Forestay Snapped

[Darren]

So as the title suggest this weekend my forestay snapped on me. Fortunately only my forestay was damaged. Mast is still standing tall and my brand new 2nd time out Jib is rip free. Hopefully she's also not stretched to hell. So now for some back story. I redid my standing rigging on my Islander 30-2 a few years ago and was told to go with 1/4" instead of what was on there (one size smaller than 1/4" don't remember). So I bought a bunch of 316L 1/4" cable, Turn buckles, and Hi-Mods fittings. I replaced everything without issue and did the forestay last. The furler intimated me and I wanted to watch at least 40 hrs of how to change the cable with different accents, and terminology. So after all that I decided to have one side I think the drum side pressed on because the Hi-Mod wouldn't fit in the drum or the extra long tread extender wasn't available don't remember it was a few year before covid now that I think about it. I was able to slide my new thicker 1/4" cable up the foil by removing a strands to make fishing the cable easier. I've been sailing on and off for about 3 years without issue until I finally decided to properly tension my rig this weekend.

So after watching a marathon of youtube and googling I found a method of tensioning I liked. Saturday I went up to the boat and backed off the shrouds the upper shrouds to very loose and the lowers to limp. Then I tentioned my back stay to 1210 according to my Loos Model B gauge. I had to cut my back stay shorter twice (a total of 3.5" removed) to get my back stay tension to what loos suggested for 1/4" stay tension (1,250). Then I did a lengthy back and forth of tensioning and measuring stay length to get the shrouds good. I unfurled the jib in the slip to stretch everything out for about an hour as I cleaned up and then went home. The next day I took out Dory for a sail. While I was bobbing around oyster point cooking to death and waiting for the wind I noticed my back stay was super slack so I tightened up the turnbuckle and it needed a lot more than the turn buckle could give. So I took down the sails and setup my temp backstay and cut another 2.5" off my back stay, put everything back together and retensioned my back stay to 1,210 pounds. The wind never really came up so I went back to the marina. SFO had some wind about 10 knots or so and Coyote Point had a touch more.During my limited sail down wind I didn't notice anything off, but when I was pointing down the channel of Coyote Point I noticed all kinds of craziness my drum was going up and down left and right, my foil was behind my ledging edge. Once I got behind the jetty and going down the fairway I rolled up the jib dropped the main and got into my slip. That's when I saw my forestay had snapped. I took my sail off without getting it wet, and tossed it down below and called it a day.

So my question to the community is how do I replace my forestay?
Do I go with an undersized forestay that will go threw my foil really easily, and keep my back stay at 1/4"
Do I get a new furlier (which I really don't want to do) so I can run a 1/4 forestay
If I do get a new furlier any options on Alado Furlers? I've read some good things about them

Thanks for the read and reply

[sleddog]

So as the title suggest this weekend my forestay snapped on me.
So my question to the community is how do I replace my forestay?
Do I go with an undersized forestay that will go threw my foil really easily, and keep my back stay at 1/4"
Do I get a new furlier (which I really don't want to do) so I can run a 1/4 forestay
If I do get a new furlier any options on Alado Furlers? I've read some good things about them

There are so many things wrong and unknown with this post, including removing a strand of wire rope rigging as well asking the public what to do, I am appalled. But happy for you the wind was light and the mast is still standing. Would suggest bringing a professional into play before you spend many more hours and $ trying to make the whole thing work safely. ~sleddog

[Darren]

Only the first few inches maybe foot had the missing strand to install the cable. The tapered part was cut off so all the strands were present for the full length of the forestay. To be more clear I'm really asking is has this happened to anyone else, or is anyone running a thicker backstay than forestay, and if anyone has heard of that brand of furler. It's got good reviews on cruising forums and one the reviews was from the gay area.

[sleddog]

Help us understand. You were tensioning and ultimately shortening the backstay twice with the shrouds "very loose to limp?" Yikes. Then you cut the backstay off again because it was super slack, likely because the headstay had failed at the upper end and the tension was on the jib luff and failed dinghy shackle on the jib halyard. Double yikes. The headstay failed not because the wire size was too small, though 7/32 or 1/4 would have been better. Tell me I'm wrong. But it looks like the headstay failed because of oblique stressing due to lack of a toggle system that provides play both side to side and fore and aft. Without this toggling at both the top and bottom, the headstay will ultimately fail no matter what diameter wire rope you select. A roller furler recommendation from a gay forum? What pray tell does that mean? As far as I know, sexual preference has nothing to do with roller furling.

[Darren]

Bay not gay, my bad. I can see how bad that looks. Trust me I don't care who your going to bed with unless it's my wife or daughter. As for a toggle up top I'd think so everything else was toggles upper and lowers. I'll have to check my phone when it comes back from being repaired. I don't have install pictures on my laptop. The lower definitely has a toggle, and the original rigging had an eye up top.

Thanks for the reply

[Wylieguy]

This is a TEST. Earlier today I wrote a long repsonse, but it hasn't made an appearance here. Pat Broderick