Rigging Services

Our rigging department has continued to expand, and we have tailored it to offer the most comprehensive service yet. To reflect the growing need for a complete package in this field, we are supplying our customers with anything from a simple tallurit eye on a dinghy wire, through rig tuning and advice, right up to a full re-mast or re-rig on large yachts.

We’re fitting more furling systems than ever, and as we are not tied to one particular manufacturer, we can offer the most suitable system for your application. Having seen furling systems rapidly increase in popularity over the last few years, we are now experiencing a crossover into the industrial and architectural worlds. Whether interior or exterior, for shade or protection, there are several systems available for those non-marine installations.

Rigging is often overlooked or taken for granted until you have a problem with it, and due to its very role, that’s sometimes too late. Regular checks on its condition and performance could not only save you money in the long run, but also may identify and solve possible problems before they become dangerous.

As our on-site team travels throughout the country, location is no object for a continual service giving you full backup and aftersales care. Whether your rigging needs a simple routine service or checkover, or a faultfinding or full tuning session, our experienced team are fully trained and equipped for the task.

YACHT RIG TUNING.
Rig tuning is one of the most overlooked aspects of yachting. An unfortunately common practice is to stick the mast in its slot, tighten the rigging till our hands hurt then tape everything up and go sailing! To get the best from your rig, this is simply not enough.

The reason the rig is tensioned (apart from to stop it falling down!), is to allow the mast and forestay to work in harmony with the sails. For example, too much mast bend will pull the centre of the mainsail fabric forward and result in a very flat and powerless sail. If the forestay is too slack it induces a lot of sag in the Genoa luff making it too full in the front section, which will result in reduced pointing ability.

Rig tuning is directly linked to the way the sails work. If the Centre of Effort (CE) of the sail plan is in front of the Centre of Lateral Resistance (CLR) of the boat this will cause lee helm (boat wants to bear away). If the CE of the sail plan is in behind the CLR this causes weather helm (boat wants to round up). Both of these conditions require excessive rudder use to compensate to the correct course, which as we’ve all felt is like sailing with the brakes on! If normal sail tuning is unable to resolve helm issues, some basic rig tuning is likely to be the answer. Increasing mast rake moves the CE aft and reduces lee helm, whilst decreasing mast rake moves the CE forward reducing weather helm. This is just one fundamental adjustment that can be made to assist boat balance.

HOW MUCH TENSION?
There was an old riggers saying – “As long as everything’s tighter than everything else, it’ll be fine!” A nice idea, but things have moved on a bit since then! There are various methods to check the tension in a wire, but by far the simplest is to use a spring tension gauge. When dealing with rig tension, the units are normally expressed as a percentage of the breaking load of the wire and these gauges are calibrated as such.

Lets take the two main rig types, masthead and fractional, and look at some basic settings for both. For any rig type, the set-up should start with making the mast stable, then setting the rake (fore and aft lean) with the forestay and backstay. Before applying more tension to the athwartship rigging, it is important that the mast is in-line. This can be checked simply by taking the main halyard down to a point on the boat both sides that is known to be symmetrical, i.e. the shroud base or a quarter fitting. To do this more accurately, a tape measure should be hoisted and measurements taken to compare port & starboard.

For a masthead rig, a general guide is to set the cap shrouds to 15% of the breaking load of the wire, then set the lowers to half the tension of the cap shrouds. The backstay tension should then also be set to 15%. Due to the backstay acting on the mast at a greater angle than the forestay, the forestay will be slightly more than 15%. For a simple fractional rig the tensions are 20% for the cap shrouds and 20% for the backstay. Again, lowers are set to roughly half the cap shroud tension. So that’s the mast stable and tensioned at the quayside, these are the static settings. As all boats are different, these settings should only be used as a starting guide and to fully check the tension in the rigging, it is necessary to get sailing!

The final tension, or dynamic settings, should be set whilst underway. This allows analysis of the boat balance and sail shape before deciding on the correct settings. Ideal conditions would be sailing in about a force 2 with a heel angle of approximately 20 degrees. With the sails sheeted in, the leeward shrouds should not be loose, they should be just firm. If necessary, slack shrouds should be tightened whilst not under load to avoid unnecessary stress on the bottlescrews. It is important with dynamic tuning not to make large adjustments on one side without checking and adjusting the opposing stay whilst on the opposite tack. Sighting up the mast on both tacks to check that the mast is true is also important when making adjustments.

Once the dynamic adjustments have been made, a final static check should be carried out. The athwartship measurements should be re-checked and all the opposing stay tensions finely balanced. A final sighting up the mainsail track should confirm the mast is still straight. This is where a tension gauge is very handy, a record can be kept of all the settings achieved making subsequent mast stepping much less time consuming. Also, keeping records of changes in rig tension along with differences in boat performance is an extremely handy diagnostic tool.