Shroud tension question

[Ian McColgin]

Ahoy there,

I almost always tune such that the leeward shrouds a just barely unstressed in a good wind. But then, I mostly sail older wooden boats and have a general interest in keeping the stresses down as much as possible. I figure that if a good wind ends any load sharing between weather and leeward stays, that's good.

There are rigs - the triple diamond Thistle for a small boat example, some hard charging IOR types for big boat examples - that are stressed a bit more highly than that to further reduce real or imagined mast movement.

The big thing is that the mast head (or upper most point of stay attachment) stays above the boat's centerline and that the mast remains in colum under that. Everything else is pretty much commentary.

So, it depends on the boat. But, at a guess, you might be a scootch tight. I don't know how one would get a mast correctly tuned without sailing her anyway. One can replicate a good tuning using tools like the Loos Gauge and you might make a nice start that way on a new boat, but anyone who claims they've done the tune-up without a sail knows something I never heard of.

G'luck

Ian