Tartan 3500 Owner’s Manual
T3500OM
18
Check the following carefully:
When the upper shrouds are at optimum tension and when at about 15 to 20
degrees of heel, the leeward rigging should look slack. This is quite appropriate
and should never be tightened. When close hauled under genoa and main, the
forestay may appear quite sagged. Tensioning the backstay will reduce the
amount of sag, but the sag itself can never be eliminated. As a rule of thumb, the
maximum static backstay pressure should never exceed one quarter of the
backstay breaking strength.
If your boat is brand new, the rigging may seat and stretch to the extent that
tuning from scratch again will become necessary in a matter of weeks. However,
after this initial working-in period, you will find that the rig tends to hold its tune for
considerably long periods of time. After becoming used to the feel of the boat,
you may wish to either increase or decrease the amount of weather helm. Any
sailboat, when sailing up wind, should have a slight tendency to "round up" or
head into the wind if the helm is let go. If you find it typically difficult to hold the
boat off the wind, the boat is carrying too much weather helm. This can be
alleviated by reducing rake, which will move the center of effort of the sailplan
further forward. Conversely, if you find the boat tends to fall off when sailing
upwind and you must constantly push her to weather, then the boat carries lee
helm and the rig will require more rake.
With constant tuning as the season progresses, your boats performance will
improve. The boat will feel more comfortable to sail.
You will find that tuning is a bit of an art and you will begin to notice subtle
changes in the behavior and response of your boat as you make subtle changes
in tuning. The important thing to remember is to go about the process in a slow
and orderly fashion. To record the details of the tuning and re-tuning procedures
as well as the results achieved will provide you a better understanding of the rig
and will serve as a useful reference for rigging the boat on subsequent
occasions.
