[davidk]

But I would say the main purpose of swept back spreaders is to replace the need for running back stays. When we moved from a traditional wooden mast with plenty of wire to carbon fibre the rig got a whole lot more simple and we did away with the runners. Now the backstay is essentially their for bend ratrher than holding it all up. I did worry that 22.5 degrees of spreadback would to all intents and purposes be the only thing that stops the lot going forwards and that was asking a lot but as far as I understand it, that is the set up you get in the high tech rigs. Anyway it works for us and so my worries have slowly turned to self confidence in our rig (includes rod rigging and some high stress numbers)