On Feb 1, 8:54*am, (Richard Casady) wrote:
On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:08:02 -0600, Brian Whatcott

wrote:
But *a thin aluminum strip, 3 or 4 inches long, strapped securely to
the rigging, with the strain gage measuring the stretch of the strip
which is transmitted from the wire would do the job perfectly well.
Low noise amps, data acquisition PC and you're in business.

It might be easy to epoxy the aluminum strip to a rigging wire. Heat
will break the bond without damage to the wire.

Casady

... and you calibrate the strain gauge against 'what' standard?
Would be a good idea when racing to have a strain gage mounted on the
headstay .... then you can match the headstay sag versus the luff
hollow that the sailmaker cut into the jib/genoas leading edge ....
would insure bombproof genoa leading edge/luff shape.