OK ... after several hours of readjusting with the help of Brian, J30 #22, we are running 35' 7+" forestay with the mast base set back at 40 mm, which we are not going to be able to change until the next time we pull the mast. At which point we will move it to the Min at 25mm. With no backstay on we are looking initially at a pretty straight mast with very little pre bend, basically to see how much bend we can generate with heavy backstay over 15 kts.

We will be working with this setup this weekend on the water, but unfortunately will not be able to tune up against another boat until the regatta the end of the month.

for the purposes of discussion I can't see how we can consider setting the mast step as "tuning" of the rig, but instead consider it bringing the mast into the necessary configuration for racing or maximum accepted performance.

1. If you ask a sail maker to build a J30 #1 they automatically assume headstay is 35' 10.5" because that is what the max head stay is supposed to be, and that gives the biggest sail. So by ordering a standard J30 #1 or even a 155 they expect you to be set up Max. If you are moving sails from one boat to another ... this needs to be the same.

2. to achieve that forestay length the mast step needs to be at 25mm ... there is only so much you can do to bend the mast where it don't want to be bent. So that has to be set at Min. to move the mast at the fractional back enough to get OK tension on the forestay at the target forestay length.