I spoke with the guy from Salty Dog Marine and he made the reasonable suggestion that my stays might be originally from a Classic Wave but the end clips had been cut off. That would give exactly that thimble to thimble length. What I have done so far is cut off the thimbles and added new ones, losing about 5 inches. Now the stays are too short so I swapped out all chain plates to 10-holes and it fits nicely. Standing on the tramp and holding the mast up I could reach forward and pull the forestay down to hole 8 for a pretty tight (but still floppy) rig, then secured the mast to the boat with the tail of the halyard under the beam. I did all of this solo at 4 a.m. Christmas morning in my pool so my son would find that Santa brought the boat ready-to-sail. I hit my pillow at 5 a.m. and he says he came down stairs and saw the boat at 6 a.m. That was close!

It's 34 degrees right now but Clearwater is predicted to be 78 on Friday. I hope to get the boat out of the pool and into the Gulf then. I'll have all new standing rigging by then.