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This coming weekend I have decided to finally tune my mast, it has always had a bad rear rake, something in the vicinity of 8-10 degrees giving me terrible weather helm, so time to bring it forward to the recommended 4 degrees and then complete re-tension, then the best part, I have Friday 26th March off so three days of sea trials and minor adjustments to get the best out of her. I will stay in the Mooloolaba mariner 2 nights rather than camping in the river so I can perform adjustments at dock, much easier than trying to adjust while at anchor. I'm excited to try sailing after tuning, I expect quite a handling difference, I'm happy to listen to any advice on adjusting the rigging from anyone with experience, I have never done this so I have nothing more than the Macgregor book to go by.

Cheers, Dennis.

Good luck with it Dennis. Note sure if the same tuning technique applies to the Mac for dock tuning, but this video may give you a few ideas?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6XVMZdyFLQ

Well that was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, I shortened the forestay by about 15mm and then re-tentioned the shrouds and backstay, the mast appears about 4 deg rear of vertical now, I dont know if I have correct tension on all stays and shrouds but it feels tight without any obvious bend in the mast so fingers crossed, now to see how she sails? But that's for next weekend. I'm hoping that I have arrested a fair bit of her weather helm, she has been very heavy to steer under anything above a light breeze and really swings in to the wind under a heavy gust, this isnt a bad thing for a beginner and actually saved me a few times when I was still green but now I would rather just ease the main and control the boat myself rather than relying on mother nature. I'll let you know how it goes next weekend.

CHeers, Dennis.

Well I am pleased with the results, I didn't have to re tune, she handles a fair bit better but the surprise for me is the extra speed, not just my imagination, admittedly the wind was quite firm but on Sunday I did 19nm and averaged 5 knots, had sustained bursts of 7knots which is far from normal for my boat. All in all worth the effort.

Cheers, Dennis.

5 to 7 sounds about right to me, Well done with the rig tuning Dennis..

God it must be nice going for 19 mile sails on a Sunday..... Ya just don't get to do that with young kids

LOL, sometimes you just have to leave the kids at home and go sailing.

I just published a short video (link below) taken on Sunday about 1 nm off Mudjimba Island (Old woman island) which is about 4nm north of Mooloolaba harbour, I was heading for Noosa but turned around just after Stumers Creek past Coolum due to increasing winds and swell. The video shows Mudjimba island and Mooloolaba/Maroochydore in the distance, I was doing about 6.5 knots as you can see from the wake behind the boat, awesome days sailing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcAi6u2 ... e=youtu.be

Getting permission to take the boat out by myself is a once in a year affair unfortunately. The Admiral is usually wanting me to look after the kids while she stresses over her latest Uni assignment or exam....

Hootin along there and good to see you have the obligatory pirate flag flying

We were going to go out Mastless for a river cruise this weekend, have been planning for a while and have the boat all ready to go, but its not really looking like much of a weekend for it...

Glad you got some improvements in performance from the rig tune Dennis.

Me too Barry, it was something I had been putting off even though I knew it needed doing, I expected it to be much harder than it was, in hind sight I would have done it much earlier. Oh well.

The Easter weather looks pretty poor indeed so stay home I think Paul.