Spin Halyard crane upgrade

[buchhla]

Hi all, I have a Pretorien 35 that is using the stock Isomat rig. I am just about to start a complete refit of all the standing rigging and while I am doing this, I would like to upgrade the way my spin halyards exit the mast head. I currently have 6 halyards on the boat. Two mains, which don't relate to this, and then two head sail and two spin. The way the sheave box is designed right now is that it is located directly under the forestay toggle with all four sheaves on the same axis. My issue with this is for extended offshore cruising, there is a ton of chafe caused by the spin halyards resting on the forestay when on the gybe opposite of the halyard being used. Most of the race boats I have worked on have higher exit that the forestay so you do not have this issue. My question is should I have somebody build a higher exit box for the two halyards (not positive there is room, I need to climb the rig with a caliper and a camera anyway to get my parts list for redoing the standing rigging anyway) or could I machine some sort of crane that I could bolt to the masthead and then hang external blocks on to that would move the exit forward say 2" so it would be in front of the forestay?

any ideas on how I can improve this?

Thanks,

Lauren

[Bob Pingel]

I don't think you can (or want to) mess with the sheave box, the Isomat masthead wouldn't lend itself to that.

Isomat does make a spinnaker crane that bolts right on -- it attaches with the same bolts that hold the "lid" on the masthead. The crane presents eyes to hang blocks. I am not 100% sure, but I believe that the lead was fair from the blocks to the existing outside masthead sheaves. The blocks just hang there to clear the chafe at the masthead and to get a bit more clearance from the furler. You can see the cranes here -> http://rigrite.com/Spars/Isomat_Spar...in_cranes.html

I think you can clear up your problem in an afternoon and for not too many dollars.

Bob

[Matthew Sebring]

I am a fan of spinnaker cranes and 99 times out of a hundred I'd say that that is the way to go but from the sounds of your post your concern is during extended cruises. In these situations, how about dropping the spinnaker and re-setting it rather than just gybing?

[buchhla]

Thanks, that makes this even easy! I agree, for extended offshore cruising it may make sense to rehoist the kite, but coming from the racnig side, my mind doesn't even think that way!

One other question, having had to fix the forestay on another boat last summer sailing back from hawaii, I want to make sure my refit doesn't ahve similar problems. Since the masthead fitting on my mast (either NG70 or 80, not positive) uses stemball fittings for all the standing rigging, do I need to worry about lateral movement like I would if it a eye fitting/fork/tang type arrangment? I looks like there is some amount of movement designed into this fitting, but is it enough, or is this somethign else I should worry about? I am thinking of going hayne fittings for everything, do they make a stemball fitting I could use for this, or do I need to go with a mechanical swage?

Thanks again...

[Matthew Sebring]

Originally Posted by buchhla

I am thinking of going hayne fittings for everything, do they make a stemball fitting I could use for this, or do I need to go with a mechanical swage?
Thanks again...

So far as I can tell, Hi-mod (hayn) doesn't make a T or stemball fitting. Navtec (norseman) does though. And I'm with you on the Racing mind-set, I just wanted to mention dropping the kite because you'd specifically talked about extended cruising.

[buchhla]

I am finally putting together my rigging plan for my pretorien. I have a Isomat NG70 mast section with the factory masthead unit which uses stemball fittings for the all of the stays. My question is that the forestay does not have any toggles installed. I also have a profurl R42 furling unit on it. My worries is that although the stemball theoretically has some movement, it would not be adequate to prevent premature stay wear. My current stay has broke strand at the stemball fitting which may have been caused by this. There is about 7 inches of space between the bottom of the fitting to where the wrapstop for the furling unit goes, so does it make sense to install a stemball eye with a swaged fork connecting to it? Since the stemball isn't permanently attached though, would this even make a difference since it could rotate out of position? The backstay has a double fork to allow for more movement, but I am not sure if there is a enough room for that up front.

Any ideas? The original setup has many ocean voyages on it, so it can't be that far off, just want to make sure that I do the replacement right!

[Bob Pingel]

I'd pop a stemball eye up there, and a toggle jaw on the top of the stay. You'll eat up a little room, but you'll get the movement you need.

Bob