I tuned the standing rigging of the Aegir-Ran for the first time. I found a document published by the Seldén mast company a good resource. The Aegis-Ran has a fractional rig (a cutter) with a keel-stepped mast and a single in-line spreader. The horizontal rigging comprises of a forestay, a cutter stay, double backstays, and (Dyneema) running backstays. The running rigging comprises of a mainsheet, jib sheet, staysail sheet, preventer guy, outhaul, reefing lines, and a topping lift. The shrouds comprise of upper shrouds, cap shrouds, and forward and aft lower shrouds.
The tensions when I began were:
Starboard (%) | Port (%) | |
Cap Shrouds (3/8″) | 7 | 8 |
Forward Intermediate Shrouds (5/16″) | 11 | 10 |
After Intermediate Shrouds (5/16″) | 7 | 9 |
Backstays (5/16″) | 11 | 11 |
I used Loos PT-2 and PT-3 tension gauges:
I started with the upper shrouds (which were flopping in the wind):
Once the upper shrouds were balanced (5 on a PT-2 scale), I followed the following procedure to tune the rest of the standing rigging:
- Check mast rake and adjust with the forestay.
- Tension the cap shrouds to 15%.
- Roughly straighten the mast using the lower shrouds (checked by viewing up the luff groove).
- Increased the cap shroud to 20%.
- Tune the mast straight again using the lower shrouds.
- Tensioned the backstays (not to exceed 20%). This increases the tension of the cap shrouds.
- Check the cap shrouds to make sure they are less than 25%.
The tensions after tuning were:
| Starboard (%) | Port (%) |
Cap Shrouds (3/8″) | 16 | 18 |
Forward Intermediate Shrouds (5/16″) | 16 | 14 |
After Intermediate Shrouds (5/16″) | 12 | 11 |
Backstays (5/16″) | 15 | 13 |
Since the tensions seem to be changing, the rigging was left overnight.