the static tension I'd want on my hull. Fact is, I took a lesson from Stephen (Catigale) and added a QR lever under my furling drum. Not only does it vastly ease the job of raising/lowering the mast, but it permits "relaxing the rig" while the boat sits in mast-up storage. This seems okay on the trailer, but I wouldn't risk the rigging shock-loads if the boat was on a mooring or in a slip.

[Catigale]

For Scott

Not to have control over the senses is like sailing in a rudderless ship, bound to break to pieces on coming in contact with the very first rock.
Quote attributed to Mahatma Ghandi

and

Namaste - loosely translated - 'Get the jib down your bl**dy fool, before the squall breaks the mast

(If Ive offended any Hindi with off colour humour I will be happy to pillory my religion as pennace..

[c130king]

Fellas,

Stephen said:

'Mast straight' refers to port/starboard straightness - if you look up at the mast you dont want to see any visible tip to either side.

'Mast rake' refers to fore and aft tip - in general the mast should be almost vertical with respect to fore aft, with some slight tip to the rear of a few degrees, which translates to a few inches of tip, if you will.

'Mast bend' refers to the curve the mast makes when tensioned the middle of the mast will bulge slightly forward when set 'correctly'

Again, my advice is to not take this too seriously for season one or two...spend your time handling your boat and having fun. The first 90% of sailing is learned in year one, the next 10% the rest of your life (Ghandi said that)

220# tension in those uppers sounds pretty loose. This is dangerous as it can let the mast pump in heavier air, which can break things. I bent a spreader first season due to Too-Loose (Latrec) rigging...

My mast is straight. There is no rake and there is no bend.

My lowers were pretty loose. Now they are nice and snug. The uppers seemed okay but I snugged them up by 1/8" anyway. Sailed today and it seemed to my untrained eye to be about right. No loose shrouds.

And, now that I have tighted the lowers/uppers the forestay definitely seems a little tighther. Less sag in the genoa both when furled and when sailing. However, I will take the furling drum off in the near future and confirm that my turnbuckle has the appropriate pins in place to keep it from coming apart.

There was no "mast pump" or "slamming" of the rigging today which I did have before when sailing through another boats wake. One more reason I think my current tension is "about right".

Frank said:

Breaking strength of 5/32" wire is 3,300 lbs, making the guideline rigging tension 330 pounds, minimum. Mine are about 365 for uppers, 300 for lowers, clearly under-tensioned by the guideline standards

Are the upper/lower shrouds on a 2005 5/32 or 3/32? I thought they were 3/32 and my readings were from that scale.

Having said all that I will now stop "sweating the details" and continue to have fun and learn how to sail.

Thanks again,
Jim

[PollyAnna]

I watched Brion Toss's video, "Tuning your rig". He explains that regardless of the boat, the lines themselves should be "tuned" to 10% of the wire breaking strength on lower shrouds and 15-20% on upper and longer lines like the forestay and backstays. Because of the B&R style spreaders on my , I anticipated that there should be a curve to the mast if it was correctly tuned (was straight before tune).

On Friday, I got my Loos and Co, PT1 from Mauri Pro Sailing supplies (cheaper than West Marine) and used it to perform a dock-side tune on my rig. Because I went solo sailing today, I could not do the dynamic tuning with the mast under load, but I must say that I saw a 100% improvement in sailing performance.

After the tune, there is a very pronounced bend in the mast, I was unable to get the backstay above 5% due to the limit in the turnbuckle (need to adjust CDI furling jib or find another method of getting some more adjustment room in the backstay). I noticed the boom is a lot more level, seems like the Doyle Stock sail was designed for a bend in the mast. Heeling was only 15 to 20 degrees on a close haul compared to the 20 to 25 degrees I was getting before in wind of 10 to 15 knots and was able to improve speed by 1 to 2 knots.

While I am no expert in tuning, I found the methods explained by Toss's video and the Loos and Co PT1 helped improve the performance of my tremendously. Can't wait to have someone go out with me and hold it steady on course so I can try the dynamic tuning.


Gregg