Help - slighly discouraged - setting up rig on 26x - failure

[Signaleer]

Team,

So, I got the 26x and had great first day. ... and now this.

My buddy and I went to raise the mast and frankly, even though it went up, I would not call it successful. I am so worked I can barely walk (Yes, I should work out more but I just did the Boulder 1/2 Ironman last mont [haven't done anything since but still]).

First, we got the mast back on the boat - went fine. (I did notice the spreaders actually seem to rest/put some pressure on the top of the lifelines. Is this normal?)

Second, we got shrouds on.

We tried to hand raise the mast, which we did. We have the adjustable back stay, which was completely loose.

We could not get the PIN in the head-stay without adding a second shackle.



Additionally, I was surprised that once up, there is no way to adjust head stay tension? On my previous mast-head sloop I had an adjustment below drum to tight the tension?



Finally, I think this may be that the lowers were too tight? I am doing this from memory (only an hour ago) but I feel like the lowers were tighter than the uppers? I have read the BWY rig tuning tips and if I loosen the tension on the lowers then will pinning the head.



So, what do I do? Do I sail it with the second shackle? Something simply doesn't seem right.

Help - serious help.

Ed.

[kadet]

Best suggestions I can make is get rid of the quick release halyard shackle they are not designed to hold up your mast. Inside the furler drum should be a turn-buckle to adjust fore-stay tension. Tune your rig. Get the mast raising system it is the best way to raise the mast especially with a furler, it enables you to slightly over tension the rig so you can pin the fore-stay easily, then remove the mast raiser so the rig comes back to normal tension, tensioning the fore-stay as it goes.

[Chinook]

Regarding the spreaders contacting the lifelines with pressure when the mast is in the lowered position, this is definitely not normal and a situation to be avoided. If it hasn't already, it will soon result in bent spreaders, which will then need to be replaced. There are two solutions to this problem. The simplest is to jockey things around when rolling the mast forward on the crutch, so that the spreaders both slip under the lifelines. It's a bit awkward to do, and a second person helps, but this will avoid putting any pressure on the spreaders. The other solution, which I've gone to, is to install pelican hooks to the lifelines which run along the sides of the cabin roof and on forward. When time comes to lower the mast, all you need to do is open the pelican hooks and slacken the lifelines. This way the spreaders can remain above the slack lifelines.

[Whipsyjac]

Signaleer,

My experience was similar to yours, got the boat rigged it, had trouble, came here for help, and yes found the help I needed. I'm not claiming by the way to be the one to answer all your questions, I'm just saying if you give this community a chance collectively they will come through for you. Now here's as much help as I can offer. Don't forget to seek out a Mac sailor close by who could help in person

Btw, I dropped the mast on the deck(damage) on the second attempt to rig and it took me ages to figure out how to get inside my furler so I could adjust the turnbuckle...I was in the same boat as you are now....an

Here is a description I wrote on another thread:

My method: when raising the mast(2 people minimum, no MRS )first I disconnect the backstay I attach one end of the jib halyard to the pulpit and pass the other end to a helper on the ground beside the trailer. The ground crew passes the line behind their back and controls with both hands. As I begin to lift(on the cabin top) they begin to walk backwards. After 10 degrees or so the only thing I need to do is keep balance left and right(no babystays ). Once the mast is fully upright the ground crew can hold it there with little effort. I position the furler and ready the pin, with the backstay undone I ask the ground crew for extra tension and pop in the pin. Now the mast is up and furler pinned. The ground crew hands me the halyard and I tie it off to the bowsprit. I've noticed that there is a lot of leverage and I can easily take the tension off the furler. That is counter productive so I am mindful when I tie it off and try to find the balance where the halyard is snug but won't interfere with my rig tuning.

I noticed you have a Spinnaker block so you can use the spin halyard instead of jib halyard whichever suits best for ground crew to help you. A person on the ground in front of your trailer with a halyard over it's block on the mast and back down to the pulpit can really get good leverage to ease pinning the forestay.

To start off check the manual and put your stay adjusters to factory default. Rigging can and does stretch so don't expect every well tuned to have all the pins in the same holes. I ran out to my boat and my upper shrouds are set like yours but I can't tell if the lowers are the same. The shroud adjusters are a vernier system so that minor adjustments can be made. But a tiny adjustment completely changes which hole lines up with which. For explanation I'll call the plate attached to the shroud "male" and the "C" plate attach to the chain plate "female". My lower shrouds, I count 3 holes showing above the female. My pin is through the fourth hole from the top of the female and there's one hole of the male plate showing below the pin. My upper shroud has 5 holes showing above the female, pin through top hole in female, and one hole in the male showing below the pin. Do you have the stay adjuster tool that came with the boat? I looks like a pipe or stick with a couple bolts through it. If you don't you can use 2 small screw drivers inserted through the female to "walk" the male under tension.

