Do you have or can you get or borrow a copy of "The Rigger's Apprentice," by Brion Toss? It's got lots of good info.
You can easily check for pre-bend by hanging a wrench or some other weight from your halyard just above the boom, as a plumb line. Check your owners' group web site or search on line or ask some riggers what amount of pre-bend, if any, is best for your make and model of boat. I don't have one of those tension gauges but borrowed one a year or so ago and found it most helpful for getting the shrouds and stays at least evenly tightened. As I recall, tightening to about 10% of breaking strength is pretty relaxed and to 20-25% is very aggressive, for super-intense racers who tend to push everything as far as possible. The gauge will have a scale on it -- easy to see the effect just a quarter turn on a turnbuckle can have. You'll have to work side to side and front to back several times, as changing the tension on one shroud changes the whole overall picture -- it's a system, so everything's interrelated. Use a crescent wrench (_not_ pliers or vice grips or something that could mar the fitting) to hold the shroud in place while you turn the turnbuckle this way and that, and use a wooden stick or something strong but soft and padded to move the turnbuckle -- you don't want to introduce any nicks or dings in the hardware. Also stand at the base of the mast, press your face against the mast if possible or otherwise get as close to it as you can, and look straight up, to check if you've introduced any curvature side to side. Then as someone else mentioned, when you're done with all of that, go out sailing, back and forth on beam reaches in about 15 kts of wind, fine-tuning the rig until the lee shrouds are unloaded but not slack or floppy and you like how the boat is sailing. It'll all take a lot more time than you might think, but hey, what else better to do than work on your boat, get to know it even better, get another part of it set up just the way you like it? Cheers, Phil s/v Cynosure Bahia de Caraquez At 06:53 PM 11/7/2009 -0600, you wrote: >I am raising the masts on my 35' ketch this week and I would >appreciate any insights or links for rigging tension specs and >techniques.. I am considering purchasing a Loos & Co. Model PT or >90/91 series tension gauge. > >I could hire someone to do it, but I'm a DIY'er -- and I like to >know everything about my boat intimately. > >Thanks in advance. > >Tim >s/v Bliss _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
