When Is 'All-New Rigging' Necessary ?

[rhr1956]

I have been window shopping boats online. Quite common is to read "all new rigging". Well my understanding is the rigging includes mast, boom, spreaders, stays, shrouds, chainplates, cleats and blocks. I can't understand why a boat only 8 or 10 years old would need all this stuff replaced. What really needs to be replaced (rigging wise) on a boat after only a few years?

[boatman61]

Insurance companies like standing rigging replaced every 10yrs.... but if your uninsured or just 3rd party liability then its down to you...
How confident are you in your ability to spot failing swages...

[rhr1956]

Insurance companies want mast and everything replaced after 10 years?

[Bash]

"All new rigging" would generally mean that the standing and running rigging are new. Not the spars. You may be confusing "rig" with "rigging," in common parlance.

[boatman61]

Standing rigging = wires holding up the mast.
Running rigging = ropes/halyards.
Mast and Boom = Mast and Boom.
Winches, blocks, sheaves etc = Winches, blocks, sheaves etc....

[Khagan1227]

At the risk of sounding stupid, I've aways considered masts and booms to be spars and not part of the standing rigging.

I consider standing rigging to be stays, shrouds, etc.

[zeehag]

i was taught 20 yrs max unless barbs or severe rust, in which case--RIGHT NOW.

[sabray]

I replace a little bit of something every year. That way Im not looking at a lot in one lump. and it wears different gets exposed different. The materials are different. I would venture when they said all new rigging they meant stays and maybe chainplates.

[capngeo]

Give me a break.... replacing the standing rigging every ten years? PUHLEASE!

America's Cup teams excepted.... who can afford that?

If anyone here REALLY does that.... send the hardware to me; I'll even pay the shipping!

[zeehag]

all new rigging on my formosa excluded the chain-plates and only included standing and running rigging.

[roverhi]

Standing rigging, really the swages, have a generally accepted safe life of 10 years. They will go longer in cold climates and shorter times in the tropics. Not to say that your mast is going to fall down as soon as the rigging wire reaches 10 years, just that the swages become suspect after that length of time. The wire itself is easy to inspect for broken strands and pitting. Swages can only really be checked by destructive testing which kind of ends the argument. Inspection and dye testing will show external cracks but not internal failure.

Have seen wire and swages that are long past 20 years in the tropics but that was on boats that, shall we say, hadn't had a lot of TLC lavished on them and weren't sailed in challenging conditions long ways from shore.

[Weyalan]

When I read "new rigging" in a yacht advertisment, I assume that it means standing rigging - i.e. shrouds, backstay, forestay.

For me, mast and boom would be "spars". Halyards and the like (i.e rope) would be strictly "running rigging".

The regularity with which one should replace shrouds and other standing rigging is moot. I know boats with 20 year old+ rigging that I would be quite happy to take to sea. I think that insurance companies start to grumble about insuring your rig if your stading rigging is older than 10 or 12 years (roughly), but in many cases, because this is not necessarily a realistic timeframe, many people would choose not to insure their rig in this case.

[delmarrey]

Insurance companies are profit making organizations. They will make the public replace/maintain their stuff at their own expense to avoid any chance that they'll have to pay out. Or they'll raise the rate so high that one can not afford to pay. It's a tax on people who are ignorant of the knowledge of maintenance or skill.

[matauwhi]

G'day, Mate. Not ALL insurance companies require the standing rigging to be replaced every 10 years, so check your policy details, if you carry it. In reality, there is no fixed timeframe since it varies on things like temperature as discussed above, but also how many cycles (tensioning and untensioning) that the wire and toggles experience and how much crevice corrosion has taken place inside swages and reusuable fitings like Norsemans. Cheers.

[NotQuiteLost]

My standing rigging is 30 years old, and realistically I need to replace maybe a quarter of it. No pitting, no external rust, no slippage at the swages but probably a quarter of them have the single 'rusty' outside wire running from deck to spar, which I've been told is the first indication of trouble.

The rest of it is perfectly serviceable, but the boat was admittedly in the PNW for the first 29 years of its life. I would guess a lifetime in the tropics would have consumed it all by now, quite easily.

I've also known boats that couldn't go more than fifteen years without replacing in the same PNW climate, so it could be an issue of usage as well as age.