Back to basics, set your stay adjusters to factory, step your mast and pin your forestay. There is an article on tuning your rig in the resources section. Take any differences between my OPINIONS and written instructions to be my failings. Check that your mast is vertical when looking fore and aft. The manual suggests something like 4 degrees aft rake. Be careful with this anything aft of vertical will cause "weather helm", this is what is frustrating for most owners who cannot tack their boat. Most set as factory have too much weather helm and round up so often that people get very frustrated HOWEVER a Lee helm can scare the living daylights out of you or worse when your boat wants to turn itself downwind and run! This could lead to an accidental gybe or getting blown onto a hazard. I still have weather helm just less than when I first got the boat. I no longer have the uncontrolled round ups I used to.

If you don't have a manual for the furler, search manuals or the forum. I was like 90% of the newbies and didn't think I had a forestay turnbuckle. You have to unpin the luff extrusion between the clew and the drum then undo the sheet that holds the clew down then you can slide the drum up out of the cup and reveal your turnbuckle. This is a workable system but slows down the fine tuning of your rig as you have to do the turnbuckle dance a couple times to set your mast rake the way you want.

This is just a start but I hope it helps,

Willy

[Signaleer]

To all - first thank you very much... I can't say how much I appreciate it.

Ok, so you actually got me thinking (and I don't know why I did'nt think of this... The jib halyard has to be ATTACHED TO THE JIB SALE.. HOT WATER BURN BABY! HOT WATER BURN BABY! #Rainman....

So, that halyard that is currently simply holding the protective sock over the Jib sail... is the spinnaker halyard. I can use this to 'pull' the mast forward to get that extra tension I require to pin the headstay... Yes?

I will report back tomorrow, as we are going to try again!

Ed

[Catigale]

With your mast up, take a look at the grey plastic extrusion on your furler. Does it have lots of wavy curves in it? If it sat for a while while not straight and has more than one bend, you need to get it tensioned in the sun so that it stretches back to near straight. It's really hard to pull that straight against bends and pin the Forestay unless you are a weightlifter.

[K9Kampers]

With your mast up, take a lot at the grey plastic extrusion on your curler....

Hair, hair - Shirley you meant sumpthin elts!

[dlandersson]

My X's spreaders will "rest" on the lifelines in the down position. When I store I move the spreaders under the lifelines. For a short time (under 10o minutes), it isn't a problem.

Regarding the spreaders contacting the lifelines with pressure when the mast is in the lowered position, this is definitely not normal and a situation to be avoided. If it hasn't already, it will soon result in bent spreaders, which will then need to be replaced. There are two solutions to this problem. The simplest is to jockey things around when rolling the mast forward on the crutch, so that the spreaders both slip under the lifelines. It's a bit awkward to do, and a second person helps, but this will avoid putting any pressure on the spreaders. The other solution, which I've gone to, is to install pelican hooks to the lifelines which run along the sides of the cabin roof and on forward. When time comes to lower the mast, all you need to do is open the pelican hooks and slacken the lifelines. This way the spreaders can remain above the slack lifelines.

[Tomfoolery]

First, we got the mast back on the boat - went fine. (I did notice the spreaders actually seem to rest/put some pressure on the top of the lifelines. Is this normal?)

Yes, it's normal, at least in the sense that it's what happens if you don't take steps to prevent it. Others have outlined two methods. I'll add another, and many others here do this - use tractor pins to hold the spreaders in place, and unpin them from the sockets when the mast is down but before you roll it back (when lowering). Use a bunch of cheap ball bungies to secure all that rigging to the mast (Walmart specials).

We tried to hand raise the mast, which we did. We have the adjustable back stay, which was completely loose.

"Completely" is open to interpretation. I disconnect mine. But I also use the old-style MRS, and crank down to make the forestay pin (more on that later). The leverage on that backstay is so good, and people are so weak, that even a loose catenary will make life difficult when attempting to pin the forestay.

We could not get the PIN in the head-stay without adding a second shackle.

Bad, bad, bad. As already pointed out, that headboard shackle can easily open on its own, releasing the forestay, and dropping the mast without warning!

Additionally, I was surprised that once up, there is no way to adjust head stay tension? On my previous mast-head sloop I had an adjustment below drum to tight the tension?

Danger, Will Robinson!!! You've attached the stem fitting (the thin attachment coming out of the deck, at the bow) to the anti-rotation strap of the furler! It's only there to prevent the drum housing assembly from rotating, and it's only held on by a couple of small machine screws. You're lucky it didn't rip off and drop the mast!!!

