Forestay Rigging
The forestay on our boats is a very important
part of the standing rigging. In
addition to giving a structure for the jib sail’s luff to be secured for better
sail shape, the forestay also serves the vital function of keeping the mast
from tipping over backward. Some would
call a mast tipping over backward a catastrophic mast failure. Generally though, the mast doesn’t fail on
its own… some part of the standing rig fails – and that allows the mast to
fail. What follows are a few photos that
I snapped of forestay connections at the boat end of the forestay. Notice that some folks are using rusty chains
and bolts/nuts, undersized shackles (the shackle pin is much smaller than the
hole in the stem fitting), bolts/nuts instead of clevis pins and cotter
pins/rings; and so on. Any of these “lash
ups” could certainly lead to the mast failing… 
Of course, rust is a “dead give-away”… If you see rust, the
link is weakened and will fail when you most need the link to remain
sound. So, inspect your standing rig at
least annually to make sure that everything is up to “spec”……
