Rigging Upgrades

 

After almost 25 years it is time to replace and update the rigging on Sea Dragon.

Sea Dragon is Cutter Rigged Pearson 36 foot boat. The head sail is on a 25 year old Hood furling system. The Staysail is hanked on with a self tending boom. The main sail has two reef points and an in-boom reefing system.

Since the mast had to be unstepped to replace the wiring and wind instruments, I took this opportunity to replace and upgrade the rigging. The project begins the mast pulled and the boat shrink wrapped for the winter. The shrink wrap will allow me to remove and rebed deck fittings.

My list of rigging upgrades includes the following:

1. Inspect and replace all standing rigging.
2. Replace the 25 year old Hood Furling system with a new Hood Seafurl-5 H325
3. Add a Hood Furling system to the Staysail, Seafurl-5 H253
4. Modify the club foot to support the furling system.
5. Modify the Main sail reefing system to make it easier to reef
 

Look Mom no Rigging. Is It a power boat?

The first order of business is to modify the Reefing system. Sea Dragon was equipped with double reefing system. The reefing system looks nice on paper. Reefing lines neatly run through the boom, out the bottom, and nice cam cleats.

The instructions read as follows, Tighten aft (clew) reefing line until leech cringle is drawn down to the boom (Diag. C). Try that on wet pitching deck an you will begin to wonder what the heck Bill Shaw and his staff was drinking when they came up with this idea.

You combine the awkward position, lack of leverage to the two (2) turns and the weight of the boom a little wind and you are out of luck.

Nice design on paper; pretty much useless under actual sailing conditions.

I have tried to use the winches on the boom, wedging myself under the boom, and standing on the reefing lines.

I have been unable to use the system as it is currently configured.

 Working with Steve of Alpha Rigging I decided to toss the current system and modify it.

The old hardware  was removed. The boom was modified so the reefing lines exit the boom on the starboard side near the forward edge of the boom. The lines will pass over cleats and can be winched if need be.

Next step is to add a Lewmar 6 winch between the cleats and the exit points.
The blue line you see on the port side is the out haul and just forward of it you can see the toping lift. While most people are moving all of their lines to the cockpit, I have opted to move everything to the mast.... Call me weird.
Staysail boom and inner forestay  modifications.

Once the inner forestay was replaced with a new Sea Furl furling system, I needed to decide to keep the boom and modify it or get rid of it. I decided to keep self tending boom and make the necessary modifications to the boom.
We now have four (4) running aft from the bow. On the port side we have the Staysail furling line and the Staysail outhaul.

And on the Starboard side we have the Headsail furling line and the Staysail sheet.
  Once the final sail modifications are completed the out haul will have 2:1 purchase.
The new furling system. The outhaul runs along the boom forward then turns at the base then passes through a series of bulls eyes to the cockpit.
Once in the cockpit the Staysail furling and outhaul terminate at Lewmar 16 self tailing winch and cleats.
The new head sail furling system was was installed using the original configuration.

 

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