Alternate consideration to replacing standing rigging

LAYLA II is heading into I believe her 25 th year. I've expended quiite a bit of effort in progressively doing her, we'll call it her Mid-Life Refit" To my knowledge her standing rigging has never been replaced. I guess my aim in this discussion to to consider cable condition as a factor of time, or use and/ or service.
I never had the opportunity or pleasure to meet the former owner of "Dina G" a Mr. Gattuzo (in truth I think she's on her third name) From what the Widow shared with me, their "Dina G" spent her summers in downtown Philladelphia, never out to open Atlantic waters but perhaps a week or ten days on mainly a motoring excursion over the the Chesepeake most summers. Otherwise life as a cottage, dockside, Philly.
I would gather his ownership was from 1990 thru 2005, when then I bought the boat and relocated her to The Maritime Provinces. My use since buying her, at least up to this date has been relatively similar, day sails and at best two weeks a summer out cruising.
That standing rigging has obviously seen far more fresh water rain then salt spray. No broken strands, no discoloration of the fittings or cable and all the swedges look perfect every year.
Longer range I want to take this boat cruising, replacement of the standing rigging is something that should be done and the intent is to do so while I can afford it, but I've had a side bar thought. I come from an industry where, for safety and reliability lifting gear, slings, shackles, etc are subjected to periodic load testing and re-certification. I know where there's a test bed that could handle the lengths of the stays, even possibly linking them a number of them end to end to reduce the number of pull tests needed. I don't yet have a cost quote for having this performed but am inclined to think the relative cost vs expense for replacement of the entire rig would be relatively nominal. We're a "throwaway Society" does the rig really deserve the same fate?
Next related concern is the embedded chain plates, a drastic challenge to remove them for inspection/ replacement. Pehaps an apparatus can be designed to load test them as well.
Any thoughts?

Have you given any thought to a good rigging surveyor? It would seem that having someone come out and do an examination of your rigging would be less trouble than a removal, test, and then re install and re tune. I been thru a rigging failure that resulted in the mast coming down. With rigging of that vintage I would at the least have a professional have a look.

Best always,
Frank

"you should always go to other peoples funerals, if you don't, when you die they may not come to yours" -Yogi Berra

It's Overdue, IMO

There are prior threads on standing rigging and replacement time and $$.
With a quick search here is just one:
http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...Replacement-of-Standing-Rigging&referrerid=28

I would replace the rig when it reached 20 years or so. I note that most of the riggers that I have consulted with or read up on would say to do this at 15 years. As few as ten if boating in warm salty waters (which you are not).

Many owners will say to wait longer, and only a few do this preventative maintenance any sooner.
Very few of them have actually been on a sailboat that was dismasted at sea, from invisible stress corrosion inside one of the lower swages.
I have been there / done that / and got no T shirt.

So I'm voting for replacement.
If you are skint, you can do one shroud at a time using Sta-Lok fittings (or those from one of their well-regarded competitors). A friend of mine did this on his CT-38, with total success.

Have fun but be safe.

Loren

I understand the "throwaway society" mentality and the desire to oppose it..... However, the standing rigging is absolutely critical. Keeping that stick in the air is what makes a sailboat, a sailboat after all, isn't it? IIRC, to replace all the standing rigging on my E381 cost @ $1800. I removed it, labeled it, and dropped it off at the rigger. If the mast goes over the side, you can add another zero to that figure and it may kill you or someone else in the process. Chainplates are a different issue, especially if they are imbedded in the deck. I recently read a story about a couple sailing a Valiant in the South Pacific that had a chainplate fail. Lost the entire rig. They ended up replacing the chainplates with custom titanium pieces. A bare minimum would be removing the entire rig and having it checked very carefully by a professional rigger. RT

Simple, the rig is down and disassembled now

Bayhoss/ Loren,
The Mast is off the Boat and stripped down to the bare pole, and it's hung up for the Winter under the eave of the barn. The stays are coiled, hanging in the Barn waiting on a disposition.
A new bow sprit is going on this winter so the bob stay and whisker stays are getting replaced anyway. The bobstay was broken and the Sprit beaten up in Hurricane/ TS Irene when it went thru in late August
The Forestay(can be new - overlength semi-finished) and be finished to final length with a mechanical end when installing the new Harken Furler next Spring. The rest of the bits can just be rebuilt at the Binnacle in Halifax. No Riggers in our part of the World that I'm aware of.
I'll just get on with it!

