Wally,
I don't care what Roger P posted. Those specs seem outrageous for the  
Rhodes. Roger may have been a wiz at a lot of things, but people in the know say  he 
can't sail the boat worth a damn. I've known a lot of people like that and  
the majority of engineers I know can't sail worth a crap. I always took his  
"technical posts" with a grain of salt. 
Having enough tension on the stays that creates a crack in the headliner of  
the cabin tells me that something is definitely wrong, loos device or not.
 
Rummy