The forestay that was on my boat when I got her was, like yours, just about long enough to shackle to the bow.
However this left the rig very slack. Yet somehow it took all of my strength to pull the forestay down to the bow when raising the mast, which made it a real pain to set up.
The answer to both problems was to get a new, shorter, forestay (£10) and a couple of feet of 2.5mm dyneema to rig as a lanyard.
Of course you could always check the shroud adjusters too.