Standing Rigging - Which Way?

IrlSail

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I have a 24 foot masthead rig. Should the shroud from the top of the mast go to the aft chainplate and the lower shroud the forward one. There is about 6 - 8 inches between the chainplates
 
Unless you have swept spreaders on your boat, the masthead (or cap) shrouds should go to the chain plate directly in line with the mast, probably the forward of the two you appear to have. Looking across the boat, the cap shroud chainplates should be in line with the mast.

The aft one is probably for aft lowers.
 
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On my 23ft Tonic with fractional rig I put the the top shrouds on the aft fixing and the lower shrouds on the forward one. The other way round may make the mast more prone to inversion I would think.

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Yes, as I said above. You are right IF he has a fractional rig. However, I'm guessing it's a masthead rig as the aft lowers and caps on a fractional rig usually go back to side-by-side (or multi-holed) plates aft of the mast. There wouldn't normally be a gap of that size betwen the two plates.

'Course, it may the odd one out!!
 
You have to think in terms of 2 different parts of the mast being located by the stays. The top stays along with the forestay and backstay are located by 4 wires in essentially a square configuration. So cap shrouds abeam the mast.
The middle of the mast is located by only 3 wires which must be located about 120 degrees apart. So you have an inner forestay (or 2 forward intermediate stays or evn the forward press of the spreaders, mathed by inner sidestays pulling aft and sideways. So inners at the back. olewill
 
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