DAMN! the Just lost the starbord shroud again!

RallyDogRacing · Post by **RallyDogRacing** » July 3rd, 2005, 9:52 pm

OK, I must be doing something wrong. For the second time I've lost the mast as a result of a failure on the starbord shroud. Coincidence, bad sea-man ship, badly wrigged? I don't know.

This time the ferrul of the shrouds I made last year after this happened, simply stopped clamping and well mast, mainsail and everything came crashing down agaqin. I have taken to jibing the boat as it's significantly quicker than coming about by my hand.

Can anyone provide me with the exact length of the shrouds for the mast? I need to go to WestMarine and make new ones, previously I modeled from the old ones which were perhaps out of spec...

Also as a general comment, should there be slack in the leward shroud when on a tack? I've got the 3-4 inches of play which seams excessive.

Rob Dupree
rob@rallydogracing.com
773-203-2886

Post by **Matt Haberman** » July 7th, 2005, 8:37 pm

Rob,
It sounds like the swager you used was out of calibration.
For the wire length you can either measure your exsisting wire or call Aquarius Sail and we can make up a new set that are to the original specs for your boat.
With regards to the slack in the leward stay. Yes there should be some slack in the leward stay when sailing. 3-4" is probably about right. Just adjust the sidestays so the mast rotates approx 120-180 degrees from side to side and what ever slack you end up with should be about right.

RallyDogRacing · Post by **RallyDogRacing** » July 8th, 2005, 9:18 am

Thanks Matt. I don't suppose I could convince you to divulge the lengths of the original shrouds? I've got a local rigger (Jeff @ RigTek) who is going to make them for me so I don't loose more sailing time.

Currently it's my plan to copy the length of the spare-mast shrouds which are 20yrs old and I am guessing may have stretched 0.5inches over their lifetime.

The tip for 120deg of rotation is helpfull as a guidance.
Thank you.

RallyDogRacing · Post by **RallyDogRacing** » July 11th, 2005, 9:58 am

We made up new shrouds at WestMarine again on Sat. This time me paid tons more attention to the 3 crimps and their allignment on the ferrul. The fact that we made 3 crimps, instead of 2 like the last time is probably the major change.

We also (since the mast was down) put new rivets into the hook at the top of the mast, and bent it back to the correct orientation. We also swapped out the halyard from the prev-owner (some tiny red stretchy line) for a nicer low stretch (1.6%) stuff and had the best sail raising & dropping experiences. My brother commented that our old SC-17 (15yrs ago) never had a sail go up or down that easy. Then we relocated the jib-blocks to be aft of the aft-trapeze and found that we liked that better.

So overall we were pretty well set to enjoy marginal winds on Lake Michigan (near Chicago) on Sunday. A few times it blew hard enough to get me (230lbs) and my brother (220lbs) up out of the watter and fly a hull.

By the end of the day I was hearing another new creak/groan from the boat and we tracked it down to be my "modified mast ball" which was enthreading itself from the base plate. I know it sounds cludgey but last year when we lost the mast the first time we snapped the ball clean off. I found a machinist and modified the plate to allow us to thread in a normal trailer hitch ball (chromed steel). It's worked perfectly and didn't bend or break when I lost the mast last weekend. All I needed to do this time was tighten it up with a wrench.

If you're ever stuck with no spare mast ball/plate this is a viable repair.