Synthetic rigging vs. Stainless steel

[Fore and Aft]

The thing I don't like about synthetic rigging is how messy it can look. I don't know why they didn't just stitch that tail on the rigging.
Maybe I am a magpie but I like the look of stainless rigging on a yacht.
The CQR anchor analogy made me laugh. Does anyone remember when the Bruce anchor was the flavour of the month. Now it seems you can't give them away.
Cheers

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

The thing I don't like about synthetic rigging is how messy it can look. I don't know why they didn't just stitch that tail on the rigging.

Maybe I am a magpie but I like the look of stainless rigging on a yacht.

The CQR anchor analogy made me laugh. Does anyone remember when the Bruce anchor was the flavour of the month. Now it seems you can't give them away.

Cheers

Simpel fix. Heat shrink tube.
What looks messy on my photo is the old tape over the splint, easy fix, put new tape over it [emoji6]

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[MicHughV]

I've been experimenting a bit with braided synthetic fishing line...the new rage in fishing line...

Compared to nylon...thinner...stronger, etc...that's the good part...

But get it in tangle or knotted up...fuggetabout it....nearly impossible if not totally impossible to untangle it..

Have reverted back to nylon.....

[dial_amonkey]

Did I presumed [wrongly?] that there is some elastic stretch in stainless cable BEFORE it hits the yield point/ plastic deformation - ?

I found the below online..might be misappropriation

"Once a cable has bedded down it will obey Hookes Law; elastic stretch will be proportional to the load applied. Resistance to this stretch is determined by the modulus of elasticity"

Originally Posted by markxengineerin

I always thought this was kind of a crazy argument. Has it ever happened? Any running rigging can be cut the same way, and yet, nobody does. Any axe or drill can put a hole in any boat, etc etc.


Unless your rig had to be re-snugged up after the incident, you did not get into plastic deformation of the wire, and chain plates would have felt essentially the same forces if you had dyneema, assuming you had sized the dyneema for stretch, which is the popular thinking.

How much dyneema elongates between yield and when it ultimately breaks, I'm not sure. Anyone have data? Stainless is nice because it's a huge amount, but I don't think it's a very critical property in a rig. If you've seen loads high enough to plastically deform the dyneema, something else is likely to be the weak link. Mast tangs come to mind in most cases, and poorly maintained chain plates.

[peb]

Originally Posted by Benz

First of all, you should'nt accept chafe as part and parcel of a gaff rig: a well-designed rig should only need chafe gear where the gaff jaws touch the aft lowers when sailing large, and where the jib sheets run across the forestay. Leather, or better yet, Spiroll PVC chafe protectors, will stand you in good stead in those places.
Dyneema's natural color is white--it needs no dye to make it so. I use Marlow's Armourcoat to paint it, just one coat, by dipping the line in a bucket full of paint and squeegeeing the excess out with my hand.
The jury is still out on UV. I have taken apart covered loops whose cover was trashed, and the core was in pretty good shape. Of all the plastics, Dyneema seems to be the most UV-resistant; covered with dyneema, well, win-win.
On my re-rig, having the same thought about not having to remove all the loops above to replace/service a shroud, I'm going to make covered loops with toggles, so they'll go around the mast and grab the upper thimble on the shroud. There will still be some lashings aloft on mine--what's to be afraid of? Lashings are fine if done well.
Good luck on the project--what's the design?

Thanks for the quick response, really appreciate it.

Don't know why I thought dyneema's natural color was grey, I suppose because that's what all of the line I have used is colored.


The only place where I am really worried about chafe is the gaff hitting the aft shrouds.
My boat is Iain Oughtred's Roan Mhor, basically a bigger version of his Grey Seal design. It is a gaff yawl as opposed to a gunter sloop and the mizzen is a bermuda, main is gaff. Main is keel stepped as opposed to deck step. Boat is basically complete except for rigging. I am installing the last of the deck hardware as we speak and still need to install batteries and do bottom paint. As for the rig, I have all of the spars made, but they are all bare sticks at this time, except for the bowsprit and the bumpkin.
What's to be afraid of lashings aloft? I suppose nothing, except one doesnt' see them everyday and I am getting old and trips up the mast are not something I get too excited about. But of course you are right.
Why toggles on the covered loop to upper shroud thimble as opposed to good shackles? I have seen a few DIY dyneema rigging videos with toggles used to connect the shrouds to chainplates (via a "dyneema deadeyes") and the toggle to thimble connection does not look quite right to me.
I am not using Colligo fittings on this boat as I did on my last boat, as they have gotten significantly more expensive than last time I purchased them and I have lots of expenses (eg sails) at the end of the project in order to get the boat in the water.

