Sweeping the shrouds aft...
Quick terminology review: Shrouds are lines that keep the mast upright port and starboard. Stays keep the mast upright fore and aft. Spreaders are horizontal spars attached between the mast and shrouds about midway up the mast; they function to stabilize the mast and increase the angle the shrouds attach to the masthead. Chainplates are the beefy SS steel fixtures that are bolted to the side of the hull; they give the turnbuckles at the bottom of the shrouds a strong and secure place to attach. Whew, that review was for my benefit, not yours!
On the Laguna 26, the spreaders are oriented perpendicular to the boat’s longitudinal axis. This is not ideal for a square-rigged vessel because when the yard-spar is hoisted up the mast, it also needs to remain perpendicular to the longitudinal axis to prevent damaging the shrouds; this limits the wind angle the sail can effectively capture. This picture shows the limited angle (essentially zero) the yard-spar can swing:
One of the reasons I bought this particular boat is that the spreaders are hinged at the mast and each side of the boat has two double chainplates, one placed abeam the mast and another placed further aft. I thought it would be a fairly easy job to relocate the shroud with the spreader from the abeam chainplate to the aft chainplate, sweeping the spreaders back and increasing the angle the yard-spar could swing. Oh you silly, idealistic boy...have you never owned a boat? Well, no, actually, I haven’t, and I am now realizing the truth of what my boat-owning friends have told me...no boat project is ever simple or straightforward!
The first problem: the aft starboard chainplate (for some reason) was installed backwards so the attachment angle to the chainplate toggle was not at all in line with the shroud. I thought I was going to have to disassemble the entire upper part of the galley to access the locknuts securing the chainplate bolts. However, with some clever use of gravity, duct tape, and a few esoteric yoga poses, I was able to get a wrench/socket/visegrips on each of the nuts, which allowed me (on the outside of the boat...oh yes, did I mention I was doing this by myself?) to loosen and remove all three bolts and slide the chainplate up through the slot in the deck. For a forty year old boat, the chainplate was in amazingly good condition, with no corrosion or cracking that I could see.
Because of the off-axis tension this chainplate had been subjected to for many years, it was bent, so when I reinstalled it (oriented correctly this time), I had to play whack-a-mole with each bolt, tightening one, then another, then the other, then re-tightening the first bolt, then the second, etc. until the bend was worked out of the chainplate. The wrenches kept falling off the interior locknuts so it must’ve been entertaining watching me go back and forth, inside, then outside, over and over again...it would’ve been so much easier with a second set of hands. Curse you COVID 19!
The second problem: The spreaders did not want to swing back into position when the shrouds were attached to the aft chainplates. I figured all I needed to do was remove a bit of material off the aft end of each spreader which would allow it to pivot back on its hinge point to the correct angle. This sounds simple, but when the spreaders are located 13 feet above the deck, life becomes much more complicated.
I acquired a climbing harness and a nine foot ladder. I secured the top of the ladder to the mast with two sturdy 3/8” lines and secured the bottom of the ladder to the cabin top handrails with four sturdy 3/8” lines and felt confident that even if the boat got rolling back and forth that the ladder would stay put.
Before ascent, I attached two safety lines to my climbing harness. One was a prusik knot, wrapped around the mast (instead of another line) and secured to the harness with a locking shackle:
I used the main halyard as my second safety line and attached it to the harness with a bowline. Ideally, I’d have someone on deck monitoring the halyard tension in case I slipped but since that wasn’t an option (curse you COVID 19...squared!) I was able to wrap the halyard a couple times around the winch on the mast, then back up through my climbing harness. This gave me enough control of the line to slacken when needed, allowing me to lower myself down; otherwise, the latent tension on the winch drum would support my weight if I fell (and for some reason the prusik knot failed).
