10 year standing rigging, why?

[mcon12000]

Well mine is currently being replaced.

The professional that’s doing the job is fairly certain it was original to a 40yo boat. Looked fine to the dock expert but I was concerned about venturing offshore again this year with a rig that looked fine but had an unknown age. Another clue was the bare bronze turnbuckles that looked great but the company that manufactured them went out of business in 1986.

Anyway it was his policy that anything sailed in salt water needs regular inspections and should not be used more than ten years while also pointing at many of the nearby boats original 20+ year old rigging. The difference is most if not all of those boats are used only on weekends and never leave the dock unless the weather is perfect. So my point would be polling your slip mates isn’t an appropriate way to determine how long a rig could last or be trusted unless they’re either a professional rigger or they mention how they use their boat.

I feel I’m lucky to get ten years out of any system on my boat and this is as close as it gets to owning an airplane minus the mandatory maintenance and inspections.

[Talbot]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Entering into this I think there is also the matter of how hard you push the boat.

you can get away with older rigging if you don’t stress the rig. But if you are stressing the rig you probably ought to have everything in that 10 year window.

That is why most insurance companies only allow 5 years for boats that are raced. - Its all to do with the load

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Tillikum

Stainless steel in general is known to "work harden" and become subject to fracture as a result. Whether tension alone is enough to cause that or flexing is required a metallurgist should know.

Since the properties of probably nearly all stainless steel alloys are known, a spectrographic analysis of the alloy would be one way to measure the quality of an existing or proposed rig.

Insurance companies are all about minimizing their potential liability and forcing small clients to jump through ever-narrower hoops is an easy way to compensate for the risks taken with larger and less "pliable" clients.

If Samsung appliances are anything to judge by the Koreans are well ahead on the science of "planned failure", sometimes known as "planned obsolescence".

Maintaining proper tension would obviously be critical to minimizing flexing and work-hardening of SS.

Steel cables used to be lubricated from new and sometimes during their lifespan to reduce abrasion of the strands against each other, and of course to prevent rust. Doing the same with SS might be advisable?

Am no rigger, but have some common sense and obviously the point of greatest stress and potential failure is at the attachments where a short portion of a cable is required to take the weight and the loading otherwise spread over the whole length. Any short, sharp point of contact at the point of entry into a ferrule has the potential to cause rapid damage if correct tension is not maintained.

Begs the question whether a galvanized steel cable or a solid rod is not a better option. Rods may or may not be more prone to work-harding from flexing?

All of course depends on build quality and that means getting your materials from countries where quality is still a cultural predisposition, such as Japan.

I'm not a metallugist but have had a couple mettalurgy classes and worked with metals for decades in my career. I dont think there's a lot of work hardening in fixed cables. The flexing is pretty minimal. But as you said, the "hard spot" where the cable enters a fitting is bound to be the high stress point. Any flexing there is accentuated into a small area due to the rigid fitting. That location is also where trapped water can creat corrosion issues in SS. "cycle fatigue" is a common issue and test for materials. Anything that flexes or wobbles etc can experience damage over time from the number of cycles it goes through.
Rod rigging eliminates some of these issues. No trapped moisture, no "hard spot" on the end as the fitting is not there, just a formed ball end or eye rather than a fitting. Expense and difficulty doing rod rigging in various lengths to fit various boats is an issue I imagine.

But my gut says that cycle fatigue or flexing is not a major issue in rigging wire as the flexing is so minimal.

By comparison, when Boeing tests the wing for a new airplane, they cycle the wing hundreds of thousands of time up and down in a fixture for months on end. I think it's like 250k-300k cycles to extremes like a span of 16 feet from the top to the bottom of the movement. (I think those are about the right numbers but dont hold me to it! ) And those wings are aluminum which is far more crack prone and less forgiving than SS.

