O'Day 37 mast info

[bigmack]

Hello to all. I'm a new member, and haven't received my copy of Rigger Apprentice yet, so have patience if my terminology is not correct. My family and I live in New York and have purchased a 1979 O'Day 37 Center Cockpit. The boat is in good condition, with recently replaced standing rigging, lightly used sails, and a new engine. We will be moving the boat to the US Virgin Islands soon and need some advice on upgrading our rigging. The OPAL was purchased as a sloop rig with a 150% roller furling genoa. Our concern is that the current rigging will not allow us to sail in conditions much over 15 or 20 knots. We have had her out in those conditions and reefed her in about 20%. She sailed OK but the sails were already beginning to look baggy. The two options that I see are either replacing our Genny with a smaller headsail, perhaps a 110% ( of course then we don't have enough sail area for light winds ), or adding a Solent stay. We have been up the mast and the geometry of the layout seems well suited to this option. From a point on deck about 18" behind the tack of our head foil we can run a stay to a point on the mast up to 18" below the headstay. This angle created would never fall behind the top interconnecting point of our backstay. The higher we place it, the more the top intersecting point will move forward.

My questions are:
Does anyone have experience installing a Solent rig on an O'Day ? Do you think this is the best option for us ? Does anyone know who manufactured the masts for these vessels ? My thinking is that if I can find the mast supplier they may have a headstay tang in stock that I can use and I wouldn't have to fabricate one. Are there any other options that I am not exploring ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[gonesail]

isomats were used for many of the oday boats .. but i'm not really sure about the 37.