Spectra rigging? What do you think

[double u]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

So on your RTWs on the Wharram, how often were your rudder lashings, or hull to beam lashings cut by vandals?

no lashings..."legacy" designs of '77

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by double u

no lashings..."legacy" designs of '77

Well, did you hear of any other Wharrams having their lashings cut by vandals? I haven't.

I admit, initially I thought about some idiot in a marina cutting a shroud. But looking into it a bit more, the stuff doesn't cut easily, and if you have the anti chafe plastic covering, most idiots wouldn't even know it was synthetic rigging.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by fxykty

We’re due to re-rig our forestay and the two main shrouds sometime in the next two years, currently all 14mm SS.

Can a forestay, basically encapsulated by a furling system, be changed to synthetic? As for the shrouds, we often have one or more of the mainsail battens and the sail of course laying against them, particularly during reefing. So do we need to worry about chafe with synthetic shrouds or can that be managed with a decent cover?

The only other stays on the mast to the deck are the running back stays - I imagine no issues changing to synthetic for them?

What about for the diamonds that keep the mast in column - can those be synthetic? We have two sets of spreaders, each with three arms (forward and to each side), so 6 stays, three of which terminate at the lower spreaders.

I came across a guy using all dynemma, including forestay. Im not knowledgeable enough to have an educated opinion but i wouldn't be comfortable for the same reason cc44 states. Yet the owner of this particular boat was a fan and had no issue with his forestay being dynemma.

[406Columbia]

When I re-rig the old girl I am thinking I will have Pacific Riggers do it in synthetic.

[out42]

Re-rigged my 42 foot cat with dyneema two seasons ago. After the initial settling down it has been perfect. Wt saving of ~20kg aloft.

[Oceanride007]

My eperience with Dyneema, I started a similar thread a while ago.


http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ma-181062.html


Couple of observations,


my lower bronze hanks didn't fit my inner forestay anymore due to the splicing. Changed these to Soft shackles, have the chafe cover to protect dyneema, but this sail hasn't been required for a while, hence no experience.


All my dyneema needs tensioning still, thats after a year.



My backstay is almost out of adjustment, have twin turnbuckles, have been advised I can re splice the backstay.


My forestay is still Stainless.


The other day was wing and wing with another similar vessel, SS rigging.(38' his, mine 41'), his roll period seemed more quicker and more extreme.

[Benz]

Jumping in late (I was out sailing...)
I'm about six years into the current gang of synthetic rigging on my boat (Vectran, not Dyneema), and it's still going beautifully. In spots of potential chafe, you can put leather or some heavy-duty, soft PVC chafe sleeves from Spiroll. If concerned about jib hanks chafing, you can slide brass or aluminum rings onto the forestay before splicing it up, and rig soft hanks on those. I can't speak to furler chafe, since I abhor furlers, but I believe Code 0s have solved that problem.
No one has yet, in a dozen-odd third world countries, bothered to slice up my rigging, any more than they've tried to cut my sails or running rigging--honestly, why would anyone think that would be a thing? Of all the damage vandals might do, it's no more likely than rude things spray painted on the side or petty theft off the decks.
In short, I'll bet that SS wire goes the way of the dinosaur in a couple decades or less, and rightfully so. It was good while it was the best thing, but we've got better stuff now.

[TJ D]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

IIRC, Evans Starzinger reported using a hanked on sail on a Dux stay with no chafe or melting issues.

Jim

Rocket Science has a jacketed kevlar inner forestay, with soft hanks on the sail (webbing or spectra, depending on the sail), and it's perfectly fine.

[CRANBERRY]

I cannot believe what I am reading
I am a marine rope maker and using Spectra has some problems. First it creeps that means when there is a continual load applied to it it gets longer.
Vectran almost as strong however does not and this is often used for standing rigging particularly on cats etc. However Vectran is not so stable to sun light/
Yes Dyneema and spectra(both trade names) are excellent for a spare stay when or if you loose a stay, but NOT a permanent one.
Dux is stretched Dyneema and is stronger but will deteriorate faster.
Thats my take for what its worth.
Both Dyneema and Spectra are examples of ultra High molecular weight Polyethylene fibre. There are also other manufacturers.

[mikedefieslife]

I was under the impression that dyneema itself isn't UV stable so needs to be coated, though perhaps all dyneema sold is already pre-coated? That could have been a myth spread by a UK magazine once though.

What are the thoughts on mixing dyneema and and stainless steel i.e having dyneema back stays but keeping ss forestays?

Is chafe through the shrouds an issue. Some boats have plastic capped shrouds other aluminium.

I presume due to the need to re-tension frequently that most aren't terminating it with lashings, but instead splice it to an eye which in turn is attached to a regular turnbuckle.

