[alberg30] Tritons, and making a sloop into a cutter

[FINNUS505 at aol.com]

From: FINNUS505 at aol.com

Hi Gordon!!!
I looked at a lot of Tritons before I bought Stargazer, so I am familiar with
the rig.
Of course, the most distinctive feature is the jumper struts at the
forstayhounds. I really like that old fashioned rig, and wish our alberg  30's
had jumpers! of course, they serve no purpose but to allow a fractional rig
with a relatively smaller for-triangle, and tear the spinaker.
The early tritons only  had single lowers, leading  aft, and single uppers.
This two shroud arrangement was found to let the mast spring quite a bit in
the rough going, and so a forward lower was added to later boats, and Pearson
even offered a kit to convert the older rig to a three shroud plan.
Without the jumpers, or running backstays, any for-stay added to the mast
below the level of the top of the mast would obviously pull the mast forward.
So if you wanted to add an inner for stay, it would, as you say, have to be
mounted right at the top of the mast, or if mounted lower, you would have to
add running backstays.  And how would it be secured on the deck. I dont think
the alberg 30 for deck could withstand the upper pull of a forstay mounted,
say, forward of the mooring cleats, so you would have to design a chainplate
system that went right through the deck and was anchored to the hull somehow.
This would, obviously, be something else to bang against in the v berth. I
guess you could use it to hang storage nets or something from.
The boat sure would look pretty as a cutter, flying two high clewed jibs, but
the conversion would be alot of work. If it was done all heavy duty, it would
offer another sail plan choice in rough weather, ie, a heavily reefed main, or
storm trysail, and small storm staysail, but I'm not sure that a small
spitfire jib flown from the existing forstay wouldn't accomplish the same
objective.
It's certainly fun thinking about, though!!!!
Take care,
Lee Trachtenberg
Stargazer #255

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