MacGregorSailors.com

In all honesty for the few dollars extra to replace the side stays I would do it while doing the forestay, its called preventive maintenance, just like you dont wait for your impeller to die before replacing it on your motor.

We all want our boat dollars to stretch further but when it comes to safety of your crew, you and your boat I would hate to see a post in 6 months saying a shroud broke and the whole lot came tumbling down.

Boats are full of stuff that should be replaced long before its broken, you cant get out and push a boat.

With the cable out, measure it and send measurements to whomever makes the new one

When I replaced my forestay, I sent the old forestay to the tech so the measurement was on his shoulders. I figured if he had all the materials, he could make the right call regarding the measurements. The only caveat about the rest of the shrouds "looking good" is that they supposedly deteriorate from the inside out. Which makes the visual assessment "iffy" with an unknown boat history.

I got my last lot of stays made by a mob that specialize in lifting gear, surprisingly (Not really) it was less than 1/2 the price of the mast rigger and I figure if they make up lifting gear then it would be better than yacht riggers.

For forestay, inner forestay, backstay, and uppers and lowers it was less than $300, that was on a 24 foot mast off my JOG 20 footer, all I did was remove them, drop them at the riggers and picked them up a couple of days later.

I ended up sending my forestay off to rigging only. I decided just to replace it the way it is this season and maybe rework all the rigging after sailing season is over and add a johnson quick release to my forestay.

I agree with many of the comments already made.

I discovered the same issue with our forestay. Thought it was 1 or 2 broken strands, turned out to be around 7 or 8 (so half).

Anyway .. got that addressed before sailing her again.

One thing we did pick up is that the forestay is 3mm (3/32") cable, where as the rest of the rigging is 4mm (1/8"). We replaced the lot with 4mm.
The guys doing the rigging mentioned that was what was on every MacGregor they had ever seen, but not what they would ever recommend.

I have to admit, we never actually checked the forestay before then - it was just a random chance that we noticed it. From now on we do it routinely!

FLGSHP7 wrote:I just took down the mast again and took some pictures of the forestay shroud and it was far worse then I thought. I counted 8 broken strands. I'm glad I didnt take it out! That would have been expensive.





Now I'm trying to determine what route I should go for replacement. I know Sumner went to a 5/32 316 Stainless. Can I increase line diameter only on the forestay?

He also added a Johnson Lever and that changed the height of the forestay shroud on the mast. I'm not opposed to doing all that but I don't want to get myself into a project that will consume the summer and sailing weather.

If you were in this situation what would you do?

This is about as big a controversy we have on this Board, sadly...

Bigger isn't alway better on rigging. Rigging usually breaks from getting fatigued, not from tension. If one put enough tension on the rigging to snap it, the fiberglass would rip out first.

The cause of fatigue is shroud looseness..rigging needs to be tensioned to 10% of its breaking strength to eliminate fatigue failure.

So, you can upgrade to larger rigging, as long as you can tension it more, and that means thinking about how you will do this and how the rigging attaches.

And replace that carbon steel bolt with SS.

Since you have so much room at the top of the forestay (to the furler upper bearing), consider adding a swivel and shortening the forestay by the added length of the swivel. It may be too late now, if you've already ordered it, but when you assemble it and tune the rig, drop the mast and take a measurement to see if there's room between the top of the furler and the hound for a swivel.

Make notes on this, in your book (or start one, if you haven't already). You'd be amazed how useful that book of notes becomes after you've forgotten what you did last season. Oh wait - that's me.

Tomfoolery wrote: And replace that carbon steel bolt with SS.

Since you have so much room at the top of the forestay (to the furler upper bearing), consider adding a swivel and shortening the forestay by the added length of the swivel. It may be too late now, if you've already ordered it, but when you assemble it and tune the rig, drop the mast and take a measurement to see if there's room between the top of the furler and the hound for a swivel.

Make notes on this, in your book (or start one, if you haven't already). You'd be amazed how useful that book of notes becomes after you've forgotten what you did last season. Oh wait - that's me.

Hey thanks for your reply. Yeah I already ordered the forestay and am going to put it back together as soon as I have some time. Can you explain what you mean by swivel? Thanks.

I meant toggle, like these. http://www.westmarine.com/buy/schaefer- ... 65_008_007 They allow movement about two perpendicular axes, to reduce bending in the forestay where it connects to the hound. The bottom of the FFII has one, though it's less obvious since there's a tee-bolt inside the drum cover that allows movement side--to-side, while the stem fitting pin allows movement fore-aft.

Tomfoolery wrote:I meant toggle, like these. http://www.westmarine.com/buy/schaefer- ... 65_008_007 They allow movement about two perpendicular axes, to reduce bending in the forestay where it connects to the hound. The bottom of the FFII has one, though it's less obvious since there's a tee-bolt inside the drum cover that allows movement side--to-side, while the stem fitting pin allows movement fore-aft.

Ok. I see what you mean. I'm curious though, why dont you have a swage fitting on your headstay?

Ya Tom, are you using Norseman fittings?

Oh, sorry. Those are just pics I found on the web to illustrate what a toggle is. One was from this site in fact. I'm not using a toggle at the top (there is one at the bottom, part of the FFII unit), and I'd have to raise the hound to fit one in there in fact. I keep a close eye on it, and even have a 5/32" fore stay.

But the OP seems to have room at the top, from his pics.

Okay, I guess this thread gives a pretty good idea of what you're doing, but I still don't like the thought of swageless fittings.

http://macgregor26x.com/forum/viewtopic ... 10&t=20328

A rotary swaged fitting will have so much contact on the cable, whereas the swageless fitting will only have the maybe 1/2" length of teeth holding on to the cable.

What everyone said! Loosing your mast can ruin your day, tear out your deck and maybe hurt someone. "A stitch in time". Fair Winds and Full Sails..Old Salt

Nicopress-type oval sleeves are usually reported (Riggers' Handbook, US Navy) to have an efficiency of 95-100%. Roller-swaged fittings are 100%. Meaning the failure point while testing to destruction will be anywhere along the rope, while less than 100% means it will happen at the fitting (weakest point). I've never seen a rope fail at a fitting (small boat rigging with Nicropress), unless you count broken wires at the thimble, but that's not the fault of the connection style per se, and swaged socket fittings have the disadvantage of hiding corrosion and sometimes broken strands.

Just my opinion, but I think Nocopress swages are fine for such small rigging.