Disconnecting a Forestay

[DougM]

I have to possibly detach the forestay on my Beneteau323 to increase its length slightly by adding an extra shackle. There is no turnbuckle, otherwise this would be a no brainer.
I've done it before on small boats, but never on a 32 footer.
I am wondering if any of those of you on this forum have ever had the experience of doing this by attaching the jib halyard and/or the spinnaker halyard at the bow to support the mast while detaching the stay. If so, what pitfalls did you encounter, and how did you overcome them?

I have visions of being unable to reattach the forestay....then what?

 

[justsomeguy]

I have visions of being unable to reattach the forestay...

And I have visions of you being unable to detach it!

Can you loosen the aft shrouds and backstay(s)? Do they have turnbuckles with room to move?

The spin halyard should work just fine as a temporary forestay. Still, it'd be nice to have calm water for the procedure.

 

[DougM]

[QUOTE="
Can you loosen the aft shrouds and backstay(s)? Do they have turnbuckles with room to move?
.[/QUOTE]

Backstays can be easily loosened, plenty of turnbuckle room. Cap shrouds are tight with almost no adjustment left. Planning on adding strap shackles there for more adjustablity. lowers have some adjustability but not much.

(The back story here is that the mast got blown over, snapped in half, at the spreaders in an early spring storm while the boat was on the hard. Have all new mast, standing rigging, roller furler, and most of the running rigging. so nothing is even close to being properly set up)

 

[capta]

Sounds to me like you are going to have to ease off the backstay(s) and the upper shrouds. Then pull the masthead forward with the jib halyard. Undo the headstay top and bottom, lowering the top with the spin halyard.
Reverse the procedure to reassemble.
I should think this would be a good opportunity to add a turnbuckle to that stay. It certainly would make tuning the rig a tad easier.

 

[jssailem]

Plus One... What Capta said.
Using a Halyard as a replacement for a wire stay is done all the time. You can actually remove all of your stays one at a time using a halyard or line to substitute for the wire till you are ready to reinstall the wire stay. It is not something you want to do and go day sailing, but in an emergency you could limp back to home suing lines instead of wire stays. In a pinch you make do.
I agree with Capta that you will be ahead of the game by adding a turnbuckle to be able to adjust the stay. In clear why when they replaced everything that turnbuckles were not used. Maybe it is an insurance claim and the repair was cutting corners and costs.
Take it one at a time and be deliberate in your actions. Let us know your success.

 

[DougM]

No turnbuckle in the headstay was the original Beneteau setup. Replacement headstay came in the same way. Changing to a turnbuckle would require a set of longer legs on the bottom of the furler drum. That would lead to having to slightly recut the jib to shorten the luff. Decided I would have to live with it.
The boat always had a little too much weather helm thought to be a result of the forestay being too long, allowing too much mast rake..The eye to eye dimension on the new forestay is exactly the same as the owners manual shows for the original, hanging a weight from the main halyard and measuring the distance at the deck to the mast base gives a dimension of about 14 inches which should be about right. Adding a shackle at the forestay sounds counterproductive, but it would possibly allow the cap shrouds to attach with some adjustability.
In a way, I don't really want to do that, just hoping that the added strap shackles at the cap shrouds. will give enough added length to get proper adjustment capability in the turnbuckles.
At the moment, I get the feeling that the shrouds are acting like a drawn bow string waiting to drive the mast through the bottom of the boat. I haven't put a Loos gauge on them yet to see what kind of numbers its pulling.

 

[Ron20324]

Uummm... are you sure the mast is the same length???

 

[jssailem]

Understand about the tuning. I replaced all of my standing rigging. We had the mast up for 2 weeks before we tuned it. We set it up then we sailed it in a 15 knot breeze. Then we tuned it and sailed it again. Then we finalized the tuning. Since then no changes in the rigging and no more compression of the mast measured inside the boat. It was a process. While you have a newer production boat the process is similar. We modified the forestay to accommodate the furler. It took some long tangs to assure the rigging would move and flex the way it was supposed to. The rigging that was on the boat was not correct. Had not been correct for many years. It is correct now. My situation is likely different than yours. It may just be to your advantage to look at it and compare.
I hope the answer will come in a proper tuning. We did use a loos gauge. The rig is fairly tight port to starboard flexes fore and aft based on back stay. Of course I have a telephone pole for a mast. No bend and 5 in rake.