Jennifer,
The Pacific Boats version came with check stays. It had version #3. I changed them from wire to vectran with an eye loop at the end. I also revised the system that was originally there as well. The end of the vectran went to the back of the boom. A tail piece with a shackle on it then attached to the eye, ran to the transom to a Schaefer stand up block, to a metal lined pad eye on the combing, to a Schaefer block on a deck pad eye, forward to a Schaefer block attached to the stanchion base near the primary winch, up to the cabin house secondary winch and back around to a cam cleat mounted on the side of the cabin house. The check stay tails could be undone and removed while cruising to eliminate the tripping hazard. The vectran checks had the eye loops big enough that the reef line which we didn't use anymore could fit through it a tie it off. I had a shock chord with two Harken bullet blocks on it that formed a bridle and went under the boom and the vectran tails fed through the Harken bullet blocks and became a lazy jack system when cruising. It worked ok, nothing great.
We found that the one to one purchase on the check stays was to course so I added an air block at each eye loop and a pad eye on the deck. The shackle then attached to the pad eye, went up to the air block and back down to the original Schaefer stand up blocks. Although this gave finer adjustment it got in the way when sailing down wind and gibing. Mark Dixon can chime in on this.
The other problem that I found out about the hard way is that the secondary winches have a one direction load pattern. The check stay caused to secondary winch to blow up because of the eccentric loading. I had to buy new secondary winches a couple of years ago.
You need to check with your local PHRF committee, but adding check stays here to a boat that doesn't have them involves a penalty to your rating.
Rich Canning Received on Tue Jul 13 13:58:09 2004