"Richard" wrote in message
...

So the trick is to set the stay tensions the way the designer intended
them to be to get the mast pre-shaped.

That is done more accurately with a tension gage.

Best of luck finding designer's intended tension specifications for the
kinds of boats that Gunner talks about, if they ever even existed (not
likely). And as someone else pointed out, those old boats tend to get a
little limber as they age, and you can easily bend a boat like that out of
shape by over-tightening the rig. That throws your tension specs out the
window all by itself.

It's true that there are lots of small boats (even big ones) with bendy
masts, which you tune even as you're sailing for the wind speeds and the
sails you're using. I've raced on them myself. Big race boats like the
America's Cup catamarans have strain gauges on spars and shrouds with
digital readouts, and crew that adjust the rig and the sails with one eye on
the gauges. Gunner's boats typically have uniform-diameter aluminum
extrusions that are intended to be rigged straight up and down. Typically
you set 'em up once and never touch them again unless you have some reason
to take the rig off the boat.

I stand by my original comments - on that kind of boat there's no point in
fiddling with tension gauges.

Tom