Rigged again!

We got the rig up and proved a few ideas were sound today. The second picture is the forestay tensioner and the mast locator mock-up.

Our forestay is adjustable using a wire block (first picture) at the head of the forestay. The adjustment cable runs from a tab on the upper spreader bracket through the block then passes into the mast through a wire halyard block. The cable exits the mast above the deck and passes through the mocked up mast locator. A harken 6 to 1 block arrangements gives the final ratio at 12 to 1.

The third picture, though it is hard to see, shows the rig at light tension. Then we see the blocks tighten to tension the rig and the result with the mast. The bottom line is that we accomplished what we hoped we would for the most part. The mast goes from raked for light air to a fairly straight mast with the tip aft.



The Ultimate 24 uses this type of arrangement. That boat has a single spreader carbon rig though so our results are a bit different. Primarily, the tip of the mast on the U24 actually moves rearward as you tension the mast. With our rig, the mast tip is fixed and can not move back much. It does a bit, and the uppers, which initially tighten, get looser as you reach max tension. We also seem to have a issue with the lowers being a bit too tight or the intermediates are too loose. Hard to tell, but probably the latter. All that means is that we have a lot of experimenting to do yet.

I am thinking that running the uppers not through the lower spreaders, but directly to the deck will make it a bit easier to tune properly.

The ultimate goal is to be able to properly depower the rig for heavy air. The hope is that if the wind goers from light to moderate to heavy all in one race, then the rig can be adjusted for it with nothing but the one line. It works on the U24, as to for us? We'll see soon.

The mast locator serves several functions. It ties the tops of bulkhead 89 together and therefore replaces the cabin for that purpose. It also acts as a stop when raising the mast. We also, as shown in the pictures, have the ability to shim the mast to help set rake. That also means that it gets loaded forward pretty heavily when at max tension.

The part shown here is a temporary mock-up and the final version will be a lot more substantial as it will also be carrying the load of the jib halyard and so will be tied down to the mast step as well. The mock-up also deflected a bit at max tension, meaning we were getting enough leverage out of the set-up to pull in the sides of the hull (about a 1/8" of an inch total).

Without a cabin now, the mast locator will probably also be the location for things like the pole controls as well.

We were racing against the coming rain so ran out of time today to trial fit the sails. That will now have to wait as tomorrow, weather permitting, the hull gets finally flipped.