Hi Vince: Welcome aboard. First things first... definitely get the Loos tension gauge. It will eliminate the guesswork. There are two sizes of gauge, so measure your stays before you buy so you get the right gauge for your boat. There's a wire diameter gauge is in the Loos gauge box, but you can't use it till you buy the gauge. Next, figure out the breaking strength of your stays. This will depend on stay diameter and makeup (number of strands). There's a table in the West Marine catalog. If you don't have one, get one. They're a great reference for the new sailor and well worth the $5 (which is refundable on your first order). In my experience, 20% of the breaking strength on the upper shrouds and 10-15% on the lower shrouds with no load on the rig, i.e. sitting at the dock, is a good starting point. Forestay and backstay tension should be somewhere in this range also. Make sure your rig is centered side to side and that your mast has the proper amount of rake before your start adjusting. Your turnbuckles should be near the middle of their range. Also, adjusting one stay will affect the settings of the others, so be prepared to work back and forth a bit until you get it right. Ultimately, the final adjustment should be done on the water, where you can see how the rigging works under load. None of the stays should be loose under your typical sailing conditions. For setting up your rig, I would also suggest the UK Sails website. They have a lot of basic info on sail trim as well. I can't recall the URL offhand, but you should be able to find a link somewhere (www.sailnet.com is a good starting point). Good luck. Peter H23 "Raven"
