Tuning

[Redders]

Just a couple of questions, i've had my boat for two months and i'm just trying tune for the Vic States. I weight 69Kg, so i understand that i don't need the lower shrouds to tight.

With the mast up but not the sail, I've been told that i should be able to pull the lower shroud together and upper shroud up about 600mm from and chainplate. - I can seem to do this on my boat to about 1000mm

With the upper forestays & upper shrouds attached i have tensioned the upper shrouds to about a 25mm forward bends measured in the middle of the sail.

Then with the upper forestays and lower shrouds attached I have a forwards bend of approx 25mm measured from the middle of the mast.

With the sail up, i would say my rig tension is only light, not slack, but just a slight tension.

I was sailing upwind in Saturday, in 15kts, and i had the main cracked on hard and the leeward upper shroud was slapping on the sail as it was loose. I'm starting to wonder if it might be to loose, and to the detriment of my pointing angle upwind.

Any comments would be appreciated, thanks

[John Brett]

My experience suggests that these rules of thumb about setting up the rigging make good starting points.

What it all gets down to is: do the sail and the mast work together?

The objective is to get the sail tell-tales on the leeward side streaming back. I have found that I had to tighten the lower back stays to stand the mast up straighter or else the leeward tell-tales at mid-height would flick forward before those above and below were affected. This has limited the use of tightening the forward lowers to reduce power when needed as it upsets that balance but overall the boat goes better with tension on the lower back stays more than the usual guides would suggest.

It is a matter of adjusting the bend of the mast to the shape of the sail.

On my boat, when overpowered, downhaul can be used to flatten the sail with less affect on the mid-height streamers tnan others methods.

Cheers, J.