Rig Tension

This weekend will be light wind. Do we still go as tight as possible on the shrouds?

Rick etal, say never go tight at all. Loose is good.

I use a ten hole forestay adjuster to rake my power back over the rudders (they then act as daggerboards). The rig is loose so when you reach the sail does not go against the sidestay in invert the sail.
Rick

Really? With the standard forestay adjuster, I rake back as far as I can.

But I tighten to the third hole from the bottom on the sides.

The fourth hole from the bottom on occasion.

Any looser and the mast bangs around in chop and light winds.

So do you tighten the rig overall in light winds and loosen it in heavy winds?

we ended up racing in 2-3 knt when it was good so any light air advice would be good. I have a 10 hole fore stay and kept the forestay on the 1st hole. my shrouds were at the bottom hole of the chainplate but it still seemed loose.

Those who race with success all use loose rigs. If you grab the sidestay with your fist and twist it, you should see an angle of about 45-degrees. That is pretty loose, but could even be looser.

As soon as you go off the wind at all, the battens will bump up against the sidestay. With loose rigging, the sail will push the sidestay away and maintain its shape. If a tight rig, the batten will invert and you will have terrible shape.
Rick

A loose rig downwind on the Wave is faster than a tight rig, especially if you are raked back as far as you should be to be fast and point high upwind. HOWEVER, if you do not want the rig to slam around in chop and break your bridle wire like Rick's did in Duck, N.C., then you may want to tighten the shrouds just for that reason. If you are racing and want to win, then just put up with the slamming rig and make sure you check it diligently after the races and replace anything suspicious, right Rick?!

It would be nice if we could have lever things on our shrouds to increase/decrease rig tension as needed on the water -- similar to what the old A-Class cats had on their mast to change bridle-wire tension.

This is what we had on the Hobie 14s. It worked well to eliminate the slop and damage.

<<5.3 A single line or shock cord line may be secured
to the bridle intersection and run to a cleat on
the front crossbar to adjust mast rake. The mechanical
purchase shall not exceed 1:1.>>

It seems to me that this would be a reasonable ammendment to the rules.

Funny (well not at the time) It broke right in the middle, and showed no signs of wear.
The standing rigging was near the second year in age, and we had sailed at least 200 races just in series races alone. So, they had a lot of wear and tear.
Guess replacing once a year may be the ticket for the amount sailing we do.
Rick