I spent a lot of the summer getting the mast tune exactly the way I wanted it on our J/109. Now it’s time to decommission and I don’t want to lose that.
So I carefully measured the distance between the threaded studs in the turnbuckles for the shrouds and backstay.
To make this work you need accurate calipers, and digital ones make it way easier and faster.
Thanks to member Dick for this tip.
As to getting the tune right in the first place, we have four step-by-step instruction chapters on that.
But you do NOT know if the boat distorted while on land.
If you want to match tension, a simple way is to mark two points on each cable a fixed (2 meters?) distance apart. The stretch will be the same at the same tension.
When all of the marks are 2 meters apart, the tension is the same. Works on any rigging, any size. The rule must be non-stretch.
From Seldon Spars.
Hi Drew,
Good point, but my boat has rod rigging, so that won’t work in my case. Also, I was not suggesting this would yield a final tune. In my experience we always need to do a sailing tune after taking the mast out.
We have a full five part series on mast tuning here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2018/05/27/rig-tuning-dock-tune-part-1/