tension adjustment with new standing rigging

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paul I
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Re: tension adjustment with new standing rigging

Post by paul I »

That pin you are talking about goes through the upper black assembly but is not supposed to go through the foil itself (even though there are holes in the foil that will allow it). The foil rests on top of the pin. That is the way I have it set up. So once a sail is installed, the foil wont separate from the black housing since the halyard prevents it.
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Tomfoolery
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Re: tension adjustment with new standing rigging

Post by Tomfoolery »

Mine definitely goes through a hole in the foil. The foil is too long to allow the pin to be under it. Perhaps the original installer didn't cut the foil to the correct length, or perhaps it's because the forestay turnbuckle is closed almost all the way (and the mast still has about 3 degrees of rake). But it definitely goes through a hole.

My drum will lift about 3/4" if I push up pretty hard to lift the foil cap into the lowest Nicopress swage fitting, but that's never caused a problem that I'm aware of. :|
paul I
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Sailboat: MacGregor 26X
Location: Niagara Falls, NY 2000 26X w/Honda BF50 "NoneShallPass"

Re: tension adjustment with new standing rigging

Post by paul I »

Tomfoolery wrote:Mine definitely goes through a hole in the foil. The foil is too long to allow the pin to be under it. Perhaps the original installer didn't cut the foil to the correct length, or perhaps it's because the forestay turnbuckle is closed almost all the way (and the mast still has about 3 degrees of rake). But it definitely goes through a hole.

My drum will lift about 3/4" if I push up pretty hard to lift the foil cap into the lowest Nicopress swage fitting, but that's never caused a problem that I'm aware of. :|
Just for the sake of completeness, the following is a quote from page 10 of the CDI FF-2 manual. The highlight is by me:

15. Slide the furling drum down the luff, into the cup and over the main bearing. Lift the luff off the turnbuckle body. Insert the luff support pin through the hole in the furling drum throat. The luff rests on top of this pin (see picture). No hole in the luff is needed for the pin. CAUTION: the luff must not sit on the turnbuckle body as turning the furler might unscrew the turnbuckle causing dismasting.

also here below is the length requirement for the foil from page 7.

1. Measure the pin-to-pin length (L below) of the forestay with the turnbuckle in its normal state of adjustment. If the mast is up, you will have to raise a tape on the jib halyard and add an amount approximately equal to the distance from the top end of the tape to the pin at the top of the forestay. Cut the top end of the luff so that the total luff length is 12.25” less than the pin-to-pin length.

By way of comparison, My drum will lift 4-5 inches or so before the foil cap hits the lowest swage fitting. My guess is you are correct about the original installation/foil length on your boat. I also know that when I got my boat the OP had a small box of spare parts. In it was a short piece of foil, maybe 5-6 " long, apparently cut during the initial install.

With the new forestay from BWY my forstay turnbuckle is also nearly completely closed.
Last edited by paul I on Tue May 16, 2017 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Tomfoolery
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Re: tension adjustment with new standing rigging

Post by Tomfoolery »

paul I wrote:With the new forestay from BWY my forstay turnbuckle is also nearly completely closed.
Mine came from BWY, too. I ordered the standard 1/8" forestay, they tried to upsell to the new and improved 5/32" version, but I declined. And they shipped me the 5/32" anyway. No problem, but it does seem to be a little long, at least compared to the one I replaced. But it's all good, as I had no trouble getting the rake I wanted. 8)
paul I
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Re: tension adjustment with new standing rigging

Post by paul I »

I spent about 90 minutes making adjustments, I eased the rake slightly... still very close to the recommended 4 degrees, then I started adjusting stays. I'm now getting 35 +/- one gauge line on the loos gauge for all stays. That translates to 480 lbs on all stays. The prebend is reduced to what I think is the recommended 3". It looks like this:

Image

I was surprised the upper and lower tensions came out so close. I didn't expect that. 480 lbs is 14% of breaking strength. If I assume my gauge reads 15% high like Toms does that works out to 408 lbs. High maybe, but not out of line from what others have adjusted to, and all the tensions are certainly balanced. I thought I might be finished. But after putting things away I took a good look at the aft view of the boat. It looks like this:

Image

Looks to me like it has a list to starboard.... Grrrr. All the vernier holes are equal too. I guess for round two I'm gonna try to ease back one hole for both stays on the starboard side. Hopefully that will straighten it out and remove some tension on all the stays. I can only assume there are slightly different dimensions on the port vs starboard side stay vs what is needed.

By the way my forestay connection looks like this:

Image

I has always looked like that. Has anyone ever added something to stop the sideways pull on that forestay pin? Is there a better piece of hardware I can use there?
paul I
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Re: tension adjustment with new standing rigging

Post by paul I »

I feel like I need to give this post some closure.

After getting the mast as vertically straight as I can (by eye and level), and ensuring the 4 degree rake, and doing my best to target the 3" prebend, I have settled on the following tensions:

Port Upper 328 lbs
Starboard Upper 328 lbs
Port Lower 305 lbs
Starboard Lower 315 lbs

These numbers correspond to the actual gauge readings. Toms experience would render these about 15% lower than shown.

To do this I had to accept some inequality in the apparent adjuster lengths. These are overall lengths center to center, top to bottom hole on each set of adjusters:


Port Upper 10-1/8"
Starboard Upper 9 -13/16"
Port Lower 8-5/16"
Starboard Lower 8-13/16"

I did not have any inequality of adjuster length between port and starboard with the old stays. I wonder what the tolerance is on the BWY stays? Looks here that it could possibly be as large as +/- 1/4", assuming the boat is correct (which I cannot really attest to).

So the moral of the story is to compare the lengths of the new stays pair by pair prior to install. I kind of did this indirectly by setting them as closely as possible to the length of the old stays. After doing so, I did notice a small inequality in the adjuster lengths from port to starboard. But I set them equal when I began the adjustments thinking I was the one who was wrong. Apparently not.
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