Well....I broke it....now I've got to fix it.

[KeukaSailer]

Yup....I broke it...The Jib pigtail on our 146. Of course while out underway in the middle of lake Keuka...on the 4th of July. Twang!!! Dis Masted….rigging, sails, everything came down on us. Took us a good 20 minutes to get all the lines untangled from us, sail off the mast, Boom un mounted..... lashing the mast to the deck so we don't lose it and all while being pitched around by kamikaze Jet ski pilots, and clueless "I rented a boat for a day" folks, who don't respond to repeated radio calls. Anyway...I digress. Finally, getting around to repairing said mast. Need to order new Jib pigtail, and apparently there is no standard for length for the 146. When you order you need to provide length. I measured what's left of it and the closest I could get is 17-5/8" (split and unwound). Does that sound about right? Also my the shrouds have always been super tight (painful to close the adjusters, even on loosest setting)…so I was thinking of adding an inch or two to the length. Is that a bad idea? What do you guys thinks?

 

[Will Gilmore]

I would surmise that the lack of a standard has more to do with the possibility that any given used boat is likely to have been modified by one owner or another. Customization is so common that it would most likely cause a company headaches who simply relied on a production standard.

I'm glad to read that a dismasting was the least of your suffering. No one injured. That is so lucky.

If you feel your stays have been too tight, and your turnbuckles have the length to take up the extra to tune appropriately, I can't see there being a problem with adding an inch. Just be sure that extra length can be taken out by resetting your turnbuckles (shroud levers?). If the tension is correct, making them longer will only make them need adjusting until they are too hard to lock down again.

-Will (Dragonfly)