How does the Streaker rig work

Slack Blaze rigging ?

No great secret ... the M7 is/was a great mast .... and particularly for the 470 and Fireball.  For the Blaze and I suspect a number of other single-handers it is/was way too stiff.  Slacker rigging can help as does slacker lowers and later on we also adopted articulated (swiveling) spreaders.  It is an advantage in terms of sailing by the lee ... the Blaze main is a high aspect design with 3 adjustable full width battens up the top.  So you do want to sail by the lee ?  Just ease the kicker offwind a tad and the top of the sail goes a long way forward - articulating the spreaders in addition means the leeward one can also 'go forward' and this helps further still.  The M7 is usefully light for an alloy mast btw.  All this has been known since Noah was a  spotty squaddie ...

The real advantage of a stayed mast is you can set it up very easily for a very wide range of helm weight.... using just the one standard suplied mast - and they can be both light and low drag as support triangulation is naturally so much better than for an unstayed rig.   The diameter can be less, the wall thickness less and so on.   In unstayed classes that allow it it really really helps to have the mast stiffness and therefore construction 'matched' to the helms weight and height - ie tailor made for 'you'.  This really is one instance where one size does and cannot really be made to fit all optimally ! Stayed masts can also very easily be adjusted to suit - unstayed have the stiffness characteristics built into the mast walls - so are bloody difficult to then change if made  of alloy/carbon.   Though there are some devious methods if you have the right 'facilities' if not strictly legal in 'off-the-shelf' classes. (As teenagers we used to plane and sand wooden OK masts down to 'suit' - and even sometimes too far- even if it was allowed !)  Modifying one-design unstayed carbon masts once made is much more difficult of course  ;-)


Edited by Cirrus - 15 Nov 16 at 2:24pm