Thom Stewart wrote:

Over tension probably wouldn't break or bend anything but would make the
top of the sail "Hook" . A lousy thing for sailing!

You're right. It probably won't break or bend anything. Unfortunately,
"probably" isn't good enough when it comes to keeping the rig intact. A
rig with a 65% chance of making it through the afternoon will "probably"
make it, but I wouldn't count on it.

An overtensioned vang can definitely shear off a gooseneck - especially
if you've wanked down hard on the vang to depower while going upwind and
forget to let it off when you bear off to a run. When you're sheeted
in, the force on the goosneck is mostly compression; bear off to a run
and the force is shear. You see this failure on dinghys that have had
the vang upgraded from a stock 3-1 or 4-1 to a 15-1 or 16-1 without
upgrading the gooseneck as well.


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//-Walt
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