No two suits of sails, hulls, masts, crew weights, etc., are exactly the same, of course, so you should regard all the measurements that follow as starting points, only. If your boat doesn't look like the top boats even after you think you've tuned it perfectly, you've still got work to do.

There are three main factors to consider when setting up the mast:

Foot position — Insert the mast step bolts so that the forward side of the mast foot will be 11–12cm aft of the forward cockpit bulkhead. Then step the mast (see page 7) and secure it at the partners, but don't attach the shrouds yet.

Centering — Start with basic shroud length Appendix E. Ensure that the shrouds are both the same length with the mast in place.

Begin by pulling both of them down hard but equally (on the centerline, of course, or one will seem longer) and make a rough adjustment. When they seem equal, attach them to the chainplates with the clevis pins running outside-to-inside so their "ring dings" or cotter pins won't snag the spinnaker sheet.

Attach the forestay and tension it slightly. Then, attach a long tape measure to the main halyard, and hoist the halyard to its normal position (such that the head of the mainsail would be at the black band). Finally, stretch the tape measure down to both chainplates. If the measurements aren't equal, adjust one or both turnbuckles. Don't be fooled by off-center partners!

Rake — Now you're ready to tension the forestay against the shrouds until you induce compression bend in the mast, and then establish proper mast rake.

Remove all blocks and disconnect any other bending devices so that the mast "floats" freely in the partner.

Tighten the forestay until you reach 350 lbs. as measured on a Loos Tension Gage. Otherwise, you can approximate proper tension by sighting up the aft side of the mast as compression begins to bend it; stop when the middle of the mast deflects about one mast-width forward of a sight line from the gooseneck to the masthead.

Be sure the halyard is hoisted to the black band on the mast. Then stretch the tape measure (still attached from the centering step above) aft to the center of the deck at the transom. 29' 8½" is the target; 29' 8" to 29' 10" will be okay. If your measurement doesn’t fall within these tolerances, slacken the forestay, change shroud length, and repeat this procedure. Note: One turn on both turnbuckles will change this distance about 1cm.

Good boatspeed requires preventing the mast from bending too far forward in the middle, while safety requires that it be prevented from bending aft—commonly called "inverting": it will fail if it bends too much in this manner and the mainsail groove opens up.

If you have a mast lever or other means of controlling mast bend at the partners, secure it so that the mast can’t bend in either direction.

If you have only mast blocks, you’ll want enough of them to wedge the mast in place from both directions. If you don’t have enough blocks for this purpose, wedge blocks forward of the mast, and be very careful to tension the backstay when the wind gets up to 20 knots.

The mainsail is easiest to rig with two people. One threads the foot boltrope into the forward slot opening on the boom while the other pulls the clew aft. If the main was rolled up, leave it that way while you do this.

Next, insert the battens. The three short ones (one meter) go in the bottom three slots. If these battens are not equally stiff, insert the most flexible one at the top and the stiffest one at the bottom. Any tapered battens should be inserted flexible end first.

The longer top batten may or may not be tapered. If it is, the flexible end also goes in first. Depending on how the sail is cut, however, you may be fine if it isn’t because you don’t want to drive the maximum chord depth forward in light air, and in heavy air (e.g., 20 knots or more) you can tape a spare short batten to the aft end of the long one for greater stiffness near the leech of the sail.

You don’t use the full-length top batten to adjust chord depth, so you don’t need one that ties in place. If yours does, you may have to tape the knot to prevent it from shaking loose. If poor batten pocket design could cause the backstay to hang up (see page 18, you can "shingle" layers of duct tape over the pocket so the backstay will slide off, but the sail must be dry for the tape to stick.

Finally, attach the clew, tack, and cunningham, insert the head in the mast groove, and hoist away.

The jib requires only one person. Most jibs come bagged in a roll, so secure the tack and tie the sheets into the clew (to keep the sail from rolling overboard), and then hank the jib onto the forestay as you unroll it. Attach the halyard to the pennant or head cringle and hoist away.

The spinnaker is a bit tricky to insert into the spinnaker launcher on a boat so equipped.

The halyard’s loose end serves as the downhaul for the sail, so thread it through your cleats and blocks and insert it into the launcher tube from aft to forward. Tie it to the cringle in the center of the spinnaker with a figure-eight knot or bowline so it will be on the forward side of the sail when hoisted.