A couple of last AmourCoat questions if you don't mind: do you need to hang the shrouds without coiling while the paint dries, or does it soak in an dry relatively quick? How far does a litre of AmourCoat go? Seems like a relatively easy, if a little messy, project to save for the end and might be worth it.

[peb]

Originally Posted by Benz

Everyone acts as though there's steak-knife-wielding weirdos everywhere just hoping for a rig to cut down--I've sailed 12,000 miles to twelve countries with synthetic rigging, and even in the poorest country, though people tried to steal my outboard and my tools and my saucepans, NOBODY tried to cut my rigging. It just isn't interesting to them.

This is an idiotic thing one continues to hear. A guy at the marina told me that about my boat when he saw the dyneema rigging: "oh, someone can just come along and cut it with a knife". Well heat set dyneema is not easy to cut. I use cheap ceramic pairing knives when doing splicing, they work really well and after a dozen or so splices, just throw it away. But pull out a pocket knife and cut down someone's rig, oh sure you can do it, but I can cut down a stainless rig with a cable cutter faster than you can saw through a dyneema forestay with a regular knife. And does anyone go out of their way with cable cutters to destroy boat's rigging? no. Why would they with dyneema rigging? So stupid of an argument.

[markxengineerin]

Did I presumed [wrongly?] that there is some elastic stretch in stainless cable BEFORE it hits the yield point/ plastic deformation - ?

You've got it right. But the dyneema stretches ~ the same amount for a given load, that's how the dyneema size is usually chosen in the first place- to give equal stretch. The chain plates won't know the difference in stay/shroud material in a given "shock loading" scenario unless you exceed the yield point of something in the system. If you exceed a yield point, your rig will be loose at the end of the day, and this should be very unusual/ never happen to most boats.

[peb]

Originally Posted by markxengineerin

You've got it right. But the dyneema stretches ~ the same amount for a given load, that's how the dyneema size is usually chosen in the first place- to give equal stretch. The chain plates won't know the difference in stay/shroud material in a given "shock loading" scenario unless you exceed the yield point of something in the system. If you exceed a yield point, your rig will be loose at the end of the day, and this should be very unusual/ never happen to most boats.

Dyneema rigging is not supposed to be size to give equal stretch as much as it is supposed to be sized to minimize creep. That is according to John Franta at Colligo Marine. He claims the reason why people complain about why they are continually having to retention their rig is because they do not size for creep and while the rig is strong enough, it will always give problems.

[peb]

As for the subject matter of this thread, I will give my 2 cents for what it is worth. I like dyneema rigging, you can do it yourself with a little guidance, and it doesn't have the failure modes of stainless steel.

But there are 2 big drawbacks, one has been mentioned but not well described and one has not been mentioned, IMO.

1) Lightning. Now, I do not think relying on stainless stays as your lightning ground is good practice, so losing stays as your primary lightning path to ground is not the issue. But, and I admittedly am out of my area of expertise, it is my understanding that current thought on best practice to prevent injury and minimize damage from lightning in a boat is to be inside a Faraday Cage. Now, the stainless stays are what turns your sailboat into a limited Faraday Cage. Without them, the Faraday Cage effect is lost.
2) Temperature changes. This does not get discussed enough and I do not know why. Dyneema gets longer as the temperature decreases. It gets hotter as temperature increases. If you have an aluminum mast, this compounds the problem. I remember after my first summer with dyneema rigging (on a modern fractional rig). I thought by mid summer I had gotten all of the construction creep out and for the rest of the summer it was very stable. I was happy. Then in the fall, we were busy and just went sailing a couple of times and I noticed it was a little loose, but pretty much ignored it. On the one of the first sorta cold days of winter, I figured it was about time to go winterize my diesel, it was probably in the low 30s. I went out to the marina and was shocked at how loose the rigging was. I actually took the time in the cold to tighten it up a bit. And I was always paranoid about having it too tight for cold weather, even though winter sailing around here is not uncommon, because I thought if that stuff tightens up too much in the spring it might break something (I don't know that). At any rate, I was able to settle into a process of tightening the rig in late autumn, pick a day in the forties and get it tight. And then return the whole rig in the spring and then again in early summer. Since I used lashings, this was a bit of work. And even with this, I never liked how loose the rig was on cold windy days.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by peb

Thanks for the quick response, really appreciate it.

Don't know why I thought dyneema's natural color was grey, I suppose because that's what all of the line I have used is colored.


