Forestay tension.

[Nicholas123]

How to adjust the forestay on furling forestay,bar taut or with 1-2-6-8" play?

(Macwester 27 in which I don't plan to do a lot of racing)

 

[sailorman]

How to adjust the forestay on furling forestay,bar taut or with 1-2-6-8" play?

(Macwester 27 in which I don't plan to do a lot of racing)

some forestays (furling ) are fixed length ,with adjustment done via the backstay.
i would have it tight with minimal bend / sag, when hard on the wind.

 

[sighmoon]

If the fitting that attaches the forestay to the mast is not designed to move at all, you need it to be bar taught, because otherwise there is a risk of the terminal fracturing through fatigue.

 

[Daydream believer]

If the forestay os slack it sometimes affects how easy it is to furl the sail.
The tighter it is is often the best for operation of the furler

 

[Nicholas123]

If the forestay os slack it sometimes affects how easy it is to furl the sail.
The tighter it is is often the best for operation of the furler

Good point but I don't want to tighten it up any more than absolutely necessary because the mast is not as well supported as I would like & is compressing the deck making it difficult to open or shut the bog door.
The forestay is not such as sailorman suggests having a bottle screw & the top is not absolutely fixed so there is room for manoeuvre,thanks.

 

[C08]

Good point but I don't want to tighten it up any more than absolutely necessary because the mast is not as well supported as I would like & is compressing the deck making it difficult to open or shut the bog door.

I had a MAc 26 wilth mast compression-I slackened off all the standing rigging and carefully jacked up the deck at the mast supprt plate area using jack & acrow prop and then re-enforced the forecabin doorway with (I think 3"x2"'s with a rebate for the door) hardwood well screwed and bonded to the doorway sides and top and sanded down to take epoxy. This took out most of the step depression and this was fine for the 5 further years I had the boat and passed a sale survey ok. Not a big job and worh it IMHO. Just a thought.
As others have said you need the correct tension on your rigging to stop mast movement working the rigging and causing fatigue failures and having slack rigging is going to cause other perhaps serious problems to the boat and your safety.

 

[NickRobinson]

"I had a MAc 26 with mast compression-"

Me too- the M&A OA Technical Rep said at a AGM tech session, 'stop tightening the rig when you can't open the heads door'-

Nick

 

[Bosun Higgs]

How to adjust the forestay on furling forestay,bar taut or with 1-2-6-8" play?

(Macwester 27 in which I don't plan to do a lot of racing)

I'm not sure what you mean by "1-2-6-8" play" but never mind. Given the sort of boat is is and that you dont intend racing I would tension the rig to the point where you can open the bog door and no further. After all, pointing ability isnt that important to you and thats all that is affected by forestay tension. The answer to fatigue of the forestay wire is to properly toggle it - IMO no way could you get it tight enough to make a real difference to that issue.

 

[Nicholas123]

Sadly my bog door & the fore cabin bulkhead showed signs of compression even before the mast was up so I will have to have a crack at bolstering it at some time in the future.Another job on my to do list!

 

[Nicholas123]

I'm not sure what you mean by "1-2-6-8" play"

The amount of twang in the middle when you shake the forestay back & forth.What's toggle?