J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Standing Rigging Replacement Error?

Hi Everyone!

We had the standing rigging replaced this past winter by a local rigger. They have many years of sailboat service and I would say that they know what they're doing


What I'm wondering is that the rigger sent me an email letting me know that the work was done and the mast was back up. He went on to mention they he "erred a little on the short side" and that the tuning should be good. The tuning seems to be good, about 1,600, maybe a little more, for the uppers on a gauge. There is a good amount of prebend and I wouldn't normally set tension any higher. But the turnbuckles appear to be at maximum extension, with only one-ish thread exposed for the uppers. The lowers seem a little better. What this means to me is that I could not safely tune the rig looser, or really have any adjustment other than increasing tension.

Does this seem correct? I attached photos showing the threads at the turnbuckles. The rigger did mention before the work that they would need to switch the turnbuckles to a more modern style (it had been rigged with original hardware).

Should I contact the rigger and have them explain and/or correct this? Is this a mistake? Will the wire stretch enough to compensate for this? Does it even stretch at all?

You should have the rigger correct this. Where the turnbuckle are now has adequate thread engagement but you will be unable to tune for light air. The wire will not stretch. This should be corrected at his expense as since the rig was down he had opportunity to exactly copy the length of the old rigging.

Ideally the rigger should order new wire to replace and lengthen the current wire to allow light air adjustment. Additional adjustment could come also from adding a toggle. My rigger always measures the thread on the old turnbuckles and matches. Dan #409

Thanks Bill and Dan!

He is inspecting the job hopefully some time this week and said that he could add some toggle jaws "for now". Not committed to fixing/replacing just yet but seems like he's leaving the door open. Hopefully they do the right thing without too much trouble

We start Wednesday racing this week so I'm glad you think the current thread engagement is okay. It looks okay to me in this position also, but not any further!

When you told me the other day how short they were, I was not expecting it to be that short. He always does a good job on ours when putting rig back up for the year, but he might be getting lazy. He should definitely change it to the proper adjustment length.

Yes the rigger should fix this. If you had a separate rigging inspection by a different rigger it would fail.

Good news! The rigging got replaced today with corrected lengths.

Thanks everyone for your input on this