The only place where I am really worried about chafe is the gaff hitting the aft shrouds.
My boat is Iain Oughtred's Roan Mhor, basically a bigger version of his Grey Seal design. It is a gaff yawl as opposed to a gunter sloop and the mizzen is a bermuda, main is gaff. Main is keel stepped as opposed to deck step. Boat is basically complete except for rigging. I am installing the last of the deck hardware as we speak and still need to install batteries and do bottom paint. As for the rig, I have all of the spars made, but they are all bare sticks at this time, except for the bowsprit and the bumpkin.
What's to be afraid of lashings aloft? I suppose nothing, except one doesnt' see them everyday and I am getting old and trips up the mast are not something I get too excited about. But of course you are right.
Why toggles on the covered loop to upper shroud thimble as opposed to good shackles? I have seen a few DIY dyneema rigging videos with toggles used to connect the shrouds to chainplates (via a "dyneema deadeyes") and the toggle to thimble connection does not look quite right to me.
I am not using Colligo fittings on this boat as I did on my last boat, as they have gotten significantly more expensive than last time I purchased them and I have lots of expenses (eg sails) at the end of the project in order to get the boat in the water.

A couple of last AmourCoat questions if you don't mind: do you need to hang the shrouds without coiling while the paint dries, or does it soak in an dry relatively quick? How far does a litre of AmourCoat go? Seems like a relatively easy, if a little messy, project to save for the end and might be worth it.

Perhaps we're using the word "toggle" in different ways. I'm not speaking of an articulating metal fitting for wire shrouds; I'm talking about a short piece of rod spliced sideways into the one end of a strop, that engages a loop spliced at the other end. This "loop and toggle" closure method has existed time out of mind, and is useful as a strong, simple, elegant, and reliable way of having a loop that can open and close. I make them "Eye-to-eye, with the toggle spliced tightly into one end, and the loop at the other end barely big enough to accept the toggle.
As for Armourcoat, it goes a long way--I'd reckon a quart would make it. You need to festoon the shroud over a frame or rack or clothesline to let it dry, usually overnight. It's better if the bits aren't touching each other too much.

[markxengineerin]

Dyneema rigging is not supposed to be size to give equal stretch as much as it is supposed to be sized to minimize creep. That is according to John Franta at Colligo Marine. He claims the reason why people complain about why they are continually having to retention their rig is because they do not size for creep and while the rig is strong enough, it will always give problems.

Most of the sizing info on Colligo website refers to "equivalent stretch" being the main design criteria, as I said. As a result of equivalent stretch sizing, they say typical creep is less than 0.1" per year, but I think you have the order of importance backwards vs. the language used. Creep varies by load, climate, other variables. To "minimize creep" like you're saying, you would just use the biggest diameter possible, and nobody is doing that. Anyway, it's mostly semantics.
Does anyone even complain about "creep" of dyneema anymore? I've never seen it in real life or in 2 years reading this forum. The diy amateurs on Youtube are probably having more issues because they do not pre-load the dyneema/splices properly vs. choosing the wrong size. It took me a solid 2 weeks of messing around with a load cell, come along, and tape measure to figure out how to get the installed, spliced length within 0.5" of where I wanted. There is only 4" of travel available in my turnbuckles. The process is anything but easy, EXTRA EFFORT compared to stainless rig, I think anyone who says otherwise has an agenda or hasn't actually done it.

[wyb2]

Originally Posted by peb

… Dyneema gets longer as the temperature decreases. It gets hotter as temperature increases. If you have an aluminum mast, this compounds the problem…..

This was obviously just a typo and you meant shorter, but for some reason I’m still laughing every time I reread it.

[Dantp]

Originally Posted by markxengineerin

It took me a solid 2 weeks of messing around with a load cell, come along, and tape measure to figure out how to get the installed, spliced length within 0.5" of where I wanted. There is only 4" of travel available in my turnbuckles. The process is anything but easy, EXTRA EFFORT compared to stainless rig, I think anyone who says otherwise has an agenda or hasn't actually done it.

This is a major part of why I didn't go DIY synthetic.
I guess once you have it figured out it's easier the next time. That's assuming in some foreign port you can find a suitable grade for standing rigging to change a shroud. And it'll probably have a different amount of constitutional stretch.

[peb]

Originally Posted by Benz

Perhaps we're using the word "toggle" in different ways. I'm not speaking of an articulating metal fitting for wire shrouds; I'm talking about a short piece of rod spliced sideways into the one end of a strop, that engages a loop spliced at the other end. This "loop and toggle" closure method has existed time out of mind, and is useful as a strong, simple, elegant, and reliable way of having a loop that can open and close. I make them "Eye-to-eye, with the toggle spliced tightly into one end, and the loop at the other end barely big enough to accept the toggle.
As for Armourcoat, it goes a long way--I'd reckon a quart would make it. You need to festoon the shroud over a frame or rack or clothesline to let it dry, usually overnight. It's better if the bits aren't touching each other too much.

Benz, do you have a picture of this loop and toggle closure?

[Benz]

I tried to put a picture here, Peb...not sure if I succeeded