More problems with renewal of standing rigging

The rigger is hard at work replacing the standing rigging on Goshawk of Møn, my Westerly Centaur. As ever, this things are never as straightforward as they seem! I’ve already mentioned the problem he encountered with the wiring. Now he’s hit upon an issue with the furling gear for the genoa. This was no longer fit for purpose and so is being replaced. Yesterday I got an email from the rigger stating, “the new spar has a bolt rope size of 6.5mm yours is 7.5 and spars of that size are no longer available.”

Now when I received this I had no idea what a bolt rope is. A quick Google helped me establish that this is the bit of the sail that holds it into the furling gear, as below:

I’m not quite sure what the solution is here! The rigger is working with a sailmaker so hopefully he can resolve this for me. The sailmaker did phone me yesterday and left a voicemail, but apparently he is out of contact until Monday. I’ll guess we’ll have to wait until this to find out how to resolve this, and, perhaps more importantly, how much it’s going to cost me!