The round metal thing above that is the end of the tee-bolt turnbuckle screw. There should be a U-shaped piece of metal with three holes in it, one in the saddle that the turnbuckle tee-bolt passes through, with the U-piece passing through the anti-rotation strap, and then one hole in each leg at the bottom which pin to the stem fitting. This puts the load path of the forestay straight from the turnbuckle, through the U-piece (which is half of a toggle, actually), and directly into the stem fitting. The anti-rotation strap takes no load other than preventing the furler base from rotating. You need to look for that part in the box of parts that almost always comes with a used boat, and if not there, call CDI and get a new one. Right away.

Finally, I think this may be that the lowers were too tight? I am doing this from memory (only an hour ago) but I feel like the lowers were tighter than the uppers? I have read the BWY rig tuning tips and if I loosen the tension on the lowers then will pinning the head.

The upper and lower stays do not necessarily have the same tension when sitting at the dock. I don't recall which has more at this point, but I know they aren't the same. You need to adjust the rig yourself, starting with mast rake, which is controlled by the forestay adjustment primarily. The manual has the procedure, and I don't remember if the BWY procedure differs much from that.

So, what do I do? Do I sail it with the second shackle? Something simply doesn't seem right.

Fix that forestay to stem fitting before you do anything! And if you don't have one, get or make a MRS, which will aid in standing the mast up (hard enough without one), and especially in pinning the forestay. But you can use the spinnaker halyard to help pull the mast forward to pin the stem fitting, which is what my MRS uses to raise the mast anyway. So I just crank down hard on it (5:1 reeving), pin the forestay, slacken it, and the shrouds are just right. Then I attach and slightly tension the backstay.

Oh, and the spinnaker halyard (the part in your left hand in the pic above) should pass between the legs of the forestay mast hound, so it passes straight down the front of the mast, wrapping slightly to either side as it goes, to a cleat. For raising the mast, I take the bitter end, after cleating, and tie it to the vang bail (belt and suspenders - if the cleat pops off, the mast drops).

Edit: Here's a link to the CDI page where you can download the FFII manual. It shows the contruction details, how to install, and how to use it. Especially useful is the cross-section on page 4 and the forestay sketch on page 7 which both show the toggle on the bottom (and top) of the forestay/furler and how it's attached.

http://www.sailcdi.com/ffmain.htm

Good luck. And don't hesitate to ask. Given what the PO has done here, I suspect you may find some other 'interesting' things that may need a little tweaking.

[Signaleer]

OK, so you are saying that even the way we pinned the headstay it was to a few machine screws that we actually have to pin it with a different 'attachment' so to speak?

I'll look on the boat to find that.

THANK YOU for pointing that out. That could have been tragic.

Ed.

[Tomfoolery]

Potentially deadly, in fact.

It looks like this, though I don't know the size without measuring, and the boat is not here.

http://www.westmarine.com/buy/alexander ... 65_008_003

I would think CDI would sell you a replacement.

Oh, and the attachment point is the barrel of the tee-bolt, which is the very bottom of the forestay. It can handle the full load on the forestay, by design. The anti-rotation strap and its mounting screws and the thin housing they're screwed into are not designed for any load other than rotation resistance, which is not the forestay load path.

While they may have handled the load so far, it's like putting your car up on cement blocks; if done wrong (load on the unsupported span with the blocks on their sides), they can fail catastrophically and without warning. Works great most of the time until it doesn't, at which point there's no going back. Just sayin'.

[Catigale]

That missing piece is also the explanation of why you needed the extra shackle. With it in place, you should be all set.

Picture coming.

[walt]

Read Tomfoolerys post in detai.. that is a very dangerous setup.

FYI, the furler manufactures normally say to use your own headstay hardware (I guess gets rid of liability risk) so CDI may not sell what you need.

I used a place Sumner had recomended a long time ago for that sort of hardware and was pleased with what I bought and the service - possibly look under "turnbuckle"
https://www.riggingandhardware.com/

[Tomfoolery]

Here's the part on BWY's web site. P/N 3106-000. http://www.bwyachts.com/



For $36 plus shipping, you can't go wrong, even if you don't need the whole turnbuckle. But you can see the missing piece straddling the tee-bolt. Everything but the toggle is (or should be) up inside the furler. The open end of the turnbuckle takes the stud that's swaged onto the forestay wire.

[Signaleer]

Ok, you guys rock!

So, I'm going to have all the standing rigging replaced and start over.

I'm definitely going to get that part!

Also, today, we replaced the keel hanger successfully. Not that bad actually. But I am so glad you have all helped me so much. We will not be raising the mast.

I talked to the previous owner who said that's how the previous owner had it set up and that's how he sailed it. I can't believe it. I don't think the boat may have been ever sailed? Who knows, weirder thing have happened.

Again, will report back results! New rigging next week.

Ed.