Refit - Phase 2 Rigging

R&W Ropes – New Bedford, MA

The existing standing rigging was about 12 years old. That is approaching the limit of what insurance companies will insure so we opted to replace it.

We also wanted to make a few changes to make it easier to manage the boat … most notably the track for the spinnaker pole wasn’t long enough to stor the pole verically or move it side to side of the forestays without unhooking it.

The other change was to not reinstall the HF antenna. We have Iridium-go for offshore weather and we decided to retire the HF radio.

We also knew we needed running rigging work to replace compromised lines. As part of that effort we also made some changes again to make the boat safer, less cluttered and easier to handle.

Changes included:

• Half halyards for the 2 head sails. Basically once these sails r rigged and set, the line used to raise them just gets coiled and left hanging on the base of the mast for months until the next occassion to lower that sail. The new system is a 2 piece system that leaves a small pigtail on the mast with the rest of the line safely stored away.

• New preventer system. The old system left a line run across the cockpit and didn’t provide a steep enough angle to keep the boom in place on a windy accidental jib. The new sytem is anchored to the back end of the boom and led through the bow cleat. We r still working our way through how we want to use it.

• We had new headsail sheets made that are longer to allow them to run arround the outside of the cockpit instead of through it. So far that is working well.

• The lazy jack rigging is still a bit of a work in progress.. Still looking for the right geometry to allow the mainsail to raise cleanly while not pointed perfectly into the wind.

Notes in hind sight:

• Half Halyards - We secured these using the Jammer Cleats. While this worked great to hold them in place, over time the line sleeves slipped and created a jam that prevented easily release. When we needed to secure the 2 head sails for Hurricane Beryl, this resulted in some very Tense moments while the head sail was fully unfurled trying to release the halyards through the jammers.

• New Preventer System - We like to use a preventor on any point of sail. We've had enough issues with autopilots that having the preventer rigged all the time has prevented accidential jibs several times. While the concept for the new system was well conceived, it really only works when the boom is well outboard to get enough of an angle to run the line all the way to the bow cleat and have a sufficient angle to do any good. The geometry just isn't there. We still ended up using our previous system running down to a turning block amid ships when close reaching.

• Running the head sail sheets around the cockpit worked well, but there was sufficient friction in the system to cause a bit of extra work to pull lines through

Crane setting the mast back in place