Sonata Sailing

National One-design Cruiser/Racer

shroud

Joachim Hübner

hello,

my name is Joachim. I live in Kiel, north germany, and I own a hunter sonata 7.

I need to renew my uppershroud, but I don´t know how. I have made a sketch to explain my problem.

I think, it will be easy, to disassemble bolt and uppershroud but I can´t imagine how the uppershrouds and the forestay are fixed to their right place on the bolt?

Does anybody know, how it looks inside the mast? how I can disassemble shrouds and bolt and reassemble they again?

are  there  bushes on the bolt to hold the distance between the shrouds.

Does somebody know where I could buy shrouds secondhand or new?

I think, the boat has been built in 1978.

The mast is from    international yacht equipment limited Essex.

 

thank you in anticipation for your help. my mail adress is     joachimhuebner@gmx.net

Best regards

Joachim

Peter Booth

Hello Joachim, the IYE masts were the original masts on the Sonata and the eyes on the top end of the shrouds and forestry is a soft eye i.e. it has no inner eyelet to protect it from wearing unlike the bottom end which is a hard eye. This is because the bolt is too large to pass through a hard eye. The bolt may have a sleeve on it but also might not it just depended on how early the boat was built. This bolt slides through the eyes on the 3 rigging wires. I find that the eye on the forestay wears very quickly and check them all every year but usually the forestay requires replacing every 3 to 4 years whereas the shrouds because they are always tight only require replacing every 10 years. It is the same arrangement for the lower shrouds as well. The wire is 19 strand 4mm and should be able to be made up by any organisation that makes rigging if you provide them with accurate lengths. In Britain they can be obtained on line from the likes of Jimmy Green Marine and may others.

Joachim Hübner

hello Peter

i really thank you very much for your answer and all the information you gave me upon the rigg. Hoping that I understand most of it.

When I want to disassemble it, does it make a difference, if there is a sleeve or not?

or is it simply possible to pull the bolt out of the mast independent from the fact if there is a sleeve or not?

more concret:

can I detach one nut,

 pull the bolt with the sleeve out of the mast

pull the shrouds and the forstay out of the mast

insert the bolt, with sleeve or not ,again a little bit in the mast,

set the shrouds and forstay again upon the bolt

 push the bolt completely through the mast

fix the nut from the other side.

What I don’t understand is the reason for the sleeve. is it to keep the distance between the eyes of the shrouds?

Is it possible, when I pull the bolt out of the mast, that the sleeve will fall inside the mast. Can I prevent this?

Best wishes from Kiel

Joachim

 

 

Peter Booth

Hi Joachim, as you have described take one nut off and simply withdraw the bolt, once you have got the bolt a little way out you will be able to see if there is a sleeve on the bolt or not. If there is then get hold of the sleeve as well so that you pull that out along with the bolt the shrouds and forestay will then be able to withdrawn from the mast. It really is a simple operation as I am sure you will see.

Peter

Joachim Hübner

Hi Peter,

thank you very much for your helpfull advice.

Now I will do my very best.

 

best wishes and a good season

Joachim