Alan Park
I’ve just bought a Sonata, but dont much fancy the shrouds(stays) being roughly in line with the mast. I hear a modification is permitted under the class rules.
Can someone please let me have the details of how this carried out.
Administrator
Don’t even think of moving the shroud plates!
The shrouds are fine upwind, the mast is held in place by the backstay and the mainsheet. OK – the forestay sags a bit but that’s just a speed issue, it applies to all Sonatas and the sails are cut to compensate to some extent.
Many (most?) people think that the shrouds are also fine downwind but there is a school of thought that advocates more support for the mast in the form of “checkstays”. This is recognised in the rules as follows:
5.3.3 Not more than two mast checkstays may be fitted one to port and one to starboard. Mast checkstays, if fitted, may be of wire and/or rope, shall be fixed to the mast not more than 6630mm nor less than 6130mm measured in a straight line along the mast from the upper edge of mast measurement band number 2 and shall be taken to a cleat, or through a single turning block and then to a cleat, fitted on deck not
more than 500mm forward of AMP.
5.3.4 Mast checkstays, if fitted, shall not be tensioned by purchase and/or winch and shall not take load when the yacht is working to windward.
For definition of all these terms such as AMP see the full rules on the RYA web site technical section.
In other words, you can have two lines running from the mast to the aft sidedeck which you can tension downwind in a blow. Upwind, you would slack off the lines and clip them down out of the way near the shroud plates. It’s not difficult to fit these lines but it’s more string to worry about when sailing. It won’t make you go any faster but it just might save the mast if you’re the sort of chap who likes to crash through big waves in near gales with the spinnaker up – so decide for yourself.
Jack Hardie
150
why do you need to change the way the boat was designed ?
Alan Park
Thanks for all the advice about the shrouds, they’ve been a great help.
teamsarabande
please note that sonatas are designed that way to allow the mast to rock back and forward,
this is why sonatas have loose rigging as it allows the mast to move otherwise when the rigging is tight over 45 pounds the boat becomes very hard to sail as in a blow the boat gets knocked around as the mast cannot move if you really do want to adjust your shrouds to stop the mast movement pull on the backstay.
i do not recomend you move the shruds