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The Contessa Corner → Posts by bnold5000
I'm still trying to figure out how to attach the boom to the mast (as there were a lot of little parts missing).
I think that the little bale on the gooseneck goes up and that this is the lower attachment point for the Cunningham????
Can anyone confirm this?
Thanks,
Brian
Hello Ian,
Could you describe what you think a good attach point would be for the Asymetric Spinnaker on a stemhead. This boat has an Asymetric and I am planning on using it (my last boat didn't and I don't have any experience with them).
B
Does anyone know where I might get a SLATER reefing block like this one that rivets to the side of the boom and has a 2" sheeve and will take up to a 7/16" line? I'd like to match the ones that are already on the boom if possible (trying to keep the Dr. Seuss factor to a minimum!) I couldn't find much about the company online......I wonder if they have gone out of business?
thanks,
Brian
ps -- if you end up with a OGM tri-color eventually, there are only three wires that run to that fixture. One obviously for ground, one for tri-color, and both together (tri-color and anchor) for the strobe.
Has anyone seen a steaming light with integral deck light that is LED? Last time I checked, all these fixtures seemed to use small unusual incandescent bulbs which made me reluctant to add that type of fixture as I wanted the power savings of LED. I decided to go with an OGM Tri-color, Anchor, Strobe at the masthead and an additional red/green LED at the bow, eliminating the steam fixture completely (360 white at masthead and bow red/green meet the under-power lighting rules). I also like the strobe which is a HUGE safety advantage for almost no power use and for deck lights, I'm using a couple of LED fixtures on the spreaders.
Ian,
Once again, your comments are very interesting and helpful and greatly appreciated. This seems like a very good idea to get some sort of strap on the front of this fitting to help with the loads that could be generated by the "arm" it now has for trying to wrench the thing off the boat.
B
Hello John,
You said that you'd be interested in hearing what the builder had to say.
I just spoke with Gary Bannister on the phone and he said that he thought it was a good idea and that he saw no problems with upgrading the lower shrouds to 3/16" so that all stays and shrouds were standardized like you are doing. He also said that this is what they started doing on the later boats anyway.
Thought you might like to know.
This is what I've decided to do myself. I'm going to drill out all the holes on the mast tangs, masthead and chain plates as well so that all wires are 3/16" and all clevis pins are 3/8".
B
Hello Everyone,
As I put my order together for all the components I will need to build my new standing rig, I'm wanting to make sure I put toggles in the right place.
What I'm planning on doing for the forestay and all shrouds is to put one toggle between the bottom of each turnbuckle (bottle screw) and its respective chain plate.
The backstay is the part of the rig I'm not sure about. The OLD RIG (that came with the boat) had forks at the lower end of the two lower backstays (where they connect to the chain plates on the transom). It also had three toggles where the upper and two lower backstays meet at the triangle plate (where the backstay "splits").
I'm thinking I should probably copy the toggle arrangement on the triangle plate but instead of forks on the lower end of the split backstays..........I should put toggles there as well (?). I'm thinking you probably can't "over do" toggles on a standing rig, however, they probably aren't necessary aloft (?).
Any comments about "my plan" would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks,
Brian
This is some really helpful feedback. Thanks John and Ian!
John -- I will make sure and post photos of new stemhead when mounted (as well as completed boat when re-fit done) and
Ian -- Not sure what the shackle is rated for. I can tell it's a Gibb brand and probably came with the boat because all the other original rigging components were Gibb. It looks to be in good shape and is 3 3/8" long. Probably a MWL of 2000# or 2200# (something close to that).
B
Here is a photo of the way I am planning on attaching my headsail tacks to the stemhead.
Since I started a complete re-fit and have never sailed the boat, I'm wondering if you Contessa sailors out there see any problems (or have any suggestions) with this "plan" (example: does the tack have to be a certain height to avoid chafe issues, etc.)
B
ps -- in case you are wondering about the new stemhead with anchor mount in the photo, it was a custom build from Stainless Outfitters in Barrie and is made to fit a Rocna 22 lb.
Oliver,
Thanks for posting this!
B
ps -- when I'm going back to St. Louis......I'll be taking the Hudson River, Erie Canal, Great Lakes, Illinois River, Mississippi River route........which means..........I'll be headed right by Toronto. I'm planning on swing in to T-town and seeing if I can hunt down the Contessa crowd......so I can say hello! 
Hi Oliver,
The same way I went down the Mississippi River last time (topic of my 1st book).
You have to stay in the channel if you have a draft (like the barges).
Cheers,
B
This is some great input..........Very much appreciated!! And thanks.
I'm just getting all this seizing spreader stuff from all the books I'm reading but clearly not the thing to do on this boat in the "real world."
This is clear to me now. I do have some spreader boots that I will put on before launch in St. Louis and I also have the aluminum tubing spreaders with stainless steel mounting bases on the mast that hold the spreaders up at an angle (all of this looks seaworthy and strong).
B
Ian,
Thanks much for your input. The corrosion issues of seizing are an excellent (and scary) point.
Hello Everyone,
As I near the end of my "rigging education," there is this other issue.
In the following reference materials:
1. Toss's Rigger's Apprentice book
2. Adlard Coles' Heavy Weather Sailing
3. Cruising World magazine article (from 20 years ago)
They have mentioned the importance of "seizing the upper shrouds to the spreader tips."
However, none of these sources gave any details at all about how one might perform this task.