Greg,

In the absence of a rigger or other pros that might help, you may want to consider a dye test on the rigging. I haven't done it (my rigging was replaced by a previous owner and is still fairly new), but I understand that one can get dye, like food colouring, that one applies to the swages, which makes it easier to see any small cracks that wouldn't otherwise be visible. As well, any rust where the shroud enters the swage is suspect and should be cause for closer examination or replacement of the shroud. Any bend in the turnbuckle would make me look twice at that shroud and for sure replace the turnbuckle. As well, if the threading on the turnbuckle has been damaged I would replace it. If you run a cloth or tissue up over each shroud, it may get hung up on any "meathooks", which is a wire breaking and sticking out a bit from the others--even one broken wire would indicate need for replacement of the entire shroud (and maybe all of them if they are the same age).

It would be a good idea to check the chain plates, even if they look fine, as the corrosion usually occurs in the section embedded in the deck where you can't normally see it. They corrode there because oxygen can't get at them as well. So the only way to check is to actually pull them--not such a big job if the rigging is already down. That would be a good opportunity to re-bed them anyway.

Others may have better ideas, but at least that may be a start for what to look for.

Frank

Invisible Wire Breaks

Perhaps it's worth noting that when the boat I was on lost the rig over the side. The wire break was not where a visual check or any other test might have found it. An X-ray, OTOH, might have done so.
However, I imagine that the cost for some testing, like X-ray or other technology-rich techniques might run to a good portion of the cost of a new rig.

Boat was a well equipped Ranger 29, and the wire break was from corrosion, about a quarter inch down inside one of the lowers, on a single spreader rig. We were sailing in about 12 kts on a sunny afternoon, about 15 miles off the southern Washington coast, tacking our way north with the main and lapper.
As fate would have it I was driving. Nothing led up to the moment, nothing. Sailing along over long swells one moment, and then with a loud bang, I no longer had to try and see around the sails while looking forward.
In a heart beat the whole rig was over the lee side with the mast hair-pinned at the spreaders. The boat halted and rolled gently in the swell.

The other guy on deck was just as surprised. Rest of the crew was napping and came up on deck. We pulled all the pins on the rig, cut away the halyards at the exits on the mast base, and hauled in the wet jib from the ocean. The main of course would not budge. Boom was removed & lashed on deck.
The rest of the rigging and spar and main were allowed to go to the bottom. We motored back to Astoria.

What with VHF radio being like a party line, our call to the USCG to let them know our situation made us the talk of the dock long before we got back to West Basin!

Upon inspection, we found the one lower swage with the rest of the wire still down inside. The other lower had it's toggle ripped in two when it suddenly took 100% of the force. All of this SS destruction happened in a fraction of a second.
There was no in-between time for subplots like they often show in movies! (Sound of creaking and groaning, and then some snapping sound... and the lead character yells out that "the mast is gonna Go!".... and then more sub plots and a flashback or two...)
Ha! Only in the theater!
:rolleyes_d:

So, while I value most of my life experiences, and try to learn something from each.... this is one that could have easily gone dangerously side ways -- resulting in death or injury rather than just an inconvenience during a summer vacation trip.

So, like I said before, be safe....

Loren

If there are no riggers locally, ship it! In this world of anything you need, whenever you need it, box the stays up and send them out. If you need a decent shop try www.riggingonly.com in Fairhaven, MA. They have a good rep and reasonable prices. Have them inspect it all and then if you need it they can make up the new for you. RT

Frank Langer said:

Greg,

In the absence of a rigger or other pros that might help, you may want to consider a dye test on the rigging. [snip]

Frank

Click to expand...

You can buy for not too much the individual refills from McMaster Carr's kit (what I did):

http://www.mcmaster.com/#dye-penetrant-flaw-detection-kits/=f0lhp3

I replaced all my standing rigging outright, but Greg and I and other Independence 31 owners have a fair amount of bronze hardware that is mission critical e.g. the kranze iron (bronze thing on the end of the bowsprit that all the rigging attaches to), so my interest is in making sure these other pieces don't have stress cracks occurring.

Regarding the chain plates, I'm afraid it's probably a crap shoot. I have heard of them being x-rayed before, but I have no idea as to the cost. If memory serves, one of our 31's lost a chain plate, but didn't loose the rig, which is just amazing. They replaced the glassed in plates with external plates/straps bolted down the outside of the hull.

Chain Plates

The chain plates on the E31 are the one item that i hope to never have to replace. Does anyone know how far into the hull they extend? I suspect if failure occured it would be from the chain plate breaking rather than comming loose.

And, if failure occured I suspect our only option would be to install strap chain plates on the exterior of the hull (somewhat of a problem if you have rubbing strakes as I do) similar to how they are installed on the Westsail 32.

