Winter rigging

berwick · **Joined:** 21 Oct 2006 18:12 **Posts:** 325

To those of us in the winter climates, I have always loosened off my rigging a bit when on the hard for the winter. The idea that I have read seems to be that the rigging will tighten in the cold (so should the mast though) and it will allow some flex to make up for not moving on the cradle. Some folks here say it isn't required so I did some more research and I found the Brion Toss suggested measuring the tension with a rigging gauge in the cold temperatures. I have done that (Loos tension gauge) the last few weeks and my rigging actually has, to my surprise loosened a bit when it gets down to near 0 Celsius (32 F) vice on the warmer days. I guess the mast actually shrinks more than SS rigging so I'll just be leaving it alone for the winter from now on. I'll do another measurement when it gets colder but I feel confident in the measurements that I have done,

Richard

jvoelxen · **Joined:** 21 Oct 2006 15:36 **Posts:** 268

Just looked up the thermal coefficient of expansion for aluminum and ss. Aluminum expands/contracts 35% more than ss for every degree change in temperature, which is consistent with your measurements. As a point of interest, if you set the tension real stiff when it's cold, watch out when it heats up in the summer.

Tartan37.com

Winter rigging

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