[goat]

Originally Posted by CRANBERRY

I cannot believe what I am reading
I am a marine rope maker and using Spectra has some problems. First it creeps that means when there is a continual load applied to it it gets longer.
Vectran almost as strong however does not and this is often used for standing rigging particularly on cats etc. However Vectran is not so stable to sun light/
Yes Dyneema and spectra(both trade names) are excellent for a spare stay when or if you loose a stay, but NOT a permanent one.
Dux is stretched Dyneema and is stronger but will deteriorate faster.
Thats my take for what its worth.
Both Dyneema and Spectra are examples of ultra High molecular weight Polyethylene fibre. There are also other manufacturers.

That's a scary assessment! How fast do you believe a dynice dux or sts heat stretched rig would last in the tropics? Assuming ss gets 10 years, would you be replacing synthetics more often?

I'm a believer in synthetics but like to hear both sides.

goat

[double u]

"...believe ..." - thats the core of the problem...

[Pauls]

For galvanized wire rope, Performance Wire Rope 713-466-6500 has galvanized 1x19 in all sizes up to 1" dia. They are a manufacturer and all their products are made in the USA.

[Dave_S]

My understanding was they over spec'd the dux so that it ran at a maximum of 10% of its breaking strain. This was so the creep stopped after an initial bedding in period.

The speel given on the internet goes..... That the early set ups were based on breaking strain like for like (synthetic to 19x1SS) and that this was the wrong approach, that now days the synthetic is specified on its creep characteristics and after 5 or 6 retentions it settled. They offer pre-stretched synthetic to reduce or stop? the need to retention the stays.

I too would welcome any comments with different experiences.



From here- http://www.colligomarine.com/fundamentals/l

Sizing your rigging.

Please contact us for any questions as we want to insure you have a great performing rig.

Size for stretch equivalent to what you have now. Click here for a printable PDF of the stretch chart. Do not put a line with more stretch in place of what you have now, regardless of how strong it is. Many people have mistakenly sized Dyneema for break strength and ended up with a very stretchy rig. This is why you hear some say it is too stretchy for standing rigging, when in fact they did not size it for equivalent stretch. Stretch is a function of cross sectional area, so all you need to do is pick the right diameter of dux for your application. Really, what you care about for your standing rigging is stretch, as long as it does not break.

Creep sizing.

Our creep target is less than 0.1” per year of creep. We use the static load or pre-tension that a rig sees as the load number to use for creep. Most sailboats sit upwards of 95% of their time so Dynamic loads are ignored, most of the time. This has proved successful as we have rigged more than 750 boats around the world at this time. If you have a boat that you feel will have more use and dynamic loads will be more significant, simply oversize the line to accommodate that usage. Use the printable creep table here for determining your creep loads and thus the line size you need based on creep. Contact us here for help in sizing for creep.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

IIRC, Evans Starzinger reported using a hanked on sail on a Dux stay with no chafe or melting issues.

Jim

hmmm . . . . not exactly . . . .

Using bronze hanks which have previously been run on wire WILL chafe a bare dyneema stay (as will running dyneema lifelines tru stanchions which have previously been used with wire). Hanks with casting 'flashing ridge' (a small ridge where the two parts of a mold are separated) will also chafe a dyneema stay.

New bronze hanks with no flashing ridge will run smoothly, as will the wichard stainless hank clips (my personal favorite of the three good options), as will soft hanks.

After some use and experimentation, our personal choice was (a) to use the dyneema innerstay when we were coastal sailing and often had it not set (which made tacking the jib thru much much better) and strapped down at the mast front (where the dyneema was soft on the mast when stainless was sometimes not); and (b) to put the stainless innerstay in place when we went off on passage, when we usually just left the innerstay in-place/setup and did not bring it back to the mast (much).

Other than for the inner stay (where textile is softer on the mast) and for the back stay (where it is softer on an overlapping mainsail, and offers somee interesting options for SSB anteena) . . . . I personally dont see much benefit to textile stays on most of our cruising boats (and I say that with us being on the 'performance end of cruising - ofc not like rocket science but rather more performance oriented than the vast majority of cruisers).

Wire can be DIY'ed just as easily using the several good compression fitting options. The cost is roughly the same. The weight benefit (of dyneema) will not be noticable on most of our boats (do a VPP or incline test or test rating certificate if you want to see how small the effect actually is), and the oversized dyneema typically has greater diameter and thus wind resistance offsetting the (usually un- noticeable) weight gain. And stainless is very very resilient to the knocks and accidents which can happen in the cruising life, dyneema is decent in this regards but just nowhere near what stainless is (which is why after giving it a trial the racing community banned dyneema lifelines - agree or disagree with that decision, the fact was pretty clear dyneema WAS more vulnerable than SS).

And if you still want to go composite or textile . . . . dyneema is really not the best choice of material in that world. (to be clear, it is not awful, will probably work just fine for 95% of the cases, but clearly not the best technical choice).