A guess
Hi Brian
A nice puzzle. Discontinuous rigging, of course, is about reducing elasticity by reducing run length, so it is deeply odd to have disco on the lower pieces, and a continuous wire running to the top of the mast. My guess is that the chainplates were designed with a double-spreader rig in mind, with continuous rigging on intermediates and uppers. When they went to the triple spreader configuration, there were no longer enough chainplates for all the wires to be continuous, so they elected to go disco on the worst ones: the shortest ones. Yes, this sounds like an utterly lamebrained thing to do, but the jibstay/backstay anomaly inclines me to see it as likely. And what are they doing with 3/4" clevis pins on 1/2" wire anyway?
Fair leads,
Brion
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