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Hi folks.. Had my boat now for 6 months (new to me) have really been enjoying it a lot. Teaching wife to sail is fun too. I have a 2 part question here. I have a lot of slack in my foresaty. I have a (profurl) jib system. We have been caught in 2 'big blows" in 6 months. Jib has taken a whippin or 2 hahaha. My roller furling does not furl the sail all the way in now. I still have 2-3 wraps of jib left and no more furling line and I have to wrap jib manually.. NADA end on line on pulley. I have discovered my jib halyard has done a 180 wrap around my forestay up topside of mast. 1st question is: how do I undo the wrap on stay??? 2nd question: My hunter has a raked mast to aft. Backstay and forestay are very loose. When I say loose,, If I grab and shake the forestay above my head as far as I can reach, the play is maybe 8-10 " inches, Way too much I know. How tight do I need the forestay??
Seriously, with all due respect, you need to contact a knowledgeable, local rigger, or even another sailor that you trust, to familiarize you with your furler. You obviously don't know enough about it to operate it safely.
Also, if you have a Hunter, it's possible you have a B&R rig. Some of these boats don't have backstays. If you have one of these, you may as well give up on trying to get headstay tension.
Also, if you have a Hunter, it's possible you have a B&R rig. Some of these boats don't have backstays. If you have one of these, you may as well give up on trying to get headstay tension.
KH, not all the B&R rigs from Hunter were backstay-less. The early masthead versions had normal backstays, and even up to the mid 90s the fracs had a conventional backstay too.
It does sound like the OPs rig is ridiculously loose - and he does indeed need the services of a rigger as you suggest.
You'll want to tighten the forestay and backstay to about 15-20% of their breaking strength. Shrouds are tightened to about 10% of breaking strength.
You'll need a tension gauge. Like this one:
When you get your tension gauge you get all the information you'll need, i.e. breaking strength of 3/16 stainless steel cable, which is probably what you've got.
My boat uses 1/4 inch cable and the breaking strength is 8,000 pounds, so my forestay and backstay are tensioned to 1200 pounds and shrouds are at 800 pounds.
It'll make a heckuva difference is the way your boat sails.
BTW.....America's Cup racers tension all rigging to 100% of breaking strength!
I think talking to a local rigger is a pretty sound idea. One of the possible concerns is that the furler could be loosening your forestay which could have disastrous results...
Nice looking boat by the way:
good luck!
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