Use old standing rigging? Ever had a failure?

[Polux]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I just replaced my 30 yr old rigging, it looked fine. I have been an aircraft inspector for years, usually level 2 NDT. Crack propagation growth in high strength steels is extremely rapid, meaning it may test fine today and break next month.
The only other thing I can think of that has not been said is that apparently some boats rigging is oversized, or said another way is less stressed than others in identical sailing conditions, it’s plausible that oversized rigging should last longer as its subjected to much less fatigue and corrosion becomes the issue then.

Actually rod is more prone to failures than cable. Insurance companies demand rod rigging to be substituted after 8 years and the mast taken down and a full inspection with changes on the terminals each 4 years.

I also thought that rod lasted longer till I changed my rod rigging and had comparative information from the manufacturer.

Yes I believe that if it is oversized it will last longer but would not do any good to the boat stability raising the boat CG and increasing weight.

[1Sunseeker]

This is interesting. My boat, a 1977 32' Kettenburg, bears deck scars from a rigging failure. This apparently happened in racing conditions by the first owners. A sailing school out of Marina Del Ray, California. The boat was known as "Movin" in those days. This was told to me by the second owner who said he heard the mast/rigging failed. I bought the boat (the third owner) in 1987 while working in Long Beach and then later moved it to the San Francisco Bay, then on up to the Salish Sea. I am not bragging in the least but I have not done anything except have the rigging inspected by three different riggers over the 30+ years. They have all said the rigging, standing/running looks fine but should be replaced? Why? Granted while I have seen some 30+ knot winds my sailing is mostly in the Summer and we have light conditions.


That said, if I were to venture out where the water is deep, I would probably replace what needed to be replaced. Since that is not too likely at this time, I will save the money and invest it in other things. Like girl friends and race horses. That being said, IMHO it would seem it depends on where and how the boat is used. Race conditions be very careful, gentle cruising take a chance. Of course we get brisk winds here and if we do I drop the main and sail to shelter under head sail alone. The wind normally lets up after a bit. So then I anchor have a cool or hot drink and think/talk about it.

Merry Christmas to all, wishing you fair winds. La Traviata aka Sid

[Tessellate]

Originally Posted by billknny

So why did you replace it when it was 33 years old? That after all is "just a number."

Right. My decision wasn't based on the exact number. I only provided the number because it was asked for by the OP. The decision was based on other factors: rig survey, some recent findings of very small cracks in D2 rods, and the type of rig use I expect to do (at least 5 more years of use, in more remote areas, and more upwind sailing).

Also a small part of that decision was resale value - if we sell the boat at its 40 year mark, a 40-year-old rig would significantly reduce the price + # of buyers even willing to look at it. I don't expect to recover the full cost of the rerig, but perhaps some of it. That reduced the cost of the "insurance" (peace-of-mind) a bit.

[Tessellate]

Originally Posted by crankysailor

...

The difference between a rig and say, an engine as you say, is that when the engine dies, you usually don't risk your boat and life. So you can wait until it does. If losing your engine meant your life could be on the line, you bet at least some people would be switching engines at 2000 hours or whatever number as a rule

The good thing about this topic is that everyone is free to believe what they want.. and you don't need to convince anyone. People bet their boat and lives on what they believe. So it is a fairly fair system I think. If you are a cautious skipper and turn out to be overzealous, you waste $$$ .. if you think it is all boloney and you turn to be wrong.. it is your life. Your call

I don't even understand the big deal to be honest.. a 1 or 2% of the value of the boat as an investment on safety once every 15 years doesn't seem to me like a big deal. Perspective folks. But like I said, to each his/her own

That depends a lot on the age + value of the boat. My rerig was 15-20% of the value of the boat. And that's without hired labor. If we had wire instead of rod it'd be less (still 10-15%). For many people it'd be more because many people do it paying yard labor. It's our largest boat expense in 3 years even though we've done hundreds of projects, some of them fairly major. So I wouldn't say it's a small cost, and that's why it's a hard decision for most.

I agree with you that people make their own safety decisions based on the type of sailing they do. That's why the rule of thumb is not very useful, because there's far too much variance in type/location of sailing that people do.

You say engine dying doesn't risk boat/life - well, I think some people would disagree, for certain boat usages / locations. If my engine dies near an 8 kt tidal pass with no wind, I feel there's about as much risk there as a mast coming down. And for motorboaters, they don't have sails, so if they have only one engine it's a pretty important safety component. Another example is engine failure while crossing shipping lanes that have high-speed container ships.

