| I have noticed that, during the winter, my shrouds tighten quite
a bit due to temperature. I have taken to loosening them almost
an inch... I expect that if one took the time to figure out the
temp vs. length of 40' of stainless you'd come up with some interesting
figures. As I have a wooden boat I don't normally maintain as tight
shrouds as fiberglass boats can and don't know if, after shrinkage,
the stainless has a 'memory'..
Ed
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| You didn't mention how the boat was stored for the winter. I gather
that the mast was not unstepped. Hopefully all the rigging was
loosened. There are considerable distortions and stresses that a
hull and deck are under when they're not supported by water. You may
very well have stretched things too far, especially if you didn't
have some sort of support under the bow and/or stern.
Do you have any sort of specific rig tuning instructions from
Hunter? I think that there is an old note somewhere on the subject.
It sounds like you may need to loosen everything and start from scratch
by first making sure that everything is perpendicular, then deal
with forestay/backstay tensions along with whatever might be
necessary to pre-tension (bend) the mast. It may be that your
problem is caused by something other than tension on the stays.
Does the mast look OK otherwise? Any crooked "S" bends?
Hopefully you're just out of tune and don't have hull distortion
or stretched rig.
John
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| My new boat was commissioned late last week and rig tuning was
particularly critical as the mast is a Hood Stowaway. Too much bend
and they don't furl, etc. On my maiden voyage from Bend over to
Block it was readily apparent that I didn't have enough tension
on the forestay. Fortunately I was attending the Sabre Regatta
and there were factory engineers available to look the situation
over.
It appears that the mast needed more 'rake'. Before bending anything,
the masthead should have been leaning 12 inches aft of perpendicular.
So despite proper tensions on all the rest of the rig and proper
bend I still wasn't tuned. One interesting tidbit which maybe should
have been 'intuitively obvious' to me but wasn't is: with a mast
of my general length, a two inch change at the backstay turnbuckle
affects the masthead position by nine inches.
John
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| Check out my comments in note 8. Standing rigging must be tuned
every year, if not more often. Get together with your Yardman and
discuss how they set it up for you when the boat was commissioned.
WRITE IT DOWN! It is too easy to mix-up the stay and shroud
adjustments.
I have a stay tension meter that I use to check initial setting
and then check it several times during the seasin. If I find that
situatuions change and that last year's tuning doesn't seem to be
the same, I will adjust my rig until it sails like I want it to
and write down the new tensions in my log.
The truth is that sailing feel is not a matter of rig adjustment,
rig adjustment is a result of sailing feel. And feel changes as
your experience and situations change. Don't expect everything
to remain constant, whether it's hardware or expertise.
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| Our boat has Navtec rod rigging -- oh such lovely stuff -- and a hull
quite resistent to bending. Three springs ago we spent a long, breezy,
and very tiring afternoon tuning our cutter rig -- headstay, forestay,
backstay, upper shrouds, intermediate backstays, forward lower shrouds,
and aft lower shrouds. This was most definitely not my idea of sailing
fun. Eventually, we got it right, mast bend and all.
At the end of the summer I used an 0-6" dial micrometer to measure the
gaps between the upper and lower parts of the turnbuckles. The micrometer
reads to .001". The last two springs after stepping the mast I have
simply reset the turnbuckle gaps to the same spacing as before. Since a
half turn is .025" or so, it is easy to reset the turnbuckles. (Assuming
that the standing rigging hasn't changed length and the hull hasn't
changed shape, resetting the turnbuckle gaps to the same as last year is
equivalent to resetting the rig tension to the same as last year. I
already owned the micrometer.) Both years sailing tests showed no
further twiddling was needed.
From this I can draw one or more of three conclusions:
1. Navtec rod doesn't stretch much and returns to a consistent length
when loads are removed.
2. Our hull hasn't changed shape in the last three years.
3. I am an inept sailor who can't recognize a rig needing adjustment.
I tend to think all three of these possibilities are more or less true.
Even if a little twiddling is needed, resetting the turnbuckle gaps gets
you very close (a turn or two) to the right tuning. This can make tuning
a pleasant part of a spring sail.
By the way, I have yet to see a yard set up a rig properly. In fact, I
don't see how they possibly could unless they, the workers, sailed the
boat. I now have the yard crane set the mast on its keel step and I do
all the work from then on. Less cost to me and the job is done right.
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