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Adjusting the forestay on C250

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TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2272 Posts

Initially Posted - 04/29/2011 : 12:57:36

Since I dropped my mast for the winter, I'll be re-tuning my rig this weekend. I followed Arlyn's procedure last year, and will do the same this year. However, I have not seen any advice on the following question:

How do you get under the furler to adjust the forestay turnbuckle? Do you just slide the furler up the forestay? I keep having scary visions of my fingers getting chopped off if the drum suddenly falls. Is there a way to fix the furler firmly above the turnbuckle to ensure safe adjustment?

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

Edited by - on

John Russell
Master Marine Consultant

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3444 Posts

Response Posted - 04/29/2011 : 14:19:17

Rick, I had the same fear of guillotined fingers. As it turns out, it's easily avoided. Pull the pin to slide the drum up, put a pair of vise grips below the drim to hold it in place and adjust away. Be careful not to crush the foil with the grips, modest pressure is sufficient.

Better yet, when you drop the mast, try to do it without changing the turnbuckle on the forestay. Simply release the tension on the backstay to give sufficient slack to un-pin the forestay and reverse it when raising. That way, you only need to tinker with the backstay adjustment.

Edited by - John Russell on 04/29/2011 14:20:13

Jack Schafer
Navigator

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112 Posts

Response Posted - 04/29/2011 : 14:37:46

I had always struggled getting that pin in when raising the mast until I added a spiniker halyard to the Mastcrane.Now I loosen the backstay and have someone just pull on the halyard and setting the pin is a snap.

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TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2272 Posts

Response Posted - 04/29/2011 : 15:18:59

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by John Russell
 Rick, I had the same fear of guillotined fingers. As it turns out, it's easily avoided. Pull the pin to slide the drum up, put a pair of vise grips below the drim to hold it in place and adjust away. Be careful not to crush the foil with the grips, modest pressure is sufficient.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Thanks for the advice. I have a couple of follow-up questions that will help me prepare before I go down to the boat.

Is the pin that you refer to the luff support pin? If so, why pull it out at all? It seems that it is needed to keep the luff from sliding down against the turnbuckle. Or is that preferable so you only have to lift the weight of the cup, not the cup+luff(+sail)? And should I remove the sail before I attempt this?
<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by John Russell
 Better yet, when you drop the mast, try to do it without changing the turnbuckle on the forestay. Simply release the tension on the backstay to give sufficient slack to un-pin the forestay and reverse it when raising. That way, you only need to tinker with the backstay adjustment.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Well, the mast was dropped last November and is already up again. But I was able to drop it without loosening the turnbuckle. Since I have a split backstay, I loosened the aft turnbuckle enough to remove the port snap shackle (about 20 turns, as it turned out). Once I released the port side I had effectively a single backstay to starboard with a LOT of slack, so removing the forestay from the chainplate was easy at that point. I reversed the process to reattach after raising the mast.

However, when I raised the mast on the hard (with boat leveled by a laser level), my rake was more than 4". I know it's likely to change on the water because stresses on the hull (and resultant flexing) are totally different. So first I need to add ballast to the bow to make her float on her lines, then re-measure the rake. If it's still too much, I may have to shorten the forestay, which is why I'm asking about all this.

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John Russell
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3444 Posts

Response Posted - 04/29/2011 : 19:25:30

The drum weighs lots less than the drum and the luff.

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jbkayaker
Captain

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299 Posts

Response Posted - 05/04/2011 : 17:19:14

Pull the pin to slide the drum up, but instead of potentially damaging vise-grips I use a coat hangar wire wrapped around tightly several times to block the finger chopper from dropping.

Edited by - jbkayaker on 05/04/2011 17:23:16

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