[MHml] mast woes

[Glenn Brown]

> The riggers got my new rod diamonds installed Friday, mostly.  They had 
> trouble getting the original tensions back.

I just tensioned Mike Dobb's new carbon Tornado mast last week, to the 
tensions recommended by Charlie Ogletree (so I know they were right). 
The mast uses rod rigging.   With a Loos guage attached, the tension 
went up rapidly, then very slowly with turns of the wrench.  I attribute 
the rapid increase to increasing rod tension before prebend was 
introduced, and the subsequent slow rise to bending of the mast.

So, I have to wonder if your riggers are simply not accustomed to 
prebent rotating rigs.  I don't imagine there are many of them in 
Ventura that rely on the pro riggers.  (I imagine the F-boats are a more 
DIY crowd.)

Another factor was the Loos guage has some internal friction, and the 
guage would stick/jump/stick/jump slightly as I tensioned, making it 
look like tension was not increasing at times; so I didn't trust any 
differential reading where I didn't push the guage to reduce the reading 
and let it settle on a new number.

--Glenn