On Sat, 11 Oct 2014 18:57:08 -0500, Richard
wrote:

On 10/11/2014 2:29 PM, tdacon wrote:
"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...

Im looking for a wire cable "tension gauge" to use for adjusting
rigging tension on my sailboats.

Gunner

Gunner, on boats of that size a tension gauge is overkill. Just set them
up initially by hand until they "feel right". Then take it for a sail
and sail it close-hauled first on one tack and then the other and adjust
things until the mast stands in column and the jib luff isn't overly
scalloped (you'll never get it perfectly straight). It doesn't take long
to develop the feel. To get the mast standing perpendicular to the deck,
hoist the end of a long measuring tape to the masthead and measure the
distances to port and starboard chain plates and adjust as necessary. To
adjust the rake of the mast, just use that measuring tape as a plumb
bob, and adjust headstay and backstay tension until it has the rake you
want (usually a little aft).

...says a guy who's done it that way on every boat he's ever tuned, over
forty years, up to boats in the forty- to fifty-foot range.

Tom



But on these smaller boats, the mast might not be perpendicular.
Or even straight, for that matter.
Depends on how the rig was designed and how sail is cut.

Big boats have telephone pole masts that generally stand straight -
even if raked.

Small boat masts often are curved a bit to start with, and the backstay
tensioned to belly the middle of the mast forward and reduce the depth
of the sail. Nice in heavy air. Or un-tensioned (if that's a real
word) to fatten the sail for light air.

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.

But them it's Gunner. So ...

Say Richard, get that Capri yet? Or hasnt anyone yet volunteered to
drop one off in your driveway for free so far?

Dont worry..Ill keep posting Capris for you. Maybe someday I can find
one that you wont have to do anything besides order someone to back it
into the water for you. You really do need to learn to do that one of
these days, big guy.

Gunner, selling his Oday 17 and making the final payment on his
Winrose 18. Keeping him at 6 boats not 7 *not counting a soft Hobi
16*

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke