[Alberg30] Mast Rake - Part II

[Bill Blevins]

OK. So last week, I adjusted my rig tension putting more bend in the top portion of the mast. I really only adjusted the backstay and forestay at that time. I went sailing in light winds and saw an improvement in pointing ability of 3-5 degrees on each tack. I realize that the forestay was probably way too tight now, looking back at the numbers. The backstay was taken in all the way with the adjustments I can make on my boat at the moment.

Before Saturday's race, I screwed around with the tension some more and whatever I did negated the changes from Thursday night's test. Back to square one. On Sunday, I started from scratch with everything loose and then adjusting back to where I thought I was on Thursday night. There was a gentle rake with tight uppers, a slight pull forward with the forward lowers and the aft lowers almost loose. The backstay  - mine isn't adjustable at the moment - was pulled in as far as it would go and the forestay was loose but not "flopping" loose. It looked beautiful.

Racing on Monday night was a different story... Winds were 12 knots at the beginning of the night. It appeared that we were pointing with the main competition but my wind instruments were not showing any improvement over previous weeks with no bend in the mast. But, we were pointing with the lead boats. Then the wind dropped out to 3 knots and everything went crazy. The currents and low winds plus approaching thunderstorms had all of the boats going in every direction so my test was ended after about 2 miles. I still don't think it's right. I may loosen the backstay for my cruise this weekend and work on all of this again Sunday.

Here are the Loos Guage numbers as they stand today and also the numbers before I started screwing around:

BEFORE I started screwing around:

SF: 1080
SU: 960
SA: loose

PF: 1080
PU: 960
PA: loose

B: 580
F: 680

Saturday race:

SF: 880
SU: 680
SA: 200

PF: 880
PU: 680
PA: 200

B: 840
F: 840

Monday race:

SF: 980
SU: 1060
SA: 240

PF: 980
PU: 1060
PA: 240

B: 400
F: 320

You can see that without an adjustable backstay in order to get tension on the backstay I have to loosen the forward and uppers as was the case on the "Saturday race". One note is that on Monday, the tell tales on all of the sails seemed to trim best of any setup with the rig that I've had. Every one on the main would fly most of the time. Even though the instruments were saying we were pointing at 45-48 apparent we were with the lead boats. 

My goal is to point 45 true (or better) and/or low 40's apparent (38 would be nice) so I'll keep you informed.

Bill Blevins
"Sabrina" #158

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