Lower Shrouds

Moderator: GreenLake

Lower Shrouds

Postby Chincoteague » Fri Feb 18, 2022 12:44 pm

My new to me 1966 DS1 has lower shrouds. The pictures show them and their attachment which is about 8 inches below the spreaders. The other picture shows eyes on the deck two fore and one aft the wire shrouds. The mast is straight 2 1/8" x 2 7/8" not tapered. The steel shrouds are 1/8" and in good shape. The mast also had jumper stays which I have removed after reading much loathing and no defense of them for this boat/mast. I read some discussion of lower stays in the long post titled "#37" where Tom says he would try them before deciding but then the discussion moves on in several other interesting directions without getting back to lower shrouds. So is #37 still equipped with lower shrouds?
Should I keep or remove them? My inclination is always to simplicity and streamlining but I don't want to ditch something a PO thought out and installed for good reasons. Thanks.
shrouds.jpg
shrouds.jpg (234.42 KiB) Viewed 6879 times

eyes.jpg
eyes.jpg (254.01 KiB) Viewed 6879 times
Chincoteague
 
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:33 pm

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby tomodda » Fri Feb 18, 2022 4:14 pm

I got rid of mine, along with the jumper stays. Haven't drowned yet.

And are you referring to the same PO who put two bow eyes on your boat? 'Nuff said...

Tom
tomodda
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:04 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby Chincoteague » Fri Feb 18, 2022 10:46 pm

Yes, probably installed by the same previous owner. And I didn't mention all the little pad eyes along hull under the rub rail.
Nuff said, as you say, But I still would love to know what was the intent of the rope shroud retrofit.
Chincoteague
 
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:33 pm

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby tomodda » Sun Feb 20, 2022 11:14 am

Your PO was an "interesting character." I didn't understand before that those glorified clotheslines ARE the lower shrouds. Suspected, but wasn't sure. I'd definitely get them off, post-haste.

PO was trying to set up running back stays, hence the useless snap shackles and the two deck eyes. Upwind, he snapped his shrouds to the fore deck eye, downwind he snapped the windward shroud to the aft deck eye and left the leeward stay at the front deck eye (to clear the boom).Jibing must have been great fun, either a truly hair-raising experience or very slow, Hudson-River style. Anyway, this is all totally unnecessary, 1000's of DSes and other dinghies sail perfectly well upwind and down without backstays! The "secret" is the swept spreaders, as long as the chain plates are abaft the mast and everything is properly tensioned, you have enough fore-aft stability to go downwind. The spreaders "push" the mast forwards, the forestay keeps it from going backwards, all is well. Which brings us to the clotheslines that PO used, there's no way to tension that enough for any real effect on the mast (more than you already have from the wire shrouds). Even if you were able to tension them somehow (most real running back stay rigs use a purchase) and overcome the stretchiness, you'd then either destroy those snapskackles or pull those ridiculously thin eyestraps out of the mast. Also the eyes should be riveted, not screwed to the mast, but at this point it hardly matters.

Previous paragraph just to explain why I write "take those things off now." I'd also like to point out that previous owners didn't necessarily know what they were doing, bless their salty hearts. Remember, the DS was built and sold as the "Volkswagen Bug of the Sea." OK, that wasn't the slogan, but you get the point - Everyman's Sailboat. But not every man (or woman) knows how to properly rig a boat....

Hmm, I just realized that for my Daysailer:Volkswagen analogy to work, Uffa Fox would be Ferdinand Porsche (certainly apropos) and George O'Day would be... Nevermind! :|

See you on the water!

Tom

PS, betcha the padeyes under the rub rail were for fenders... Your PO really liked belt-and-suspenders solutions!
tomodda
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:04 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby Chincoteague » Mon Feb 21, 2022 8:40 pm

Tom, thanks for that thoughtful reply and explanation of the running back stay. I wonder if this may relate to another anomaly on my boat. The tenon base of the mast jack has a bolt running through the sides of the keelson but the holes in the sides of the keelson have been changed to slots by the drilling of a line of more holes. The bolt did not appear to have been used to limit the fore and aft movement of the jack but only to keep it from coming up out of the keelson. That is the way I received it - able to slide almost two inches. I wonder if the back stays were used to pull this loose base fore and aft rather than actually trying to change the shape of the mast. As you say these wouldn't have the tension for that.
Thanks again for helping me decipher this palimpsest of a boat. Even if I undo the PO's "innovations" I really like knowing what was being attempted.
Chincoteague
 
