Finally got the loos gauge on the rig to check things out....in my case I was having vortex shedding that causes a slight vibration at anchor in light winds (shakes the boat at a very low frequency for a second or two at specific angles to the wind). Tried loose rig tension and then tuned for the best sailing I could get (tight tension in my case - buzzards bay winds).
The uppers are at 15% (I may increase this a bit)
Lower forward are at 15%
Lower aft are at 13%
Rear stay is 17-19%
In 20 knots, beam reach, full sail (135 genoa) std. rig, exceeding hull speed (steady 104% polar performance based on chart-plotter data) - the lower aft was still going too slack so I may increase them a bit (the gauge is supposed to be within 5% accuracy, and I think in my case it was reading low).
I read that you could not over tighten the rear stay with wrenches on the small turnbuckles - and I can confirm this - the wrenches were making a good 'signature' on the turnbuckle. I may loosen these a bit once I get some more time to tune under sail. When I first tuned it without any gauge I thought I was way overdoing it (not so). I didn't want to get out the meter stick and measure stretch as the selden tuning guide shows (the loos gauge stays on while you adjust).
Anyway, food for thought...
Can you share some more details which measurement tool you used to measure the tension?
I have some thoughts to modify the rear-stays in such a way that I can easy adjust during sailing to improve the trim of the sails at different wind conditions.
Does anybody made already an adjustable rear-stay?
Durk Nijdam
S/V "SILER"
Catalina 36MKII - 2001 / hullnr. 2013
Stavoren - Holland