Chain plate locations

I've considered that as well Keiffer, and know how to locate and size them quite easily. Relatively simple actually using gamma-ray as performed by industrial radiographers who do pipeline or refinery work on Pipe welds and pressure vessels. Strap film cassettes to the exterior of the hull and then splash them from a Gamma source from inside the hull. Normal large size cassettes are 18" long. The film could be reasonably accuratey placed relative to where the above deck tang is.
The developed film would reveal the precise length and precise location. A radiographer would likely enjoy a little challenge and change of scenery like this. They might even have stale dated film that could be less expensive.
My thought would be to, once located, the new chain plates would be sized and positioned so the existing embedded chain plate acted as the backing by drilling thru it.

Cycles and work hardening

The issue with the rigging is a complex one, but the simple answer is that it is well past its "Safety Factor Life".

Ever break into your own car? You start with a coat hanger borrowed from someones closet. At the time you borrow it, like all coat hangers it is soft, and easily bent. Since you don't have a pair of wire cutters with you to break into your own car, you flex the wire coat hanger back and forth in one spot repeatedly until it breaks. Then we bend it into a hook and try and open the door with it. (We are not going to go through the rest of that experience but stop here and use the first part to look at rigging failures).

Why did the coat hanger break, and why is 25 year old wire more likely to break. Simple work hardening. Every time the wire is flexed the molecular structure in the wire changes. With the coat hanger the wire breaks about 10 times into the bending process, as it is soft steel. With a rig it takes about a million very small cycles, (less large ones, which is why a loose rig has a shorter life than a correctly tuned one), to work harden the rig to the point that it no longer has the same safety factor that we designed into the rig when it was designed. It becomes work hardened and prone to breaking when flexed. It looses it ability to flex without breaking. Those cycles are taking place every day, day in and out, sailing or sitting at the dock, or even worse the mast up while the boat is on the hard. Most rigs have over 1 million cycles on the rig at about 10 years after the rig has been installed.

Make no mistake the wire is actually stronger and harder than it was 25 years ago, a pull test might not even tell you that anything has changed, after all you would not pull it to failure? Only to the original working load right. Straight pull test, to load rating, the wire is not likely to break. Eventually the rig will break just like the coat hanger did, maybe a strong puff in a gale, or the moment that gale eases and the rig flexes back. If you are lucky only one strand breaks, and it is in a low place on the rig, where it catches your eye, most times however it is higher up, breaks but stays in its lay. The wire now 1/19th less strong that before goes on being sailed. Generally it doesn't take too many strands a couple maybe up to 4 before the wire breaks or the unbalanced load on the wire cause it to fail dramatically ending with the mast in the cockpit.

Even more interesting is that the safety factor built into the rig, in most cases a factor of generally about 5:1 has steadily decreased over those years as well. The wire itself may be stronger, but harder and more apt to break by flexing, but what about the wire buried in the terminals? Or the metal in those terminals themselves. They are subject to a lot of chemical reactions, and corrosion. SS corrosion starts as small pits in the surface, and then corrodes inwards. Eventually cracking or completely failing under load. The terminals are significantly less strong than they were 25 years ago, in most cases when we cut the apart and look at them, or a customer brings in some rigging with a split swage, it is easy to see that the safety factor was reduces to less than 2:1 a long long time before. A 25 year old rig generally has a safety factor just above the working load applied to it.

Take a microscope and look at those little pits in the wire, with a handheld microscope you can see them opening up away from you, the corrosion getting worse the farther that it goes into the wire.

Chain plates, the failure of which is the #1 cause of insurance pay outs for rigging failure. 25 year old glassed in through the deck chain plates. Salt water has been held against them for 25 years inside the deck, they have a lot of potential for poultice corrosion. It would be a very rare boat of this age, used only in fresh water, and stowed with the rig down every winter that would not have significant corrosion damage to the chain plates. Have I seen them, yes, but they are as rare as hens teeth. Most of the boats we inspect, and convince the owners to pull one chain plate after telling them horror story after horror story about the failure of chain plates on an exact same model the same age...... Finally they reluctantly agree to pull one or better two chain plates, all the time railing against us for being too cautious, and costing them too much money. Once the chain plate is out, every time, they look at where it went through the deck, and immediately ask when the rest of them can be removed.

Or even more fun and easier to do, drill a hole 1/8 of an inch in the bottom of the fiberglass pocket where the chain plate meets the hull on the interior, and watch the water come out, or the drill come out whit very rusty fiberglass bits all over the end. There generally isn't much holding the mast up.

The idea of dye testing the rig doesn't really work, it won't point out crevice corrosion, only cracks. You will see the little pits, but you could have seen those inspecting with a $5.00 hand held microscope without getting dye all over the place.