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:33 pm

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby GreenLake » Mon Feb 21, 2022 9:49 pm

Love Tom's explanations here. You should fix your mast step. NorthSails tuning guide for the DS has a method for doing that (that is, locating the correct position for your mast step). Once you do that, you'll have proper mast rake. With the proper tension and length of forestay you should get proper pre-bend of your mast. (Extensively discussed by K.C. Walker here a number of years ago). Then you use a vang to help adjust mast bend.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
GreenLake
 
Posts: 7135
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:54 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby tomodda » Mon Feb 21, 2022 10:33 pm

Chincoteague wrote:Thanks again for helping me decipher this palimpsest of a boat. Even if I undo the PO's "innovations" I really like knowing what was being attempted.


Ha! I haven't met a palimpsest since I tried to plagiarize late 19th century French psychoanalytic critiques of Edgar Allen Poe in my sophomore-year American Literature class. Needless to say, my professor was thoroughly unimpressed with me....

Anyway, your PO really had it in for you! As GL wrote, snug down your mast step bolt so it doesn't slide around, and consider some sort of plate/blocks to close off that slot. No idea what your PO was thinking, DS measurement bylaws (Book 3) specifically forbid moving the mast step during a race, especially not by any cockamamie "system to remotely or readily adjust the mast heel position." Rule 7.2. And backstays are also verboten, rule 9.1 (for that matter, lower shrouds are also non-sanctioned). PO's changes may predate those rules, but I doubt it. The spirit of the DS rules have always been to Keep It Simple (Stupid).

And if he wasn't doing this for racing, then why do it at all? Moving the mast step is not going to change your boat speed in any way that's appreciable except when one-design racing. Says the non-racing man (me) who rigged up an ungodly jib halyard tensioner! Well, Emerson did write that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," but what your PO did makes little sense to me. Undo it and sail away simpler and happy.

Tom
tomodda
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:04 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby GreenLake » Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:31 am

Tom, the "simple" rigging that was sold for the DaySailer isn't necessarily the appropriate one. Even for non-racers.

I remember once going 20 nm (track line) to make 10 nm of progress on a small cruise. It was conceived as a one way, with trailer moved to the destination, so giving up and going back wasn't an option.

What do you think I would have given for a better tacking angle, even a few degrees? We're not sure, but the bad angles could have been (partially) due to current. What do you think, a bit of extra boat speed would have meant in that situation? With an adverse current a small increase in speed through the water is a much larger (proportional) increase in speed over ground.

The only time you don't care about how well you can trim the boat is when you "spend a few afternoon hours on the water" and don't care how far you get. Even "cruising" you usually have a goal, and thoroughly inefficient trim does not help you enjoy getting there.

I see the adjustments that are on boats like a 5o5 or Flying Dutchman and don't think we should go there, but barber inhauls, vang and halyard tensioner are things I would adjust while cruising (if I have them on my boat), so I don't think they are not appropriate for the non-racer.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
GreenLake
 
Posts: 7135
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:54 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby tomodda » Tue Feb 22, 2022 11:30 am

GL: You are right, of course. Everything you mentioned is essential for getting max enjoyment out of our little old VolksBoats. Nevertheless there is a fine line between mods that are "worth it" and ones that aren't. To each his or her own, but I suspect that a clothesline-actuated dynamic mast rake mechanism is a fathom or two OVER that line....
tomodda
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:04 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby Chincoteague » Tue Feb 22, 2022 2:38 pm

Agreed on all points and thanks again to both of you for your insights. I hope to spend more than a few afternoon hours on the water and soon I will be looking at all those ways to maximize efficiency. But this season I will be learning with what I have, and at the moment I'm trying to understand just what I do have. Which brings me to the next what-is-it photos.
This one is at mid-mast or about 11 feet above the cuddy. Same vintage I guess - same snaps, same cordage, but forward this time with a ring .
midmast.jpg
midmast.jpg (237.87 KiB) Viewed 6788 times

midmast2.jpg
midmast2.jpg (223.32 KiB) Viewed 6788 times
Chincoteague
 
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:33 pm

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby GreenLake » Tue Feb 22, 2022 3:18 pm

You should not wait for next season to fix your mast step.

