N1EE wrote:

Doug you are talking about a mast
being straight side to side, and
of course you are correct that many
people don't get this right. For one
thing is a pain and take a lot of time
tweaking the shrouds.

If you know the method, it doesn't really take that much time. I think most
people don't approach it methodically and either make it worse or else fiddle
around forever. The important thing is to loosen all the lowers first and get the
masthead centered, few people seem willing to start by un-doing all previous mast
tuning.

It used to be that tuning manuals would talk about getting a uniform athwartships
bend to either open or close the slot, depending on whether the boat needed more
pointing or more power. But it has turned out that keeping the mast "in column"
meaning straight when viewed athwartship is faster. It may be that modern sails
(different cut & materials) respond enough differently that back then, the
side-to-side bend did help.... if you got it right...

We've had this demonstrated dramatically twice... once in the Lightning and once
in the Johnson 18. Somehow one lower shroud got tightened and I did not
scrupulously check the mast before setting out for the starting line. We could
point sort of OK on one tack, but terrible on the other, and despite all we could
do were sailing alongside the tail-enders. After spotting & fixing the problem
(which made me vow for the 100th time, always review the basics) we had front row
seats.




MC is talking about mast bend as used
for sail shaping--another subject entirely.

Yes, as usual he missed the point.

I think that it would be good to discuss mast bend & rake, too. Then MC will get
to toss in his 2 cents (but he'll probably still be wrong).

Fresh Breezes- Doug King