San Juan 21 Class Association

Hello, I recently damaged my back stay, and i'm wondering if anyone knows where I can purchase a used one, or a place I can have one fabricated?

Alan

making your own shouldn't be hard. A length of appropriate cable, and some crimping sleeves and your in business. Otherwise, if you can find a rigger through a local shipyard, a backstay like ours shouldnt be hard or expensive to have made.

Alan, you can also contact gene from Port Gardner, his info should be in the resources section of the site here as I recall. He sells these, but also your local West Marine should be able to fab one up. Any sort of Marina near you probably has a rigging supply store/company that could help out as well.

later
C

What is appropriate cable? I'm just now realizing a difference in stays versus wire rope for the keel.

Also, it seems that there are certain sleeve materials for certain wire ropes. I had asked a local rigger to make a stainless steel cable for me and he had planned to use aluminum sleeves, but this webpage makes me wonder: http://www.nicopress.com/C1.htm . He did not have thimbles for the eyes, so he has not made the cable for me, as yet.

I'd thought about buying a crimping tool, etc, but it looks like $300 is the entry point to get started with Nicropress. Any recommendations for other brands/models, types of sleeves, etc is appreciated.

Ben, Gene from Port Gardner Sailboats doesn't advocate nico presses, but... I've been using a backstay that I shorted with nico press sleeves for over a year now without any issues. You can get a set of "pliers" that'll do the pressing for like 20$ or so are your local Home Depot or Lowes. Look in the area where they sell wire, chain, etc.

I can't recall the type of Cable you want to use for the backstay, but I do think it's been listed numerous times on hubbard's site, you might want to check that out and search there.

later
C

Today I was in a WestMarine (about an hour from where I live) and they have a rigging station where you can build whatever. Several sizes of wire rope, thimbles, sleeves, and a bench-mounted crimping tool. Also there was wire for stays/shrouds. Happy to say that my cable with 2 eyes is now made and ready to install (replacing the split back stay with a single adjsutable stay).

The guy in the store also informed me that the reason for NOT using aluminum sleeves on stainless wire rope is that electrolysis will occur and the integrity of the sleeve will suffer over time.