File - Canadian Wayfarer Association

sure if they're still available. The gentleman who designed the whole course is Dave Dellenbaugh
who now publishes the “Speed 'n' Smarts” newsletter!)
In medium air, angling the spreaders for a shroud to shroud distance of 96,5 cm (38”) gives us
the desired 5 à 7,5 cm (2-3”) of bend when the mast is fully chocked at deck level. It is
important to start any adjustment of spreader angle with both spreaders at an equal fore/aft
angle. To check that this is so, put the rig under a bit of tension, then stand about 3 à 5 meter
(10-15’) out the side of your boat while sighting through the two shrouds (with one eye closed).
If the spreaders are evenly angled as they should be, the far shroud should remain hidden
behind the nearer one all the way from deck to spreader level. If this is not so, one of your
spreaders needs to be angled more or the other less. Subsequent spreader angle adjustment is
then simply a matter of applying an equal number of (half) turns to each side. I am still looking
for a useful way of keeping my wingnuts from coming slowly undone as the day wears on. I have
tried heavy elastics but these don’t seem to last more than one regatta.
In lighter airs, we want to maintain 5 à 7,5 cm (2-3”) of bend but Wayfarers have no obvious
means of doing so. Our three main sources of promoting bend will leave us with more ills than the
bend cures in the lighter stuff:
1 the vang would give us bend but too much leech tension
2 cranking in on the mainsheet (upwind) would likewise give us bend but too much leech
tension
3 cranking up the rig tension would create potential bend the same way you would promote
bend in a batten by holding it vertically on the floor and then leaning on it. However, this
can only be accomplished by cranking on so much jib halyard tension that all the
necessary jib luff sag is gone and your jib luff entry becomes far too flat.
We can, of course, make the mast more willing to bend by angling the spreaders further aft and
removing all mast chocks so that minimal rig and sheet tension give us some bend. But what if
there is virtually no wind?
What we have done on “Shades” is to install a miniature “take-up tackle” that resembles a tiny
Laser vang using 4 mil. pre-stretched rope at the bottom of the forestay. If we’re really
desperate for bend in those super-light airs, we can then crank up the jib halyard to heavy air
tension to put compression forces on the mast. When we push the middle of the mast forward,
we now get bend in proportion to the rig tension exerted. We then take up all the slack in the
forestay (with our mini-vang) and loosen the jib halyard until we have a nicely curved jib luff
entry while the rigging is still tight enough to give the mast ample compression and bend. In the
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