What, they messed up the Stay Terminals Too?

Once the mast was down and we started taking a closer look at the masthead, we discovered another present by Prout Catamarans. Evidently, the manufacture of the mast and its rigging had not yet been outsourced to Z-Spar, as it is unlikely that they would have made as obvious a mistake: Mating a 3/4" ID stay terminal to a 5/8" OD toggle pin (see above).

All three pins in the topside toggles have the same pins, and all the terminals are the same size - at least Prout was consistently wrong. As you can see, the normal stresses encountered by the rig use deformed the stay terminals permanently. Evidently, the pin was stiffer/harder and the terminal gave instead. Thus, our stay terminals acquired a oval/egg shape.

We were lucky indeed that we had not stressed our terminals beyond the classic stress/strain inflection point as the fiercest wind-conditions encountered by the rig were in the 25-30 knot range. A survival storm probably would have brought the rig down. Furthermore, we'd also dodged the mast-head stay bullet and hence should consider playing the lottery.

Evidently, our egg-shaped stay terminals had to go. Our rigger suggested we go with Sta-Lok terminals in the back, as they allowed us to re-cycle the rear stays. Thus, the two rear stay terminals were cut off and long-necked Sta-Lok terminals were substituted (see below). Thus, our rigging remained as long after the stay terminal removal as it had been prior to the current surgery.

The forestay could not benefit from such retrofits as the roller-furling extrusions prevented the use of any kind of Sta-lok terminals, unless we wanted to cut down the top extrusion. Thus, we replaced the forestay and its terminals entirely.

Given that even our toggle pins had gotten worn and notched over the years, we decided to replace them as well. While superficial notches are unlikely to greatly weaken the pin at present, why not take advantage of the mast pull to renew all worn parts?

Finally, the stay terminal fits the pin in the mast head toggle.A large, tight bearing surface maximizes the strength of this connection.

Thus, if you're a Prout owner, go over your rigging. You'll sleep better knowing what is and isn't right up there.