A 25 year old rig including it's chain plates has served it's time admirably, it has kept a sailing generation safe from harm, it needs to be retired, and a new one installed to take its place. The old one just isn't safe anymore.

Yes you can use the old chain plates to position the new ones, I would cut them off below the level of the deck, and leave them in the hull, but seal the deck up good. The new plates can have new backing plates if they old ones past the drill test. Using a pocket of rust encapsulated in the hull as a backing plate doesn't buy you anything.

You can look at the boat on the inside and know where they are glassed into the hull, no need for a radiologist, although that would be a lot of fun.

Be safe, in this disposable world, safety equipment isn't the thing to scrimp on. Reuse your Zip locks, and switch to dish cloths instead of paper towels, but lets keep the rigging safe and the mast up where it belongs.

Thanks,
Guy Stevens

Guy,

Thanks for taking the time to post this sobering reminder for all of us. Many of us are trying to maintain our older boats as well as we can on limited or fixed incomes, and try to keep the cost of boat ownership to a bit of a minimum. But as you so effectively point out, safety items are not the ones to scrimp on.

Thanks again!

Frank

How do aluminum chain plates fair?

Hi Guy,

can you shed any hands-on experience with aluminum chain plates? The earlier Independence 31s have aluminum chain plates glassed into the hull. My gut is that they have just as many problems as stainless. Input, anyone?

I rerigged after a surveyor told me the turnbuckles (Navtek?) on my original rigging were recalled about twelve years ago. My boat is 1977 vintage.

Paul
E29 "Bear"

Bryon Toss says that titanium is the best replacement and that the cost is sometimes less than stainless. Sounds amazing to me, But he is the rigging god!

And here you go: http://www.alliedtitanium.net/
RT

Rig Failure

In the fall of 2009, I had a Intermediate shroud fail on my 1980 E-38. Still had the Navtec Turnbuckles all around, some with heavy corrosion. Strange thing was failure was at the upper T-ball, with no signs of corrosion. By the way, we dropped all sails immediately and motored home. Crew had heard two "pings" prior to the big bang, so obviously individual wires were failing.

I took this picture yesterday at my desk. Still not much corrosion evident, 2 years later!

When I got the mast down for re-rigging I discovered the real culprit. My Upper T-Ball fitting on the starboard side had pulled away and slightly down from the mast. If all four rivets had been installed in this fitting, only the bottom two were remaining. Wish I had taken a photo, kind of scary. Guessing that mast was put together on a Friday afternoon! At any rate, I assume the 7/32 intermediate started to pick up loads desinged for the 9/32 upper.

Another lucky day for me, since I didn't lose the rig!

Seasonal Sailors

In our northern Climbs my access to the rig is a bit more frequent. I haul out annually and the Boat goes on a trailer and comes home to my Yard for the Winter (mast laid down on top) The Mast gets stripped completely, all the standing and running rigging comes off, gets rinsed and goes in the barn for the winter. The Radar comes off as well to make the mast safer and simpler to handle. My wife and I can get the lightened mast down off the boat relatively easily. Extra couple of bodies is needed to help us walk it over to the Barn where it get's hung up under the eave/ out of the weather.
I've even been known to decorate the mast with Christmas lights.
With my routine I'm seeing and handling all the components of the rig twice a year.

Ericsean said:

In the fall of 2009, I had a Intermediate shroud fail on my 1980 E-38.
View attachment 10004I took this picture yesterday at my desk. Still not much corrosion evident, 2 years later!

My Upper T-Ball fitting on the starboard side had pulled away and slightly down from the mast. If all four rivets had been installed in this fitting, only the bottom two were remaining.

Another lucky day for me, since I didn't lose the rig!

Click to expand...

This is a common failure point, the position on the rig of the highest work hardening is the portion just as the wire leaves the terminals on either end. Also the T ball fittings are most often installed so that they are not a fair lead from bottom of the terminal to the deck level chain plates. Leading to an uneven loading on the yarns of the wire, and resulting in premature, and often catastrophic failure. (Think about a race track, the competitor on the inside has less distance to go around the curve, the competitor on the outside has more. In the case of rigging, the yarns on the inside of an unfair lead take less of the load than the yarns on the outside of the curve..)

The upper fitting should not have been dependent on the rivets to hold the plate up in the mast, they should only have held the plate to the mast wall, and the lip on the plate should have been resting inside the mast wall and taken all the load. The T ball system while being the cheapest and easiest system for original construction is one of the least forgiving systems, and the most often installed incorrectly in my experience. WE routinely replace them with a real tang system on boats we replace the rigging on.

Guy