Bumping the rigging up one size (wire) do I compensate for streched old wire?

[TrentePieds]

Eastward:

Quote: "I've had 2 old timers comment how small the rigging is. Soo you know how that seed gets planted.. "

I recall your bringing this boat up for discussion here not so many months ago, and as I recall I told you then that IMO the EastwardHo 24 is a great little boat. I also voiced my opinion, I think, that you need go a bit slow on your learning so you don't go off half cocked :-). I say that again, and I say also that you should be cautious about accepting advice from casual passers by - and that includes the casual passers-by on this 'ere forum ;-)!

The other thing you need to do if you wish to have any hope of our giving you any sensible advice at all, is to express yourself with precision using the jargon - the "sailorspeak". Correctly. You say the geezers who saw your boat commented on "how small the rig is". What, exactly does that mean? Do you know for certain that they meant that the rig is under-dimensioned in terms of wire sizes, or is it just that you've read that into their comment because "your mind is already made up"? If that IS what they meant, what are their qualifications for making such a pronunciamiento? Why would you believe them? Did they show you their calculations? And if so, did you understand them?

Did the geezers mean that just eye-balling the vessel lying alongside, they thought the sail area to displacement ratio is small? Yes, indeed the SA/D IS small, at the very nether end of the acceptable range. And that will work to you advantage when you get to where "the scattered waters rave and the stormy winds do blow"

What do you mean by "a compression post that was just floating on cockpit floor"? The compression post steps on the keelson in an EH24 and is not anywhere NEAR the cockpit! Do you mean that you can shake the nether end of the compression post back and forth on the keelson? If that is so, you have a structural problem that has nothing to do with your standing rigging and can not be rectified by messing with it.

PSK125 said some wise words in #8, and other members have also given you sound advice. I recommend you pay heed to it. Unless you are an engineer or yacht designer with sufficient background to calculate the forces acting on a rig and therefore to design the staying of it, I recommend that you leave "well enuff" alone.

All the best

TrentePieds

[Dougtiff]

As i have stated before, one of the issues to go up in size, is the tension increase may be to much for the mast section.

[roverhi]

What's the size of the wire now?? Westsail claimed 9/32"/7mm was upsize for the W32. Seems to have worked fine as the boat has made three cruises to SoPac without any problems with the rig.