Protection of gal rigging

[boden36]

Our gal rigging is 25 yrs old and will need replacement in the next few years. We coat it every few years with a mixture 50% silver paint with fishoil. I paint it in situ which is an unpleasant job.

Regards,
Richard.

[bobconnie]

The rigging on our Colvin, was galvie, and was wormed, parceled, and served, as per Colvins equipment list. We replaced it at 25 years, on inspection after replacement found no real damage, other some small rust where the coatings were worn a bunch ! We replaced with the same stuff and it's still on the boat and looks good !! I know its a bunch of trouble to do this old style hand work, and it's some nasty to do but Galvie will last darn near forever if done right !!( and really looks ship shape when done! We got a lot of thumbs up by old timers who liked the old style looks of our rigging !) just sayin, galvie is cheaper and by using the old style coating ya never need to oil or treat the wire again !!

[MichaelC]

Stretch your rigging wire between two strong [STRONG] attachments. Wrap the wire with CLOTH electrician tape [not plastic]. Consult Brian Toss' book Rigger's Apprentice. Make the flying mallet and use tarred nylon net twine in a coil on the flying mallet. Once you start it, you stand there jerking the wire up and down and the flying mallet will serve the entire length in very short order. The flying mallet will serve the system so tightly it will squeeze the tarring out of the cloth electrician tape and add to the tarring on the nylon serving twine. It is easy to do, and nearly permanent. AND it is traditional as hell. No gaff rigger should be without it. On my Colvin boat it was still pristine when I sold her.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by MichaelC

Stretch your rigging wire between two strong [STRONG] attachments. Wrap the wire with CLOTH electrician tape [not plastic]. Consult Brian Toss' book Rigger's Apprentice. Make the flying mallet and use tarred nylon net twine in a coil on the flying mallet. Once you start it, you stand there jerking the wire up and down and the flying mallet will serve the entire length in very short order. The flying mallet will serve the system so tightly it will squeeze the tarring out of the cloth electrician tape and add to the tarring on the nylon serving twine. It is easy to do, and nearly permanent. AND it is traditional as hell. No gaff rigger should be without it. On my Colvin boat it was still pristine when I sold her.

I can vouch for the flying mallet. We did all the serving on the foremast of a 100 foot brigantine (soren larsen) by hand the old way. Then while rigging james craig I got the chance to try the flying mallet. It took a few tries to get the wire tension and slackness just right, but when I did I got it done in a quarter of the time.

Still on a simple non traditional yacht I would just use aluminium talurit swages and replace the wire every 10 years or so.

[Wotname]

An old time rigger I knew used to take each length of rigging and attach to two strong points pulled reasonably tight. Then he would untwist it a little (using a lever through an eye splice or whatever) until the fibre core was clearly visible and the individual strands where opened a little. He would then saturate the entire length and especially the core with linseed oil (don't recall if it was boiled or raw).

I suspect fish oil could work just as well - fish don't rust do they

[charliehows]

nothing. It's gal., it's cheap, strong even when its rusty, which is when you start thinking about replacing it. Met a guy in Auckland a couple of years ago told me he slops lanoline on a rag and hauls it up the wires with a halyard once a year - cant be bothered meself, i've had boats with rusty gal rigging all my life, never broke a single wire yet.

[kefroeschner]

GREAT THREAD. I was about to ask if anyone out there thought I'd be crazy to replace the stainless on Orion, a Morgan 45, with galvanized wire, flemish eye splices, no swages, etc. I am now firmly convinced. Thanks.

[lonesoldier0408]

Thanks to all who made this information possible. Need to re-rig a Luger Southwind 21 as some of the rigging has rust to seperation.

[gjordan]

Just be careful of using galvy for head stays or inner forestays. If you use 7 by 7 or 7 by 19 galvy, you will wear out your bronze hanks much faster than if you have 1 by 19 SS. The hanks will also remove the galvanizing so that you will have weeping rust on your head sails. It probably works fine for the rest of the rig. _____Grant.

[charliehows]

Originally Posted by gjordan

Just be careful of using galvy for head stays or inner forestays. If you use 7 by 7 or 7 by 19 galvy, you will wear out your bronze hanks much faster than if you have 1 by 19 SS. The hanks will also remove the galvanizing so that you will have weeping rust on your head sails. It probably works fine for the rest of the rig. _____Grant.

+1 - i did use s/s for both my forestays because of the hanks.