CS34 Mast Tuning

Got to the club around noon and proceeded to mount the boom and run all the lines back to the cockpit.

At haulout last fall, I accidentally pulled a reefing line and lost it in the boom.

I had to drill out the rivets and remove the end boom casting to get the line back.

Didn't take too long.

Onto tuning the mast

All the shrouds were just hand tight:

First I made sure all the turnbuckles were even (have the same amount of thread):

Had to loosen and balance several of them.

Now to start tensioning the rig:

Left if the lowers
Right is the uppers
Middle is the cap shrouds

I first started with the cap shrouds tensioning them evenly on both sides.
The cap shrouds attach at the second spreader.

Made sure the mast was plumb by running the main halyard to each side.

Sighted up the mast to make sure it was straight:

You can see how straight the grove for the mainsail is.

Next onto the upper shrouds.

I tensioned the one side and sighted up the mast:

Just look how the mast is bent at the top to starboard.

Tensioned the port side until the mast was straight.

Checked again with the main halyard to make sure the mast was plumb.

Next tensioned the lowers.

Then onto tensioning the front baby stay, and major tension on the back stay.

This put a nice amount of pre-bend in the mast:

Rita and Shadow came down to the boat with the canvas

Shark 444 from the club owned by Marisa went out for a sail:

Meanwhile we put most of the canvas on the boat:

And Shark 444 came back in under spinnaker