Making the Most of a Minimal Budget. Contact me at: skintsailor@yahoo.co.uk or on Twitter: @skintsailor

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Mast Rigging

Yesterday (Tuesday) was my second day off work and I spend a couple of hours on Sprite sorting out my bent mast.

I noticed a couple of days ago that the top of the mast had a distinct curve to port after I changed the rigging turnbuckles, so I set to straightening it. I removed the boom so I could lie on the cabin roof and look up the mast. Not the easiest or comfiest thing to do, scampering off the cabin, into the dinghy and then adjusting the turnbuckles.

I got it straight and then had a coffee.



While i had my coffee I watched a couple of what looked like lecturers were on top of the Portsmouth Uni buildings with a video camera taking video of the harbour and the beach (including wrecks) below the Uni buildings:

Anyway after refitting the boom I thought I'd take a picture of the straight mast to show off my prowess at rigging. This is the picture:


As you can see there's a bend at the top to starboard. Looks like I'd over-done the adjustment. Mind you it is the first time I've adjusted a mast, so I had no idea how far the mast would move due to adjustment of the turnbuckles.

Anyway, the lightbulb came on, because if I could see the bend by just taking a picture on my mobile, it saves me lying down on the deck, removing the mast etc.

So that's what I did: do half turns on the turnbuckles and take a picture to see the results. It seems only small adjustments were needed, a lot smaller than I anticipated. After a couple of pics the mast was as straight as I could get it:


It might need a slight tweak in future: those spreaders look a bit odd and its not quite perfectly straight, but not bad for a first try!

And that was my Tuesday on the boat done apart from wiring the rigging to stop it coming undone again.

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