Hi everyone, I’d like to thank you guys for all the high level technical discussions on this forum as it is my first post, particularly MN3, Wolfman, EdChris and many others long standing member. Short intro, I’ve been sailing my 1998 Mystere 5.5 (born sail 302) for 4 years now in beautiful fresh water lake St-Joseph near Quebec and it is in an outstanding shape, features a lot of upgrade and mods curing all Mystere ailments. (catsailor/beachcat courtesy) Last year I recuperated a 4 years old espadon series squaretop main ( sail 926 ) and mylar short JIB from another 5.5 that RIP’ed on lake Champlain on a downwind leg 4 man onboard mast breaking event. That substantially increased the power and responsiveness of the boat.




I’m in racing mode most of the time and solo it 50/50. I’m now demanding much more from the boat than the previous owner as I also reinstated spi sailing. On this season's rigging, one of my to do list was realign the spreaders as they were offset from the 90 degrees position by a half inch, that was curving the mast a tiny bit, but upon inspection I discovered some corrosion in the diamond wires at the spreader contact point. (i learn't lately that it was sailed a couple time in salt water... good thing i checked...)

After reviewing most of saltwater guys posts on corrosion and standing rigging on this forum, I decided on a full rigging change including diamond wires plus a trampoline (tired of sagging). It was way overdue anyway. I run the rig on the tight side.




If you look at the pictures you can see a little pitting and gouging at spreader extremity. So my question is, would smoothing out and/or file a little bit the cable run on the spreader end be ok so the new cable vinyl doesn’t get squashed right away? I don’t want to create microscopic undue residue but i feel the new wire could suffer from the contact point. And, for durability would you line some heatshrink tubing over the cable (1 or 2 layer) close to contact point to further isolate the 2 metals and the ragged surface?

In the process, I devised a diy (free in my toolbox) relative tension meter which is basically a harnessed digital torque meter adapter in a box featuring a rotating plate. It is very precise and sensitive, that was done to eliminate the guesswork reassembling everything. (I’m working on a formula to convert torque to tension with the apparatus) All pictures in my techphoto album.




Lastly, for the benefit of all remaining Mystere owners, Voile Sansoucy, the maker is still in business and well in these tough times (search voile sansoucy on the net), and although not fabricating the late Espadon series at the moment, still carries a lot of spare parts from the past. Spoke to Yannick last week as he is gonna provide the rigging and tramp for my vintage.

So refresh of not the contact point...

--
Norm F.
1998 Mystere 5.5 Spi "Berkana"
Quebec, Canada
--

This post or thread can be deleted as it was accidentally double posted, go to the most recent one above for answer.

Thanks

--
Norm F.
1998 Mystere 5.5 Spi "Berkana"
Quebec, Canada
--