The Rig and Rigging

 Perhaps the biggest refit decision occurred in April, 2010 when I stumbled across an ad in Sailing Anarchy and eBay to sell a 2005' Hall Spars, 3x spreader, carbon fiber mast and rigging.  The owner of a Santa Cruz 52  was replacing it with a 3' taller unit in hopes to be more competitive in his fleet.  Turns out, the mast was located in Stamford, CT  and the owner was a fellow member of the American Yacht Club.

Prospective Hall Spars Carbon Fiber Sky Scraper

Removed for Inspection

Hmmm. Previous owners and crew complained of lee helm in light air. Accoring to Rives Potts, Carina suffered the same malaise in light air and short chop  until he replaced her rig with a taller CF version. So I already planned to replace her shortened, IOR-era 15' boom to the 'as drawn' 18' length. But this would still leave us with a 40-year old, massively overbuilt mast in need of a new boom, new standing and running rigging, a new furler, new sails and self-tailing winches. Here was a state-of-the-art, 275-pound  mast with complete rigging, albeit 7' taller than original. At the right price, the mast would essentially be free. Since a new Hall CF mast would cost upward of $75k and not even a remote possibility, this was certainly worth looking into.

Long story short, after receiving assurances from McCurdy & Rhodes' Ian McCurdy, Nan and Ben Hall at Hall Spars, measuring everything 10x and a quick negotiation with the owner, I bought the rig. Suddenly, this was no longer a cosmetic refit but a transformation of her soul.  It has the potential to make her extremely competitive and more enjoyable to sail, particularly short-handed in her LIS/New England home waters.

Safely in the Shed at WPB

Ironically, Sitzmark's original rig arrived at WPB from Manchester-by-the-Sea just one week earlier after literally months of effort to secure transportation. According to the WPB crew who off-loaded it, it was the heaviest rig they've ever handled. Now, just one week later, they were stunned to hear a replacement rig was en-route to join it in the rack. An old friend, Ken DiPrete helped me to prepare it for trucking and off it went.  That is a gross over-simplification as the 70' x 9' rig was transported fully assembled, spreaders and all, on a 53' truck with escort vehicle.

Of course, a new rig requires a new sail plan.  And for this Ian McCurdy was recruited who engaged his assistant, Noble Davidson.  Center of Effort receives help, moving 9' aft and Center of Gravity benefits from  a reduction in weight aloft. Worst case, assuming zero impact to CG, she'll be 34% more tender although its hard to imagine the new rig weighing as much as the old one (Carina shaved 700 pounds)! But now, a 130% headsail has just as much canvas as the old 150% and a new first reef in the main still leaves enough canvas to equal the entire original main sail.  As such, the new 'cruising' plan will make judicious use of of a non-overlapping 92%, high-aspect jib and a forestaysail.  This will make short-handing far easier and allow the boat to point to weather far better than ever.  Off the wind, we'll use a asym/gennaker and add a Code-0 for racing. The taller rig means we have to keep a closer eye on the weather (Sirius/XM weather overlay is planned) for gear changes.

On top of all this, minor modifications to the in-line chain plate, mast step and mast itself are required. The chain plate hole had to be enlarged to 1" and it's depth expanded to 1". Hall will continue to use the fore and aft chain plates by adding a lower diagonal rod shroud to each side of the mast for added support (this is preferable to a more major modification to the in-line chainplate and adding a babystay). They will also add two Harken #46 ST's to the mast for halyard and reef winching.

Hall-performed modifications to install winches,
clutches and a second set of lower digonals

New roller bearing jib tracks with G10 backing plates
and chain plate modification