What A Fool Believes

[Rattle]

What a test of a riggers skill! To boldly go where many have tried and failed.

I've just got a boat that some madman altered radically, and I mean that in a very respectful way. The previous owner actually stayed up nights dreaming of sailing a 19 foot boat to Hawaii. He took the hull of a day-sailer and put a cabin on it and a tiny little cockpit. And then he put double back stays, double (cutter) forestays, 7/8 and 3/8 shrouds, and spreaders, all with double sized wire for the original craft. What was an open boat day-sailer, is now an off shore surf board with a cabin. And the workmanship is all very good.

But! The thundering question here. How do I tension this rig?

The boat was originally speced to carry 1/8th inch wire. Now it has 1/4 inch wire on it. How much tension can I safely put on this forestay? there's about 16 inches of rake on the mast as it's standing now and the fore stay is very tight. The fore stay to the pointed end of the boat and the back stays to the corners of the transom form a nice little triangle. And all the shrouds all meet the same chain plate a foot or so behind the mast step. They are barely tight at all. Beneath the deck step is a well built glass deck supported by a curved 2x4 deck beam resting on top of a bulk head made of 1/2 inch ply. Not quite a keel stepped mast, but not purely deck stepped either.

I'm looking for suggestions here. Any one out there fancy themselves a good rigger?

The wire seems to be the trial version he put up to see if it would work. I can't really tell if it's bright galvanized or stainless. It's all plain swagged with Hershoff thimbles, and bronze turnbuckles that go to bronze jaws on one side and stainless jaws on the other. He even set up the back stays to serve as ham radio antennas with isolators in them, the kind you see on telephone poles. Everything is a little bit short and uneven. Getting a plumb bob to hang from the top of the mast in a straigh line with the boat is nie impossible and the buckles are different lengths on each side, while the measurement from the top to the chain plate is about equal.

So with the fore-stay balancing the pull of 8 other quarter inch wires, on a little 19 footer originally concieved to carry 1/8 standard day sailor rigging, Whatcha gonna do?????

I have no intention of taking this little boat off shore. But it seems a shame to think of scrapping this guys brain child. Where do I start?

Oh, The hull is a Rhodes 19. Probably an older hull. The Vin number says home built in 86, but that's probably when he took it out of the shop with it's mods.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rattle

[Ian McColgin]

Tune the old fashioned way.

Assume that someone knew something as a start. This may be wrong but makes a useful hypothesis. So, get the masthead centered athwartships by hand tensioning the uppers and slack lowers. I find the main halyard bounced side to side is a good measure. Run the main up in calm air and look at what, if any, mast rake it takes to get the boom level. Tension the backstay and head stay to keep that. Get the lowers hand tight to remove any mast bend. Now go sailing. Assuming that your boat trim is right - water is a bit denser than air so get this right before fooling with the rig - get rid of any lee helm or excess weather helm. Get the head and back stays tight enough that you loose any excess cup in the jib's luff. Make sure that the uppers are tight enough that the masthead does not sag off and the lowers are tight enough that the mast stays straight tack to tack. It makes little difference whether you tighten on the weather or lee side as you tack back and forth so long as you tighten way less than half what seems needed with each evolution. You should end up with the leeward shrouds just barely unloaded on each tack.

This gets the mast in colum. From here, depending on use and sail, you can go on to bend the mast for flattening the sail, etc.

G'luck

[Rattle]

Very sound advice. I've been reading low tech and simple as inexperienced or unskilled. And that was possibly wrong of me.

Trying to get the mast centered has been difficult. The forestay joins the boat just a little (1"-2") off of the center line. and the back stays run to the corners of the transome. I can't see any twisted blocks or fowled lines but I'll be damned if I can get the mast head to dead center. The kicker well sitsl off to the port side of the transom and the battery is also port side forward. And she's small. So a hundred pounds puts her off a bit to port. The shrouds are at 7/8ths so if I want a straight mast, I can't just pull her into line from the side chain plates. The two backstays are the key and I can't quite figure to tighten one or loosen the other. Or perhaps I should just slack them and work from the shrouds. Or build a tensioner.

It's not a cross, it's a pyramid. All the shrouds are coming down to the same chain plate a foot and a half behind the mast.

It's only one level of complexity further than your simple advice.

Thanks for reading and responding Ian.

[Matthew Sebring]

With the shrouds aft like that you needn't worry about the backstays. Slack them completely, your shrouds and forestay will support the mast. Use the shrouds to center the mast and then adjust the backstay legs. One problem you may encounter with wire that big is that the tension required to keep it from being downright sloppy will be considerably higher than the original tiny wires and you may banana the hull. This will be especially true of your backstays which are already going to be only lightly loaded (relatively) which is compounded by them being doubled.

[Rattle]

I've got heavy chain plates and heavy wires on a fully decked boat. The forces seem to be fairly well anticipated in the size and guage of the plates and the size of the chain plate bolts. So it's not simply a case of wrong wires. The hull and the chain plates have been beefed up too.

It looks like I'll be adding some chain to the backstays, or getting a hold of monster 16" turnbuckles. Or cutting new sails. Or making a whole new set of wires. I start to appreciate the art at a much deeper level today. Life is interesting. I'll get more detail on this posted tonight with pictures of the boat and plates.

I've been looking at the rig from the standpoint of it being untried and never quite finished by the previouse owner. I don't think I'm too far off the mark there. Pictures will help you get an idea of what I'm talking about.

I thank those who have read this. And I'm very pleased with the tips from Matt and Ian. Thank you both very much.