I"m always for waiting to understand what you have, and to figure out what works or doesn't work for you, before committing to an upgrade, but some stuff is plain "broken". And broken stuff needs to be fixed; that's different from an elective upgrade.

Now a line partway up the mast could be a stupid attempt at a "baby stay" (look that one up) or it could be something used in raising the mast. There's also, somewhere at that height usually an eye to attach a spinnaker pole uphaul. But the strap you have looks overbuilt as if the PO (assuming it's not original) expected significant loads. That would argue for use as a "baby stay". Especially if there's a fitting on the foredeck for it to attach.

Now, if you have a strange sail that looks like a smaller jib, your PO may have used that to "reef" the jib, or to rig the DS with a cutter rig (two jibs).

From all I've read about "Palimpsest" here, I wonder whether the PO read a book about rigging a yacht and tried to emulate that on a dinghy....

(That really should be the boat name, if if isn't already).
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
GreenLake
 
Posts: 7135
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:54 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby tomodda » Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:53 pm

@GL: "Baby STAY," no? And the PO may have simply been trying to induce more prebend by pulling forward on center of the mast. Easier/better to do it with a powerful vang, but different times...

@Chincoteague: Anyway, again something I'd remove asap. Use the strap for attaching your vang to the boom, and the line for drying out your socks. :) Question, are you actually on the VA Inside Passage, sailing the Chincoteague Bay? Seems like ideal DS waters (at least in the bay), shallow but good winds.

Tom
tomodda
 
Posts: 823
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:04 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby GreenLake » Tue Feb 22, 2022 8:28 pm

tomodda wrote:@GL: "Baby STAY," no?

Yes. typo. Fixed.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
GreenLake
 
Posts: 7135
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:54 am

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby Chincoteague » Tue Feb 22, 2022 8:58 pm

Yes, adjusting the stay, shrouds, rake, according to guidance here (North et.al.) and fixing the floating step are high on my list. I meant that I probably won't be adding much new equipment this season.
She is as yet unnamed and I had briefly considered "palimpsest" but I'm afraid it would look pretentious on the transom. That can be her working title for this thread.
Thanks for your conjecture about previous rigging. I will read up on baby stays (I couldn't find much on baby stags and it was mostly in Russian). I continue to wonder as I accumulate more clothesline, but I may just have to - as Iris Dement says - let the mystery be.
Yes, the coastal bays of Md and Va are wonderful and I hope good sailing waters for the DS. A lot of shallows yes, and a lot of fetch for the north wind which can make an awful chop. But that is not predominant. I mostly know these waters as a paddler. My limited sailing has been with my brother on the Chesapeake.
Thanks again
Chincoteague
 
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:33 pm

Re: Lower Shrouds

Postby GreenLake » Wed Feb 23, 2022 6:12 am

My own personal take on boat names is that if you go to the trouble of naming your boat, make it easily readable. The smaller the boat, the bigger the letters, so to speak. Now, I sail in well-attended beer can regattas, so having folks on bigger boats able to read the name without having to come close is a bonus :D, but you get the idea. I think "Palimpsest" is a great (and in this case even fitting) name. And as it happens, with fewer letters in the name than for my boat. So, there should be no problem fitting it on the transom. But hey, it's your boat.

OK, looks like you are clear on the "remove superfluous stuff" and the "fix broken stuff now" vs. "upgrade / enhance later" concept.

For your idea pile for future reference you might check out K.C. Walkers post of prior years on the Doyle UPS (Universal Power Sail). It's kind of like a Code Zero and while it's definitely a departure from the class legal sail plan, it would make a great addition for anyone cruising in light to moderate winds a lot. (It's something I've been tempted by, but as it adds another step in the setup, it's something that has costs as well as benefits when I'm already spending more time setting up/de-rigging than sailing . . . might be different if I did more of the longer cruises as opposed to quickies).
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
GreenLake
 
Posts: 7135
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:54 am


Return to Rigging

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests

cron