Stainless 316 1x19 wire corrosion?

[sailcrazy]

We replaced the old vinyl-coated Safety railing wire around our boat with new uncoated S/S wire back about 2003. Within about a year, we had a "rusty" barber pole around 2/3s of our boat. We've polished it, used stainless cleaners, etc...but with no real change. The wire remains strong and in tact, with no noticeable degradation anywhere....except every time we hang a wet suit or towel, or wet clothes on those sections the garment gets a rust line on it! So far we've not found anything that really takes the rust marks off the wire.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by sailcrazy

We replaced the old vinyl-coated Safety railing wire around our boat with new uncoated S/S wire back about 2003. Within about a year, we had a "rusty" barber pole around 2/3s of our boat. We've polished it, used stainless cleaners, etc...but with no real change. The wire remains strong and in tact, with no noticeable degradation anywhere....except every time we hang a wet suit or towel, or wet clothes on those sections the garment gets a rust line on it! So far we've not found anything that really takes the rust marks off the wire.

Clean it well with barkeepers friend, and then apply a strong concentration of citric acid, that will passivate it, not to lab standards I'm sure, but better than it now is.

Here is I believe a good article on it, I have not read much of it I admit
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...0110001362.pdf

[Ambler]

If you have a doubt, then swap it out.
The stainless staining around a fitting could indicate electrolysis or crevis corrosion.
I change my forestay more often than any other wire because it moves constantly while there is any waves at my mooring and on anchor. The furler creates the momentum and I always keep the furled headsail sheeted tight, or a line to the foil 1/3 the way up if a sail isn't on it, to minimise the movement. The top swage is usually the weakest link. Wire will begin to corode when excluded from oxygen (crevis corrosion). A broken outer strand will appear to be loose when you pick at the wires where they enter the swage.
Personally I prefer Sta-lok terminals and I dip the wire in Lanolin grease before doing up the terminal for the last time. This helps to exclude salt water and possible electrolysis.
Taiwanese 316 wire is best.
Wayne

[Ambler]

So if it isn't Taiwanese 316 and already staining, I would keep a very close eye on your forestay at the swages.

[td0tz]

All this sounds like more reason to go Dyneema.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by Ambler

If you have a doubt, then swap it out.
The stainless staining around a fitting could indicate electrolysis or crevis corrosion.
I change my forestay more often than any other wire because it moves constantly while there is any waves at my mooring and on anchor. The furler creates the momentum and I always keep the furled headsail sheeted tight, or a line to the foil 1/3 the way up if a sail isn't on it, to minimise the movement. The top swage is usually the weakest link. Wire will begin to corode when excluded from oxygen (crevis corrosion). A broken outer strand will appear to be loose when you pick at the wires where they enter the swage.
Personally I prefer Sta-lok terminals and I dip the wire in Lanolin grease before doing up the terminal for the last time. This helps to exclude salt water and possible electrolysis.
Taiwanese 316 wire is best.
Wayne

It's not the swage at the top which is necessarily the weakest link, but more often, the wire just below it. As the section of wire in between where it exits the furler's foil, & the upper wire terminal, is the least stiff part on the entire headstay assembly. So it absorbs the bulk of the flexing motion imparted to the stay/furler/furled sail. Thus causing it to fail much sooner than most any bit of wire on the rig.
Which, if you think about it, the furler plus the sail add a huge amount of weight to a headstay. At times enough to knock 5 degrees off of a boat's angle of vanishing stability.

Ann & Jim Cate have said that the riggers they've worked with suggest changing out headstay wire at 4 year intervals, vs. 10yrs for the other standing rigging, due to this area getting heavily flex cycled. And this location is one of the more common points of failure on ocean racers that have standard type headstay furling. At times, even when the headstay is massively oversized.


Back to the original topic, it sounds as if once corrosion sets in on rigging wire, it's awfully tough to make it stay gone for good. And that ruling out it's going on inside of the wire is next to impossible, short of things like Xrays.

That, & the message in between the lines in this thread, is to go with mechanical end terminals, almost without question. That way there's much less chance of non-stainless steel being imparted onto/into the rigging wire via a swaging machine.

[Ambler]

Dynex backstay braces, top down torque rope furler and dyneema runners - tick. Not convinced on dynex forestay working sail furlers - yet!

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by Ambler

Dynex backstay braces, top down torque rope furler and dyneema runners - tick. Not convinced on dynex forestay working sail furlers - yet!

I'm curious to hear user feedback on Colligo Marine's Dux based furler Extra Light Headsail Furling Sytem — Colligo Marine® As unlike most Dyneema based structural furlers, it lets you change sails without taking the whole stay assembly apart.

[Ambler]

Me too. But as a cruising sailor I am particularly interested in longevity and chafe as well as performance reports. Perhaps a new topic?

[qwert]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Clean it well with barkeepers friend, and then apply a strong concentration of citric acid, that will passivate it, not to lab standards I'm sure, but better than it now is.

Here is I believe a good article on it, I have not read much of it I admit
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/c...0110001362.pdf

I've just had a quick squizz at the first third of that article.I'd be reading it carefully before using citric.A few things that stood out were that the citric has to be used hot while nitric is ok at room temp. Citric is best at low (4%) conc. Citric wrongly used can be worse than doing nothing.........

