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Before obtaing my LOOS guage, if the shrouds felt "good" off I went sailing. Life was good. Now following the suggestions by those more in the know, my life for the past 2 weeks has been hull. First I set the mast rake, then attempt to tighten the shrouds. Except I can't with the 2 tiny screw drivers I use to leverage the adjusters. So, I lower the mast a little to loosen the shrouds to make the asjustment. To my surprise the upper shrouds got tighter.
So, back to square one. Is there a tool that will allow me to exert 300 lbs so I can release the clevis pin to the next looser hole?
This is so I don't have to keep undoing the forestay(with roller furler on it). The mast has a bow in it, I suspect from too much force pulling on it from the upper shrouds. Any critique , good or bad is welcome. I was going to make an adjusting tool made from a 2x2 4 foot oak , with 2 bolts going thru it. Any thoughts on how far apart the bolts should me?

Sorry, I'm more of the "feels good to me", "TWANG! Sounds about right", school of shroud tension. Your plight does remind me of the old adage that, "A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."

I wish you the best in your tuning endeavors, but keep in mind that for an "close enough" is probably "good enough".

Ditto. I spent 1-2 seasons obessing about the shroud tension, then decided "f--- it", I'm going sailing. Macgregors are not Forumla 500 machines.

Be Free wrote: ↑Sun Jun 29, 2025 3:33 pm Sorry, I'm more of the "feels good to me", "TWANG! Sounds about right", school of shroud tension. Your plight does remind me of the old adage that, "A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."

I wish you the best in your tuning endeavors, but keep in mind that for an "close enough" is probably "good enough".

What is your backstay doing? The bow in the mast should be mostly a result from the backstay pulling back at the top, and the forestay pulling forward at its lower location. The mast will want to draw an even-ish arc between these 2 points and the base.

It sounds to me like you have so much bow that when you loosen the forestay the mast ‘stands up’ a little before it starts to pivot back. Not 100% sure if this actually works geometrically, but that’s the only way I can imagine the shrouds getting tighter as the forestay is loosened.

If you set the mast rake with the backstay, and you’ve been cranking down on the forestay to tighten the shrouds, it could induce a lot of bow into the mast.

Looking at my 26X next to other 26 to 30 boats with fixed keels, and that I get good enough performance with a much shorter mast and smaller sail area, and can use lower windspeeds than the fixed keels.... I conclude we are much lighter and do not generate the forces the larger boats need.
That also makes me think much less attention is needed to our stay tension and eyeballs + twang is enough.
Mast rake = ok, some adjustments to help tune for neutral helm = super.
If I was to obsess over tension, I would convert to turnbuckles.

If you have a lot of weather or lee helm then adjust your mast rake. Too much weather helm makes you work too hard. To much lee helm can be dangerous but in our boats mostly makes things fall in the cabin and scares the crew (and sometimes the captain). Neutral helm is good but it's hard to maintain. Just moving crew around can take you from neutral to lee or weather helm unexpectedly. Adjusting your rake so that you have a little weather helm with your normal sails under your normal conditions is safer.

As long as neither shroud is noticeably loose when the sails are down and the lee shroud is not "sloppy" loose when you are under sail you are going to be fine. My shrouds have turnbuckles as well as the standard adjusters so I could dial in the "perfect" shroud tension under any conditions. With my racing-configured "hot rod" beach cat that was a reasonable use of my time. With my "X", I just get it close enough and go sailing.

Krum: on a practical note, if you still want to try to use the vernier adjusters, I'd try a pin punch rather than a small screwdriver.

One of these Rig Tuning Tools from BWY will help make those adjustments easier. https://shop.bwyachts.com/product-p/1301-110.htm

Jeff

Many thanks for your replies. It's obvious to me now why they refer to the "ART" of mast tuning rather than just the setting up the mast. Time to go sailing with my "good enough" rig. Happy Fourth of July to everyone.

Sounds like a great idea! I hope you have a wonderful 4th. I'm likely going to be in a hospital room that day. My sister is going in for a triple bypass on the 3rd.

When playing with my mast rake, I spent a season with it just a bit too far forward. When overpowered it spun away from the wind, yes that was kind of scary the first time, however, the results are that you pop upright and if you have your rig close hauled, you are not grabbing that much air so everything calms down. Other option = pull the mainsheet in and let the fore sheets loose, you end up with kind of a kite.
When I had the mainsail mostly out, trying to dump wind, I just end up going downwind with authority.

I tighten things so the lee shrouds are not slack. If you are a tension and tuning type of person, get a set of turnbuckles.

Ix

Be Free wrote: ↑Mon Jun 30, 2025 9:18 pm Sounds like a great idea! I hope you have a wonderful 4th. I'm likely going to be in a hospital room that day. My sister is going in for a triple bypass on the 3rd.

Our thoughts were with you and your sister!
Hope everything works out!
Let us know….

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Thanks for the good words. It was postponed until next month.