Bergstrom & Ridder Rig Problem

[Mark Prymuszewski]

Cam,
Thank you for your response. I spoke to the captain and he said the handeling was pretty neutral. There is no adjustment in the backstay and once the rig is set there is no further adjustment. The captain said there is a small amount of adjustment at the mast step. Not really enough to effect the rake of the mast. The issue is the pre-bend destroying the mains'l furling motor and the mains'l itself. I apologize for not being clear on that. The sailmaker has the sail and needs to remake it anyway and is waiting to for us to determine the pre-bend first. There is a warranty issue with the owner and the designer so pre-bend numbers are not available. I will have to do this from scratch. The mast is currently on the hard and we have a chance to make changes to the rig tune now. What I have read about the B&R rigs say the pre-bend should be 1% of the mast length. What we have now is much more than that. Is changing the fore stay length still a viable option? The captain told me that there was no sea trial after the launch and the only thing done to the rig since the builders touched it was tightening the fore stay. He said there was about a meters worth of flex in the stay when under sail. I will try to take the prebend out of the mast with the D's. It will be an experiment from the start because nothing seems right. The captain said there was quite alot of movement in the spar before we got a hold of it. Pulling the pre-bend out would seem to loosen the rig more. It is quite a mess. Any further thoughts would be appreciated.