[Tia Bu]

Eight or nine years ago I had an old Dufour Arpege. I didn't know how old the rigging was, but it was not inconceivable that it was 40 years old. One winter I pulled the mast, took all the rigging off, and drove the rigging myself to West Marine's rigging shop in South Carolina.

Funds were short. The riggers there inspected all my wire, said it looked fine, and then showed me what bad wire and swages look like. It was easy to see. The bad stuff is corroded INSIDE the twisted wire, deep between the strands- not just surface, cosmetic corrosion. The bad swages are obviously cracked and corroded inside.

I had one turnbuckle fork on an upper stroud that was bent at deck level, probably from a collision with a dock. The West Marine guys spent a couple of hours on the Internet trying to find a replacement, but they couldn't. In the end, after a visual inspection, they recommended I just use the old fork. Bottom line, we replaced nothing, and I sailed another four or five thousand miles with no problems.

This past summer, we were sailing from the Carolinas to the Virgin Islands on a newer, old boat. Way offshore, we fell off a wave in our 40' Jeanneau. With a crack like a rifle shot, the backstay parted. In a very interesting few minutes, we got the engine cranked, turned into the wind, jury rigged a backstay, and got things under control. We limped a few days through very rough weather to the Abacos to repair.

I'm not sure how old the wire on the Jeanneau is. Visually, it is fine. What failed on the backstay was actually the Italian-made backstay adjustor. After much inspection and a complete repair, it became obvious the previous owner installed the adjustor upside down. This allowed rainwater to pool inside the mechanism, completely out of sight, and eventually the stainless rod inside corroded through. There was no way to find this error by inspection. Even if we had disassembled the adjustor, we wouldn't have seen that spot.

We repaired and sailed the rest of the way to the Virgin Islands. There the rig survived hurricanes Irma and Maria this fall. Miraculously, the boat survived, too.

Draw whatever lessons and conclusions you like. As for me, I'm thinking I'll try to replace all the standing rigging before my next long offshore passage, if I can afford it. I hate it when the backstay breaks.

[double u]

cut a perfectly looking backstay eye-swage off on a feeling 446 because the owner wanted an insulator fitted & discovered that 3 of the interior wires had broken inside the terminal. the little pieces fell out when I turned the terminal upside down to throw it in the trash- now I don't know how anybody would be able to discover these 3 broken strand during an inspection, never mind how experienced a rigger he is...
that people have their standing rigging for I-don't-know-how-many-years without replacing proofes exactly nothing! anectotal evidence in the extreme!

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Dulcesuenos

I was looking at my rig this morning since this thread sparked my interest. Guess what I found on our lower diamond stay....we just spend 6 months sailing all over the Bahamas followed with dry tortugas, keys to ft pierce trips. So lucky we didn't lose our mast.
Attachment 160267

Yes, those are EXACTLY the toggles I have seen crack on my boat and on others.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Polux

Actually rod is more prone to failures than cable. Insurance companies demand rod rigging to be substituted after 8 years and the mast taken down and a full inspection with changes on the terminals each 4 years.

I also thought that rod lasted longer till I changed my rod rigging and had comparative information from the manufacturer.

Yes I believe that if it is oversized it will last longer but would not do any good to the boat stability raising the boat CG and increasing weight.

Rod rigging. I was hoping someone would catch that.

Weight. I was also hoping someone would catch that. I did not suggest blanket over rigging, I suggested looking at the design after each failure. Forestay under the furler? Hard to inspect, so up-sizing is smart. Toggles? Redesign is usually the solution. Perhaps up size some parts and go to fiber rigging somewhere else to offset the weight gain. You need to look that the whole picture. But always take a failure ans an opportunity to do it better.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I just replaced my 30 yr old rigging, it looked fine. I have been an aircraft inspector for years, usually level 2 NDT. Crack propagation growth in high strength steels is extremely rapid, meaning it may test fine today and break next month.
The only other thing I can think of that has not been said is that apparently some boats rigging is oversized, or said another way is less stressed than others in identical sailing conditions, it’s plausible that oversized rigging should last longer as its subjected to much less fatigue and corrosion becomes the issue then.

There are lots of variables that people ignore when posting their comments. Primary among them are salinity and temperature.

Stainless steel does not like chloride. The effect of chloride stress cracking is faster at higher temperature.

A boat sailing in the fresh water of the Great Lakes might rot away before its rigging fails. Exactly the same boat in the Gulf of Mexico (hot and salty) might need a new rig every ten years.

