the crappy video shows a link tang on the fore stay and what looks like a turnbuckle on the shroud. you adjust the forstay for the mast rake you want ( for the days wind pressure ) and then adjust the shrouds for rig tension. back in the day when I raced the snipe we left some slack in the shrould tension so the mast would bend forward during the downwind and on the upwind the forstay would be tight when you sheet in on the main.
Rigging a sailboat, Snipe pt 2 08 - YouTube

 

you adjust the forstay for the mast rake you want ( for the days wind pressure ) and then adjust the shrouds for rig tension. v=pIh-qK8maMk]Rigging a sailboat, Snipe pt 2 08 - YouTube[/url]

Right, but shouldn't the mast, in general, be pretty much straight? I can't get the forestay tight unless the mast is rigged waaaaayyyyyy aft.

 

there is also this tuning notes which has some measurments for mast rake
Destination One Design - Preparation

 

Hope you can see this link: Tuning Your Rig - UK-Halsey's Encyclopedia of Sails

I owned a Lightning 19' sailboat for a few years that had also been rigged for racing. I too was surprised by the aft rake of the mast when I set it up. My Lightning had a similar sounding mast step that was adjustable but I never adjusted it to try to get a more vertical mast.
My understanding is that the aft rake (towards the stern) is a setting that is used to keep the boat from having too much weather helm in higher winds so I left it that way. I never any winds much more then 15 - 20 in that boat and it performed like a thoroughbred except the aft rake meant that the boom was a tad low(er). Even in winds as light as 2 knots the Lightning would still move faster then any keel boat.
My advice is to try it as it is before attempting to correct something that may already be pretty well set up.
Bending the mast aft brings the center of effort aft and closer to the center board.
If you need to tighten the fore stay consider tightening the back stay to do so. Watch out for a low boom and a fast boat.
My $.02

 

The Lighting rig has a lot more aft rake designed into it than than a Snipe rig . and he won't be able to tighten the backstay as suggested because a Snipe does not have one. it has swept back spreaders and aft mounted shrouds to take the downwind loads

 

Actually, my the shrouds on my Snipe are mounted just aft of the deck, and I have no backstays of any kind.

I think I will try as sugested and just rake the mast until the forestay is tight, and then sail the dumb thing.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

We have a snipe, it is old but works well. The fore stay, if the jib has not been rigged will be loose. Not until you put the jib on and tension that will the shrouds go taught. Our jib is tensioned using a muscle box on the floor of the boat. varying tension on your jib will allow more or less flex in your mast. The fore stay cable will be very loose, and is supposed to be when you tension the jib sail.