Tensioning stays on daysailer II

[borovans]

Hi there,
I'm getting close to first test sail after fixing up a '74 daysailer 2, making the final adjustments and raised the mast for the first time. How do I correctly adjust the stays? The owners manual is vague and other info I found is waaay to complicated for the newbie, referencing multiple adjustments on and off the water, I just want to go out and have some fun not win any races. Any suggestions?

 

[berner73]

Fun boat. Only 1 stay on it though (forestay). The rigging on the sides that goes through your spreaders are called shrouds. It's a simple boat to tune and a great platform to learn on. The Doyle Daysailer tuning guide summarizes the initial tune in only 5 or 6 steps so not sure if you'll get a shorter summary than that. In the end, hope you take the time to understand how to tune it properly. An entire forum on how to rig those boats is linked to below:

https://daysailer.org/ODay-Owners-Manual

http://forum.daysailer.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=ffb9618c39acee1545bb94b7e067e2bd

Pick a mild day maybe 5 to 10 kts max. Don't over think it for now and don't over tighten anything. Put the stick up and attach the forestay and shrouds to the deck - loosen the turnbuckles if needed so that there's some play in them before you connect everything. The spreaders should be perpendicular to the mast vertically, and they rest swept back a bit fore to aft. Slowly tighten the turnbuckles in an iterative fashion - not any one wire all at once. Make sure you're only turning the turnbuckle and the wire is not spinning (a small crescent wrench will work to hold the wire at the swaged fitting). Hand tight at first is fine. You won't need anything more than a small screw driver for leverage to spin the turnbuckle when tightening further. Walk around the boat tightening them just enough take up the slack and keep checking the spreaders so they don't move on you (they have a tendency to shift towards the deck when things are loose). Once everything is a little snug, eyeball the mast from in front of the boat to make sure it's straight from side to side. If it's leaning one way or the other, tighten the opposite shroud (might have to loosen the side it's leaning towards). Now eye the boat from the side and see if the mast is straight forward to aft. It should have a little bend to it (top bending aft). Once the mast is true, go back around and snug up the wires a bit. Don't go crazy, just so the wire is a bit taught. Depends on your boat, but you might need to put a wedge between the mast and the hole it slides through. Go sailing and then when you get back, read up on how to properly adjust the rig before you go out in higher winds. The boat will sail a lot better when properly tuned.

 

[borovans]

Thank-you so much, couldn't hope for a better description.