Its a great article but its full of very specific information and you'd need to spend quite some time reading it to find a treatment that suits your particular circumstance.............a great find, thanks

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Most likely the above was/is Compacted Strand, the "new" version of Dyform.

My question on wire like this is that if there's that much rust on the surface, how much is there internally, where we can't see it? Especially as it's quite common to have corrosion on the inside of stainless wire when the outside looks pristine. And plenty of stays have failed because of such.

Good point, this has also crossed my mind. It does rub off easily.
I don't trust stainless. After rerigging I ran into a rigger that pretty well only does dyneema these days, if I met him first I may have gone that way, least I can see problems.
I have a number if cruising friends that have 15+ old rigging, I don't know how they relax. One recently on a 63ft fast mono ( rod rigging ) said to me that they get the rig inspected regularly, I don't get the rig inspection thing, do riggers have xray vision?

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

As said: SS is not corrosion or rust free. In fact much of the makeup is Iron. 316 is just slightly better than 304.
Daletournier: Fittings that come in contact with hard steel tools do rust some. There is micro transfer of steel onto the SS that encourages the rust. It appears your fittings are swaged, so that could be part of it.

From what I've read this seems true, hope so.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

It's not the swage at the top which is necessarily the weakest link, but more often, the wire just below it. As the section of wire in between where it exits the furler's foil, & the upper wire terminal, is the least stiff part on the entire headstay assembly. So it absorbs the bulk of the flexing motion imparted to the stay/furler/furled sail. Thus causing it to fail much sooner than most any bit of wire on the rig.
Which, if you think about it, the furler plus the sail add a huge amount of weight to a headstay. At times enough to knock 5 degrees off of a boat's angle of vanishing stability.

Ann & Jim Cate have said that the riggers they've worked with suggest changing out headstay wire at 4 year intervals, vs. 10yrs for the other standing rigging, due to this area getting heavily flex cycled. And this location is one of the more common points of failure on ocean racers that have standard type headstay furling. At times, even when the headstay is massively oversized.


Back to the original topic, it sounds as if once corrosion sets in on rigging wire, it's awfully tough to make it stay gone for good. And that ruling out it's going on inside of the wire is next to impossible, short of things like Xrays.

That, & the message in between the lines in this thread, is to go with mechanical end terminals, almost without question. That way there's much less chance of non-stainless steel being imparted onto/into the rigging wire via a swaging machine.

I'd already decided to change the forestay every 3-4 years. During this trip , I constantly thought about how much snatch type load was put on the forstay.
Also next time I won't be swaging the foestay making it easier to replace, drilling out all those pot rivets was a right pain in the butt.

[maxingout]

I will be rerigging Exit Only during our refit. Our insurance company will not insure the mast/rigging unless it is under ten years old.

Our boat is 24 years old, and we have replaced rigging whenever there was a broken strand of wire.

We found that the 8mm and 10 mm wire that maintain the mast in column on our Privilege 39 catamaran require frequent replacement. When the boat was a year old, we had to replace a wire in Bora Bora because of a broken strand. So far I have replaced 8mm and 10 mm wire in Bora Bora, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. The 12 mm headstay was 12 years old when replaced in Gibraltar because of a broken strand.

The 12 mm Cap shrouds/backstays are 24 years old and have never broken a strand of wire or required replacement. The cap shrouds were backed up by running backstays which may have protected the cap shrouds to some degree.

We never had a problem with corrosion in our rigging or swages. It was always a failed strand of wire that forced replacement of a piece of rigging. I think it was vibration that caused the 8mm and 10 mm wires to break strands.

My standard operating procedure now is that when I arrive in a new port, I climb the mast and inspect the wire for any broken strands. That way I have plenty of time to deal with the issue before heading for the next destination.

Corrosion has never been a problem. Broken strands are my nemesis for the past 24 years.

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by maxingout

Our boat is 24 years old, and we have replaced rigging whenever there was a broken strand of wire.

We found that the 8mm and 10 mm wire that maintain the mast in column on our Privilege 39 catamaran require frequent replacement. When the boat was a year old, we had to replace a wire in Bora Bora because of a broken strand. So far I have replaced 8mm and 10 mm wire in Bora Bora, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. The 12 mm headstay was 12 years old when replaced in Gibraltar because of a broken strand.

The 12 mm Cap shrouds/backstays are 24 years old and have never broken a strand of wire or required replacement. The cap shrouds were backed up by running backstays which may have protected the cap shrouds to some degree.

We never had a problem with corrosion in our rigging or swages. It was always a failed strand of wire that forced replacement of a piece of rigging. I think it was vibration that caused the 8mm and 10 mm wires to break strands.

My standard operating procedure now is that when I arrive in a new port, I climb the mast and inspect the wire for any broken strands. That way I have plenty of time to deal with the issue before heading for the next destination.

Corrosion has never been a problem. Broken strands are my nemesis for the past 24 years.

Thanks maxingout, interesting report.
What sort of fittings do you use and are the failures all up top?