When I bought my boat, I saw no evidence that this had ever been done. In fact, the rig was standing at the time of purchase and the upper shrouds were free to slip about at the spreader tips.
It does seem like "seizing the spreader tips" might increase the strength of the rig, however, I do wonder whether it would break the spreader if the shroud parted?
Perhaps this is just something that all the books say to do, but in practice, no one really does it?
I'm wonder what all you veteran Contessa sailors have been doing in regards to this issue and what your opinions are?
Thanks again,
I cannot say how helpful this forum has been in getting the advice I need to finish my refit!!!
Brian
Hello Everyone,
I wanted to make one final appeal to anyone who may have been at the dinner party with Tania Aebi and Gary Bannister (and may have a way of getting in touch with Gary) to see if they could either provide me with an email address for Gary (or perhaps they could contact him privately, if they don't want to give out his contact info) and see if we could get him to "weigh in" on the standing rigging specs issue.
I would like to increase the size of my lower shrouds (like John did) to 3/16" in an effort to add a little more strength as well as to simplify the rig, but before I do that, I'd VERY MUCH like to hear what the builder would say about the hulls ability to handle the extra strain when properly tuned as well as the extra mast compression forces.
Thanks much,
Brian
Hello Everyone,
As I investigate the procedure for installing Norseman swageless fittings on all my new rigging wires, I'm still not sure about one thing:
Whether you try to fill the fitting up with some sort of sealant (like 3M 4200, or maybe a polysulfide like Boatlife Lifecaulk, etc.) to try and keep salt water corrosion out of the fitting??
I can't seem to locate any "official instructions" from Navtec (the company that makes the norseman fittings) and when I called the company phone number, I spoke to a guy who "wasn't sure" and "thought I might want to use caulk," etc. This individual pledged to email me with the answer and never did. This surprised me greatly when a representative of the company didn't seem to know the answer.....obviously, I probably got the wrong guy on the phone.
Some YouTube videos mention caulking the fittings on assembly by disagree on what to use and others don't mention caulking at all.
As you might imagine, I want to make sure and get this very important matter correct as there is nothing more important than making sure that the big stick continues to point up when you're out in the middle of the Pacific.
If anyone's got any knowledge on this matter, I'd very much appreciate hearing what you have to say.
Best wishes,
B
Hello Everyone,
There is this one other thing that I thought I might mention on this topic of standing rigging and it's proper tensioning and that was a discrepancy between Toss's book and the Loos instructions.
As mentioned above, the Loos Gauge says to tighten ALL shrouds to around 10.6% The Toss book says that the tension is set relative to the length because of the increased stretch for longer wires and that the whole purpose is to keep the mast straight when under a load in all planes. Seems to make a lot of sense to me. The Toss book does not differentiate between stays and shrouds and simply says to set the lowers to 10-12% if there breaking strength, intermediates (if you have them, I'm interpreting) to 12-15%, and uppers to 15-20%.
I think what I'm going to do is go ahead and set the rigging tension as I previously described with ALL shrouds set to about 11% like the Loos Instructions say to do. Then, when I get the opportunity, I'm going to sight up the mast and check for straightness while sailing close hauled in a pretty good blow. If I see the upper mast curving off to leeward some, then I'll start raising the upper shroud tension as needed (towards the Toss recommendations) until I see the "stick" able to maintain its straightness.
B
Today, I got a response from a representative of jeremyrodgers.co.uk. Here is what she said:
"Thank you for the email. I’m afraid it is difficult to advise on the JJ Taylor CO26 because the rig was usually a little taller than the rig on the Jeremy Rogers builds. We recommend 5mm all round on our boats. We also think the Norseman swageless fittings are very good. I am sorry that we cannot help with your tensioning question, but you may be able to get a local rigger to look at it and advise."
Looks like 5 mm is extremely close in size to 3/16"
Thought you all might like to know the conclusion on this correspondence.
I guess the right person to ask for the original "rigging specifications" would be Gary Bannister (the builder of the J.J. Taylor Contessas). Does anyone have his email?
B
I forgot to mention that I used a small diamond dresser to shape the grinding wheel.
Cheers
B
I finally decided to just go for it and see if I could reshape the old sheaves (especially after the $80 a piece quote from Rigrite.com). I found a small grinding wheel in the bottom of one of my toolboxes that was made to chuck up in a rotozip type rotory tool. I used a small cardboard cutout with the negative profile of a 1/2" semicircle to shape the grinding wheel carefully until I had it just right. Then, I chucked the grinding wheel up in my router and laid it on its side and just held the sheave up against the wheel by hand, letting the pull of the wheel spin the sheave slowly as it ground away. As you can see from the photo, the new sheaves have a rope groove. One sheave is somewhat smaller than the others because the wire had dug deeper into the Tufnol. Since the sheaves on the front of the mast don't need as much clearance as the ones on the back, this is where I will install the smaller sheave. I check and discovered that the clearance is fine. The only cost to this project are some small cuts on the ends of three of my fingers from edge of the spinning bronze bushing as I held it to the grinding wheel.
Thanks everyone for all the excellent comments on this thread!
B
Here's a edge view photo of the sheave
Does anyone know what material these original sheaves are made out of?
As you can see from the photo, they are brown in color and look like they are reinforced with a cross pattern of fibers and the edges seem course. I'm wondering if they are fiberglass?
B
Michael,
My mainsail specs are: Luff; 27' 6" Foot; 9' 8" Leech; 28' 3" with several batons.
B
The Contessa Corner → Posts by bnold5000
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