I am still replacing parts on my 1971 Hobie 16, and I bought some new hydraulically-swaged, marine-eyed shrouds from our forum host. They're beautiful... and they're different from the ones I removed.

These seem to be shorter, overall, than the shrouds I removed. When rigging the boat this weekend, I started with the pins through the top holes in the shroud adjusters, and pinned my forestay through the top hole in my DOUBLE extender/adjuster, which of course is attached to the bridle. With my older shrouds, I would then carefully (see next paragraph) lower the pins symmetrically until I was securely pinned through the 3rd or 4th hole from the bottom of the adjusters. What I found with the new shrouds is that the second hole from the top is about as far as I can go, before everything everywhere is tight. I even raised my sail and used my mainsheet (travelled way over to the edge) to lever the mast towards one side, then the other... no joy. The sailing was fine, and I felt much more secure with those new shrouds holding everything together. Still, other commenters on this forum have described setting their shroud pins near the bottom of the range to properly rake the mast. Why can't I do this with my new shrouds? No, I didn't measure the old ones... they look like original equipment, but who knows.

My other concern is related to the process of lowering the pins in the shroud adjusters, following the initial hookup. It also relates to the post-sail teardown, too, as the pins are symmetrically moved up to allow some looseness. With the old shrouds, I used a couple of Phillips-head screwdrivers through the adjuster holes, so that there was ALWAYS a secure shroud-to-boat connection; I'd "walk" the adjustment until it was near the pinning point, then insert the clevis pin and secure it. Because of the marine eye on my new cables, I can't do this! How do I safely adjust the shrouds?

Rick