[Rhodes22-list] Backstay tension -

[Mark Kaynor]

Marc,

I would advise against loosening the rig tension much when your boat's not
in use. So far this season at our marina two boats with loose rigs have had
"unplanned mast lowerings". The rocking from the wake (in the "no wake"
zone) caused a lot of slapping around up top, creating a lot of sudden
stresses on the shrouds, and eventually something fatigued and the masts
dropped.

When we set up Raven, we tighten her shrouds and stays to about 250 lbs
using a Loos tension gauge, making sure the mast is as straight as possible
(in-mast furling). I check this every couple of weeks or so to make sure
nothing's going out of whack.

When we're done for the day we release the backstays to about 75-100 lbs.
When we go back out we retension to 250 lbs again. This seems a good
compromise between keeping the rig fully tensioned and allowing it to relax
a bit when we're not sailing.

Mark Kaynor


Marc Steiger <Marc.Steiger at dlptech.com> wrote:
This may be a real dumb question, but when everyone finishes sailing the
boat for the day, do you leave the backstays tensioned? I released the
tension, but noticed the furled jib sagged a bit. Does it hurt the boat to
leave the backstays tensioned all
the time?
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