yes we left the center bar out when putting the boat together as the tramp stitching for that has almost come completely off, plus i won't be trying to get it up on 1 hull this season as i'm still learning how to sail a cat

once i find a local commercial sew shop i'll take the tramp off and get it resewn. then i'll have to work out if i want to the use the center bar or not

thanks for the advice on riveting the strap. i did noticed that the 1991 nacra manual mentioned bolting the main beam to the hull there was no such system on my 1982 boat. plus the spreaders are quite different

will be taking out my torque wrench tomorrow to make sure i have those bolts up to spec and will also mark some sort of alignment lines from beam to strap so i can keep an eye on it until i work out what i'm going to do

eric e