Standing Rigging - Time to Replace?


A lot of us sail boats that are in the 10-20 year old range, so it begs a question... How old is your standing rigging?

Your standing rigging is easily the most important system on your boat. Under huge loads, it is the only thing that keeps your mast up. And it's failure mode is sudden and absolute. One minute all is fine, and the next second the mast is laying in the water, hopefully hurting no one on the way down. Because of this, and because that you cannot positively detect imminent failure by inspection, the standard time-frame to swap out standing rigging is 7 years. Indeed, most insurance companies will NOT honor a rig failure claim if your standing rigging is over 10 years old.

So what to do?

Well, if your rig is over 10 years old, think about replacing it this season, or at very least, in this off season..

In any case, this might be a good time for a full inspection. You might not be able to see micro-cranks in the swages, but you can see corrosion and broken strands of SS wire, which would mean replacement right now.

If you DO need new rigging, you have several options. Any of the local shops can custom make it for you, but you should also check with SecoSouth. They are the OEM rigging makers for a lot of boatyards, including Beneteau, Hunter, Compac, and Precision. If they have the dimensions of you rig on file, they will make it for you without you needing to measure your old rig. Learn more HERE


One other thing: I have seen several boats on the lakes that have non-marine/non-rigging fittings in the shrouds. Team, this is dangerous beyond words. Standing rigging is NO place to be cheap, the failure of these 'hardware store' fittings can kill somebody. Done correctly, your rigging should consist of a marine turnbuckle, with a toggle on the lower side, and a swaged fitting to the shroud, looking like this. Also, the turnbuckles should then be wired or ring-pinned to prevent them from turning.









 If you boat looks like the forestay attachment on this Mcgregor 26, I'd fix that right away.. Someone is going to get hurt. We sail on small lakes, but we can have big winds.

Comments

  1. JimJuly 13, 2010 at 12:01 PM

    Thanks for the reminder. And that shot of the McGregor is nasty.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 18, 2010 at 5:20 PM

    hey Clay what up with the web-cam?
    cheers

    ReplyDelete

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