Tie the sheets in place with a stuns’l tack bend (two half hitches tied in reverse direction).

Tie on the halyard with a bowline. Allowing perhaps six inches between the knot and the sail will accomplish two things: (1) the line will be free to rotate, allowing the sail to untwist during hoisting, and (2) the top of the sail seems happier when it can float free of the mast a bit.

Lightly tension the halyard and sheets, retract the downhaul, and pull the sail into the tube.

It’s easier to rig on a boat without a spinnaker launcher. Tie on the halyard and sheets as described above. Then, just stuff the sail into the bag or bucket, "windward" clew first. Do not gather the two clews together before stuffing because the sail will be more likely to twist when you hoist it. Loop the halyard under the twing or appropriate cleat and tension it to remove any slack. Cleat the sheets to remove slack, too, but without pulling the sail out of the bucket.

On your first sail, verify that the spinnaker is fully hoisted and mark the halyard where it runs through the cleat.

Mainsail — Aside from the forestay, shrouds, and diamonds, there are seven adjustments that can affect mainsail shape. Two of these, of course, are the mainsheet and traveler, which are discussed beginning on page 12. The other five are discussed below.

The mast bender setting suggested above is, like all other adjustments described here, a point of departure. As different mainsails behave differently and mast bend is so sensitive, you’ll need to experiment to find optimal settings for each wind and wave condition. You need to be able to reproduce what you’ve done, of course, but you can’t be content even with this. Come back and play with mast bend after you think you have sail trim down pat: an iterative approach can really pay off.

A lever is perhaps the easiest type of bend controller to work with for this purpose because (1) you can feel the boat respond to even small adjustments and (2) its parallelism with respect to the mast is a good rough cut bend indicator. You can also use the fore-aft position of the jib leech to calibrate mast bend: from the helmsman’s position in hiking conditions, you’ll get used a normal alignment of the jib leech with the spreader tip. If this changes someday, something’s wrong. Is the forestay too loose? Is the backstay too tight? If not, the mast bender is the culprit.

The boom vang shouldn’t affect mainsail shape upwind at all. The risk is that it will come into play without your realizing it when the wind lightens. If the bottom of the vang is fixed aft of the mast heel, the vang will tend to tighten when you let the mainsheet out, and thus become an automatic adjustment. For starters, though, release it all the way when you’re sailing upwind.

The outhaul affects camber depth near the foot of the sail. Most people set it and forget it by pulling until wrinkles parallel to the boom appear, and then releasing it just a bit. You’ll need to adjust it later only if the windspeed changes significantly.

The cunningham controls cloth tension along the luff, and thus the location of maximum chord depth in the lower portion of the sail. You want to make the seams look like arcs of circles. While the right amount of cunningham tension will vary from sail to sail, you want to pull the wrinkles out of the luff but nothing more. If wrinkles run from the middle of the luff to the clew, straighten the mast with the bender—the cunningham isn’t the problem.

The backstay, like the vang, doesn’t come into use upwind, but it’s a valuable "guide in the sky" for mainsail trim, and it will tend to keep the mast from "bucking" as you drive into waves. Keep it just tight enough to take out any slack without affecting trim.

Forestay tension, which must remain tight enough even under the shock load produced by waves to keep the jib luff very near the centerline of the boat. The "point of departure" setting is described on page 18.

Halyard tension, like the main cunningham, controls cloth tension along the jib luff, and it should be applied in the same way. Avoid too much tension.

Lead position for the clew is critical to jib performance. While the track described on page 13 fixes the in-out position of the jib leads, the best fore-aft position may vary from sail to sail, depending on how the sailmaker has cut the clew.

The backstay should be released so that the mast can straighten: a raked mast is slow off the wind because it reduces the mainsail’s projected area. Then you should recleat it to take out any slack, especially in heavy air, so that the mast won’t even think of bending the wrong way.

The cunningham should be off, exerting little or no tension.

The vang should be "on"—how much is hard to describe, so you’ll have to experiment. Many people tension it too much on reaches and too little on runs. One way to check is to compare the shape of the shadow on your mainsail with those on other boats.

The topping lift should be set so that the spinnaker pole angles up until it is approximately perpendicular to the forestay, except in light air when the sail won’t fly unless you lower it. When it retracts, the hook should rest against the mast ring.