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Old 01-03-2011, 05:45 AM
Ian McColgin Ian McColgin is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Hyannis, MA
Posts: 368
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If you must have a turnbuckle, keep it up under the bowsprit where it's less subject to corrosion. Better yet if you can make the splice with reasonable accuracy or perhaps adjust the cranse iron or paired fork a little, no turnbuckle. Heave the sprit down with some hanging weights and draw the parts together by pulling with turnbuckle or come-along on a very strong selvagee on the splice and led to a very solid point in line with the stay's landing.

Tension adjustment will then be handled by the jib stay, as it should be, and you have one less part. The only problem with this method is getting enough strain that you strain the stay enough that when you hook up and crank in the jib stay you don't get the sprit pointing skyward. The bow sprits on my boats could be stove down almost a half inch with a few hundred pounds hanging on the end so it only takes a 100# pull to make the wire fit right. Once the thing was hooked up and the jib stay fastened, the sprit was back to nearly straight - just an aesthetic litte steve-down to it.

G'luck
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