Once I was safely planted 13 feet above the deck, I used my Dremel tool to grind away about an 1/8” off the aft end of each spreader. This was enough to allow the spreaders to swing back far enough to be in line with each shroud when attached to the aft chainplate. Here is the final result:
It looks like a lot of effort just to move the spreaders a few degrees aft, but it will make a big difference when the yard-spar is hoisted. I’ll be able to adjust the braces and rotate the head of the sail to capture more wind at a greater range of downwind sailing angles.
On the Laguna 26, the spreaders are oriented perpendicular to the boat’s longitudinal axis. This is not ideal for a square-rigged vessel because when the yard-spar is hoisted up the mast, it also needs to remain perpendicular to the longitudinal axis to prevent damaging the shrouds; this limits the wind angle the sail can effectively capture. This picture shows the limited angle (essentially zero) the yard-spar can swing:
One of the reasons I bought this particular boat is that the spreaders are hinged at the mast and each side of the boat has two double chainplates, one placed abeam the mast and another placed further aft. I thought it would be a fairly easy job to relocate the shroud with the spreader from the abeam chainplate to the aft chainplate, sweeping the spreaders back and increasing the angle the yard-spar could swing. Oh you silly, idealistic boy...have you never owned a boat? Well, no, actually, I haven’t, and I am now realizing the truth of what my boat-owning friends have told me...no boat project is ever simple or straightforward!
The first problem: the aft starboard chainplate (for some reason) was installed backwards so the attachment angle to the chainplate toggle was not at all in line with the shroud. I thought I was going to have to disassemble the entire upper part of the galley to access the locknuts securing the chainplate bolts. However, with some clever use of gravity, duct tape, and a few esoteric yoga poses, I was able to get a wrench/socket/visegrips on each of the nuts, which allowed me (on the outside of the boat...oh yes, did I mention I was doing this by myself?) to loosen and remove all three bolts and slide the chainplate up through the slot in the deck. For a forty year old boat, the chainplate was in amazingly good condition, with no corrosion or cracking that I could see.
Because of the off-axis tension this chainplate had been subjected to for many years, it was bent, so when I reinstalled it (oriented correctly this time), I had to play whack-a-mole with each bolt, tightening one, then another, then the other, then re-tightening the first bolt, then the second, etc. until the bend was worked out of the chainplate. The wrenches kept falling off the interior locknuts so it must’ve been entertaining watching me go back and forth, inside, then outside, over and over again...it would’ve been so much easier with a second set of hands. Curse you COVID 19!
The second problem: The spreaders did not want to swing back into position when the shrouds were attached to the aft chainplates. I figured all I needed to do was remove a bit of material off the aft end of each spreader which would allow it to pivot back on its hinge point to the correct angle. This sounds simple, but when the spreaders are located 13 feet above the deck, life becomes much more complicated.
I acquired a climbing harness and a nine foot ladder. I secured the top of the ladder to the mast with two sturdy 3/8” lines and secured the bottom of the ladder to the cabin top handrails with four sturdy 3/8” lines and felt confident that even if the boat got rolling back and forth that the ladder would stay put.
Before ascent, I attached two safety lines to my climbing harness. One was a prusik knot, wrapped around the mast (instead of another line) and secured to the harness with a locking shackle:
I used the main halyard as my second safety line and attached it to the harness with a bowline. Ideally, I’d have someone on deck monitoring the halyard tension in case I slipped but since that wasn’t an option (curse you COVID 19...squared!) I was able to wrap the halyard a couple times around the winch on the mast, then back up through my climbing harness. This gave me enough control of the line to slacken when needed, allowing me to lower myself down; otherwise, the latent tension on the winch drum would support my weight if I fell (and for some reason the prusik knot failed).
Once I was safely planted 13 feet above the deck, I used my Dremel tool to grind away about an 1/8” off the aft end of each spreader. This was enough to allow the spreaders to swing back far enough to be in line with each shroud when attached to the aft chainplate. Here is the final result:
It looks like a lot of effort just to move the spreaders a few degrees aft, but it will make a big difference when the yard-spar is hoisted. I’ll be able to adjust the braces and rotate the head of the sail to capture more wind at a greater range of downwind sailing angles.