Clockwise from far left: the author proudly shows off the quality of a very expensive clearcoat finish on his heavily refurbished former Class40 spar; Dyneema shrouds terminating at bottlescrews allow for like for like substitution; at just four tons, Chi is no traditional cruiser, though with a new heavier keel and better rudders she now sails as originally intended… before her first owner got the stability calcs back to front. No backstay but double runners help to manage the large hand-me-down square-head main that is also ex-Class40
Good people, good products My old boat (RIP), the wonderful X-452 Miss X, had a Harken furling forestay system. It was old, it had been through massive abuse over numerous ocean cross- ings, and it never ever failed. So I wanted the same system again, more specifically the latest Harken MKIV. Through Danish Harken dealer Colum-
bus Marine I also got the Harken mast track and ball bearing cars for our massive, 70m2
fathead mainsail and a Reflex endless
furler system for flying sails. Ropes for run- ning rigging came from Liros, turnbuckles from BSI and illuminations from Lopolight. New chainplates and spreaders were spe- cially machined by PS Rigging. The good people of the industry came
together and provided their advice and premium products for the project on very helpful terms. Like me many were simply curious to see how my project turned out! So by now a lot of good things were
available secondhand from the French pro teams at a fraction of their original price tag, and still in good shape.
A tube is not a mast After almost a year of searching the right opportunity finally materialised. A Class40 pro sailor in Lorient had a raw mast tube, never used and 5kg heavier than the latest generation. So not much use to him. I was on the next plane to Lorient and bought it for practically nothing. When I looked surprised at the very low
price he shrugged his shoulders and said to me, with a wonderful deep French accent: ‘Well, you know, a tube is not a mast.’ As it turned out, he was absolutely
right. Having it varnished cost the same as buying it. And through the next months I ended up buying it several times over, as the black tube slowly turned into a real mast. Without a magnificent group of competent professionals from the industry, who all in their various ways gave me a hand, we would never have got there.
Dyneema? During a long winter of obsessive reading I had realised what a sizeable weight reduc- tion I could obtain, just by choosing Dyneema standing rigging over steel. As far as I could calculate it would also be
50 SEAHORSE
cheaper than any other option. And as a bonus I would have an even stronger rig that I could inspect easily and repair myself with very basic tools. Also, I had no restrictive racing rules to obey. On a boat like mine it seemed outright stupid not to go down this road. Dyneema has already taken over a lot of
functions on our boats previously handled by steel wire or stainless fittings. But so far most people have backed away from going all in, doing all of the standing and run- ning rigging in Dyneema only (except for furling forestays). The general concern is that ‘creep’ (a slow, permanent stretch over time, inherent in the material’s prop- erties) will make it too difficult to maintain standing rigging tensions in the long term. But some people do seem to have
resolved this successfully. Most of them spoke highly of Colligo Marine, a rigging company in California. I got in touch, and the owner, John Franta, turned out to be a very enthusiastic guy who had dived deep into the subject of Dyneema rigging. His company had developed a whole test- based methodology, with a series of spe- cialised products developed for this specific purpose. It was obvious that I should do business with them. We met at METS in Amsterdam and decided to use their products on Chi… it all made sense.
going on: I had obtained the original rig plan designed for the mast tube, and stuck to it, changing only the parameters that were necessary due to differences in mea- surements between a Pogo Class40 and my boat. Colligo Marine uses Dynice Dux from the Icelandic producer Hampidjan, a pre-heated, pre-stretched SK75. According to Colligo, some more recent Dyneema variations are less suitable for the purpose. The technicalities are too hairy for this piece, but the details are available online! I decided to have it all spliced locally
and stretch it myself directly on the rig. A decision made to save money, but one that turned out to cost me a lot of extra work.
Mast up, but… A sunny June day last year the moment arrived when the mast could be raised… But the result was not that great. After
hundreds of measurements and a few deci- sions based on guesswork, several bits and pieces did not fit properly. I had to invent temporary fixes, and the rest of last summer was spent straightening out problems and replacing temporary solutions with more solid, permanent ones. We had a few nervous test sails too, but never really got the rig functioning properly before winter fell upon Scandinavia. So it was well into 2022 before all the
pieces of the puzzle fitted properly, and I could finally put the necessary permanent tension into everything. A braided line with splices in both ends
will have a huge initial stretch – which was no surprise. But exactly how much was
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