People just refuse to believe that stainless steel can fail without warning. You can throw out every comment about it "looked good after xxx years" because HOW IT LOOKS DOES NOT MATTER. You can not see work hardening in any practical way, and stress cracking is hard to find no matter what you look with.

Then you have the people who replaced the rig after 30 years while it still "looked good." Then why replace it? Because they know in their heart that it is past age. They know they don't sleep well when the wind picks up. They made an arbitrary decision that 31 years was "too old."

I plan on keeping my rig forever. So far--so good! (That's a joke, btw...)

[double u]

"HOW IT LOOKS DOES NOT MATTER"!!!

but people will always find arguments in favour of inaction or moneysaving (or any plain damn-silly thing, for that matter...), no matter how expensive the consequences might be

[zstine]

Originally Posted by mowerandy

I'll air this one again at risk of being called stupid since it might help someone somewhere.
. . . .the forestay snapped under the furler drum where it is quite difficult to inspect and hence neglected. My rediculous good luck saw this failure happen while berthed at the marina (in 80 knots plus) else we would have lost the rig at least.
This failure was the likely result of my own ignorance in thinking it was better to detension the rig by loosening the backstay when not using the boat. OK I AM stupid, but now I know better. Someone else may not.
Keep your rigging under tension - fatigue is very hard to pick and may strike in places you cannot easily inspect, like under the furler drum

I always release hydraulic pressure in my backstay adjuster when I put the boat away for the week. I fail to see how releasing tension increases fatigue. Can others confirm this claim that it is bad to release the tension in my backstay/forestay? Note, I'm keel stepped, blocked at partners and the tension is a few hundred pounds when hydraulic tensioner is depressurized.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by zstine

I always release hydraulic pressure in my backstay adjuster when I put the boat away for the week. I fail to see how releasing tension increases fatigue. Can others confirm this claim that it is bad to release the tension in my backstay/forestay? Note, I'm keel stepped, blocked at partners and the tension is a few hundred pounds when hydraulic tensioner is depressurized.

My take is releasing the tension will lessen the fatigue.
In order to have fatigue you have to have cycles, and just as importantly they have to occur in what is sometimes called the fatigue cycle, a loosened wire may likely be out of the fatigue cycle.
By fatigue cycle I mean it has to be a severe enough force to cause fatigue, for instance if I gave you a railroad spike and told You by hand to bend it back and forth, how many cycles would it take to failure? Answer is of course it would never fail, you can’t apply enough force by hand to a railroad spike to fatigue it.
However wind alone on even a bare pole mast might could apply enough force on a tensioned wire to count as a fatigue cycle.

[a64pilot]

Oh and just for the record, I never said anything about rod rigging, in truth it’s way outside of my experience, I don’t know enough about it to comment.
My statement about oversized rigging was not meant to be taken to oversized your rigging, but that some manufacturers it’s my understanding do so in the initial design, so the weight aloft is taken into account on the design board so to speak. Some manufacturers are more conservative than others possibly.

Another assumption of mine is that maybe rigging inspections and regular replacement on a Cat is of even more importance than on a mono? Or is their rigging so over spec to begin with that they are less susceptible to rigging failure?

[Boatguy30]

Navtec is now out of business and used to rate their rod for 10 years or one circumnavigation.

So pretty much the same and I have never personally seen any failed rod that would have passed a full inspection. (Usually breaks at a kink from original misalignment)

And had passed a thorough inspection regularly done on larger boats. Smaller boats rarely do a full disassembly as it's costly.

With most large 80'+ yachts using composite you can see why there's a downturn in rod market

[cyan]

Originally Posted by billknny

There are lots of variables that people ignore when posting their comments. Primary among them are salinity and temperature.

Stainless steel does not like chloride. The effect of chloride stress cracking is faster at higher temperature.

One variable that sometimes gets ignored is the TYPE of "stainless steel". T316 will offer much better corrosion resistance than the more common T304, however it's a bit weaker (by 15% or so). I'll take the corrosion protection, maybe a larger size for similar load rating. There are other alloys that are even better, but the price starts to spike up.

Browsing through the wire rope selection at places like West Marine, you will be hard-pressed to find a Mill Test Report that actually certifies the composition of the stainless steel. eBay? good luck.

How do you know your rigger used the good stuff? How many of you riggers can produce an MTR? (the guy we used didn't know what that was) "European stuff was good in the 1990's". "Avoid the junk from China". These old sailor's tales might be helpful, but since your life may depend on it... a little proper engineering would be nice, no?