Trimaran Nationals Day One Pictures

http://www.pbase.com/slackwater_sf/2009_tri_nats_dayone

Lots of pix of Randy and the Multi 23

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=89329

Ouch.

Day Two pics are linked there as well

Tami, you weren't racing?

Anyone have the lowdown on the specifics of the shroud breaking on Yo? was it the connection or the line itself (at the splice?) what kind of line was it? (inquiring minds want to know if they should be concerned about their own stays )

Hi PTP

I answered your question at SA also. Unless he's recently changed them out, YO has steel shrouds. Randy leaves the boat on a lift with the stick up, I expect that may be one of the reasons why he's not gone to textile. And to my knowledge he never has canted YO's mast. You may be thinking of the ROCKETEER F31-1D which was canted.

I mean, he IS Randy Smyth, what does he need that crap for? ;-)

Tami,
thanks. Yeah, he could sail a rowboat without a sail faster than me sailing the oracle boat
I just assumed they were synthetic. I guess it makes sense to use SS if you have the mast up year round in Fl... would be harder to really check them frequently in addition to UV issues. My boat has the dynex-dux with precourt system shrouds which I suppose I am going to replace next year.

FWIW, I just had Eric Precourt look at mine and it wasn't that expensive. There was some chafe wear just above the lower thimble. He spliced that back in as tail, sent 'em back to me, told me go sailing, worry about it in a couple more years. I have since then in order to reduce the chafe wear, painted the lower ends with some Yale coating, what is it... maxijacket, yeah. Between all of us hanging on to them and sheets dragging across them, I guess that's where the chafe comes from. It wasn't real bad, but I try to keep my ol'lady up pretty well. Like her skipper, she ain't gettin' no younger.

I can tell from your posts that you are somewhat leery of the technology. If you're in doubt, send 'em to the man and have him look at them. But really, just how old are your shrouds? Geez, mine are something like 4, maybe 5 years old?

I am not leary of the technology really. I trust them more than SS actually because you can really see where the abrasion is and whether they need to be replaced. SS swages tend to hide where the badness is. I think mine are 3-4ish years old. I have the SS shrouds in my garage which is 1/4inch 1/19 I believe with a breaking strength of 7000 (looking at 1/4 SS 1x19 on APS, 5/16 gets up to 12000) and 3/8 dux has a breaking strength of 26000. (This doesn't seem right to me, now that I am looking at it though. I seem to remember looking at it before and there was a difference but not by that much)

http://www.hampidjan.is/media/pdf/002_Dynex_75Duxslittaflaagu02.pdf

here's the Dux 75 page

The shroud broke right at the point it was pressed into the fitting (just 1/2 inch above where I was holding it when it broke). Combination of rig slop and age/corrosion...although arguably the crew believes that it was from the man on the helm asking for the mainsheet to be eased so that I could keep steerage.

In any event - we're all safe, the stick is back up and we've got one more day tomorrow. Just a gorgeous day here today...only thing missing was Miss Tami and Mr. Jay...

Nice post!