what we found
first, buried in a pile of papers we found the owner's manual specifically for Hunter 27's from US Spar. That was an eye opener for sure. They give VERY specific instructions on how to tune the rig and set things up. One of the issues they discuss is the amount of pre-bend in the mast. The H27-3 rig was designed to be used with a sail that lives on the boom, not in the mast. I believe the specify 16" of aft rake from plumb, measured from the top of the mast with only 1"- 1 1/2" prebend using the "diamond stays". They further broke down the rig tuning specs and said we need to get a Loos gauge and tune each piece of wire to their numbers to minimize bend. The reason is that the furling mandrel inside the mast wants to be straight, with a lot of bend it binds on the inside. Add to that the things others here have mentioned and it seems that getting things just right is a challenge.
We also had a tough time getting the mainsail to feed into the groove in the mandrel. That was further complicated by the wind kicking up with about a third of the sail up. We took the main down for winter storage yesterday and found that it bound up again with about 95% of the sail unrolled. It took two of us to get the last 6" or so of the sail to unroll, what we found was about 10' of the center of the sail was not furled properly and was wrinkled, we aren't positive but we also think it may not have been in groove. Once again, to complicate the process the wind kicked up and it started to rain......it's been that kind of summer.
US Spar suggests dropping the mast, backing off all the turnbuckles and starting to tune the rig completely from scratch in the spring. We hope to do that if we can get the mast down. Turns out it has never been down since 2008 so I hope I can get the turnbuckles free. We are scheduled to do all of the tomorrow however the NWS just issued a gale warning through Sunday........sigh.
first, buried in a pile of papers we found the owner's manual specifically for Hunter 27's from US Spar. That was an eye opener for sure. They give VERY specific instructions on how to tune the rig and set things up. One of the issues they discuss is the amount of pre-bend in the mast. The H27-3 rig was designed to be used with a sail that lives on the boom, not in the mast. I believe the specify 16" of aft rake from plumb, measured from the top of the mast with only 1"- 1 1/2" prebend using the "diamond stays". They further broke down the rig tuning specs and said we need to get a Loos gauge and tune each piece of wire to their numbers to minimize bend. The reason is that the furling mandrel inside the mast wants to be straight, with a lot of bend it binds on the inside. Add to that the things others here have mentioned and it seems that getting things just right is a challenge.
We also had a tough time getting the mainsail to feed into the groove in the mandrel. That was further complicated by the wind kicking up with about a third of the sail up. We took the main down for winter storage yesterday and found that it bound up again with about 95% of the sail unrolled. It took two of us to get the last 6" or so of the sail to unroll, what we found was about 10' of the center of the sail was not furled properly and was wrinkled, we aren't positive but we also think it may not have been in groove. Once again, to complicate the process the wind kicked up and it started to rain......it's been that kind of summer.
US Spar suggests dropping the mast, backing off all the turnbuckles and starting to tune the rig completely from scratch in the spring. We hope to do that if we can get the mast down. Turns out it has never been down since 2008 so I hope I can get the turnbuckles free. We are scheduled to do all of the tomorrow however the NWS just issued a gale warning through Sunday........sigh.
