Pitched Mast?

I have just purchased a multi hull/ hard chine/ cat rigged / catarmaran, a survey from 1996 states that it is a 1971 cat rig made by Creiger out of Long Beach Ca. I must first state that I am a first year sailer and with this boat, I have a primary interst in saving lots of money by sailing back and forth to Catalina Island, about 23 miles off the coast of LA, instead of motoring. I don't need to get there in a hurry and i love sailing with my kids.
Moving up from a 27 foot Catalina, this 40 foot cat, with one Main,and cat rigged mast w/ a boom about 28' long, and no keel.........-I think sailing by the lee is out of the question as well as any beam sailing. One of my questions has to do with the mast. It is mounted about 7' from the forestay and is piched back at an agle toward the stern. It has 1 forestay, and 4 shroud stationary riggings 2 port and 2 star. The fact that the mast is leaning back and being pulled forward omits the need for a back stay.( what do you think about this) Remember I'm not looking for high performance and not having a back stay is quite nice when me and the boys are trolling three lines out the back trying to land the big one. I need to know about stationary rigging tension for a pitched mast.
I actualy have about 10 more questions once i find someone that knows something about this boat.

P.S. I have tried to find the original manufacture, but it appears that they have gone out of buisness.

 

A backstay isn't necessary - the position of the shrouds relative to the mast step restrain the mast against the forward thrust of the sail. And being cat rigged, it isn't necessary to tighten the forestay with backstay tension - sagging of the forestay is irrelevant to the sail shape. Think of the aft pair of shrouds as a split backstay taken to its logical extreme.

 

So do you have any advice as to the required tension? At present they are very loose and i need to tighten them and i just don,t know how much. I have serched books but havent found the answer as of yet. Thanks!

 

I've no advice on the tension. You haven't said anything about spreaders. If it has no spreaders, then I don't see any reason to have the stays especially tight - any more tension than required to keep the mast from flopping around is just going to go toward loading up the hull and not do anything useful.

I'd say if the leeward shrouds go slack, take up half the slack, tack and take up the rest of the slack.

 

G'day,

This is good advice if everything is doing what it should. But if the mast or the boat is bending, or the mast step or the bulkhead under it is being crushed, disaster will follow. Proceed carefully and check everything while you are taking up the slak.

regards,

Rob

 

AALLLL RRRIGHTY THEN. If they are loose tighten them a little. I can handle that but I guese I was just kinda expecting some torquing spec. that took an hour of math to calculate............but this is good.