SailNet Community banner
  • SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!

headstay tension

4K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  knothead 
#1 ·
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??

Thanx in advance
 
#6 ·
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.
 
#4 ·
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!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top