Firstly, oOdunkOo has the broader professional experience. Mine is limited to sailboats up to 20 tons. Secondly, as I've stated, I hesitated. Should have kept my fingers off the keys.
The very few rigs with deadeyes I've fiddled with did not have a berth and were happily being sailed by owners who really had no clue as to how out of whack their rigs were. We did the initial set up at anchor but the mid and upper shrouds all seemed to have different stretchiness - maybe just the soft eyes settling around the mast but more likely because heaving up on a deadeye is hard to know exactly how the tension works out.
Anyway, after initial set up on a light sail the lee shrouds were way to loose and the balance between uppers and lowers was wrong, giving the mast an athwartships curve. Gently taking out some but not all slack on the lee side, tacking to see how that was and to take a bit off the other side. Lightish winds in the lee of land so no waves. These were just plain gaff rigs, not even top masts with only about 700 feet in the largest sail and, as I say, the owners had been plodding about anyway. For the schooners I did, took maybe an hour and a half. For the cutter and sloop, maybe an hour. All in pleasant sailing.
I have no doubt that a pro could have achieved the same result faster with a broad experience base and without having to take the time to check the results empiraclly as I did.
Still in all, it's not the preferred way.
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