[Mark Johnson]

Fiber rigs are not 75% lighter than a standard rig, only the wire or rope portions are lighter. This is often misunderstood.
.
If a complete rig is 500# , (lights, Radome, and all), hypothetically... only about 50# of that is the SS wire, or if using Dynema... perhaps 30# less is the weight for that portion.
This means that on that 500# rig, you only knocked 30# off by using fiber. This is a small %.
Also, inspecting fiber tells you nothing, because a loss of strength has no visible evidence, only chafe does. It fuzzes up after a few years, and can also grow lichen, which must be scrubbed off, further chafing the fiber. SS wire grows it too, (in fresh water) but it is not damaged by hard scrubbing.

The aluminum mast extrusion expands and contracts with temperature, much like the rate that SS wire does, but fiber does not. It changes at a small fraction of that rate.
My fiber runners are often banjo string tight on a hot day, but if left under the same tension, on a cold day, they hang sloppy lose about a foot or more. (Side to side)

With fiber... One would have to tune a sensitive rig regularly, according to temperature.

IMO, The best application for fiber is on a front of mast stayed triangular rig, perhaps rotating, where the leeward shroud always hangs slack. Being out of tune is thus not an issue. If it has Diamond stays, I would use SS wire for them. My runners were also great for fiber, because they are seldom needed, and have quick adjustable turnbuckles with handles.

[col50]

Originally Posted by Tillikum

Stainless steel in general is known to "work harden" and become subject to fracture as a result. Whether tension alone is enough to cause that or flexing is required a metallurgist should know.

Since the properties of probably nearly all stainless steel alloys are known, a spectrographic analysis of the alloy would be one way to measure the quality of an existing or proposed rig.

Insurance companies are all about minimizing their potential liability and forcing small clients to jump through ever-narrower hoops is an easy way to compensate for the risks taken with larger and less "pliable" clients.

If Samsung appliances are anything to judge by the Koreans are well ahead on the science of "planned failure", sometimes known as "planned obsolescence".

Maintaining proper tension would obviously be critical to minimizing flexing and work-hardening of SS.

Steel cables used to be lubricated from new and sometimes during their lifespan to reduce abrasion of the strands against each other, and of course to prevent rust. Doing the same with SS might be advisable?

Am no rigger, but have some common sense and obviously the point of greatest stress and potential failure is at the attachments where a short portion of a cable is required to take the weight and the loading otherwise spread over the whole length. Any short, sharp point of contact at the point of entry into a ferrule has the potential to cause rapid damage if correct tension is not maintained.

Begs the question whether a galvanized steel cable or a solid rod is not a better option. Rods may or may not be more prone to work-harding from flexing?

All of course depends on build quality and that means getting your materials from countries where quality is still a cultural predisposition, such as Japan.

Stainless wire is fully work-hardened during the manufacturing process when it is pulled through a die that determines its diameter.

[BobFord]

Originally Posted by Tillikum

Stainless steel in general is known to "work harden" and become subject to fracture as a result. Whether tension alone is enough to cause that or flexing is required a metallurgist should know.

Since the properties of probably nearly all stainless steel alloys are known, a spectrographic analysis of the alloy would be one way to measure the quality of an existing or proposed rig.

Insurance companies are all about minimizing their potential liability and forcing small clients to jump through ever-narrower hoops is an easy way to compensate for the risks taken with larger and less "pliable" clients.

If Samsung appliances are anything to judge by the Koreans are well ahead on the science of "planned failure", sometimes known as "planned obsolescence".

Maintaining proper tension would obviously be critical to minimizing flexing and work-hardening of SS.

Steel cables used to be lubricated from new and sometimes during their lifespan to reduce abrasion of the strands against each other, and of course to prevent rust. Doing the same with SS might be advisable?

Am no rigger, but have some common sense and obviously the point of greatest stress and potential failure is at the attachments where a short portion of a cable is required to take the weight and the loading otherwise spread over the whole length. Any short, sharp point of contact at the point of entry into a ferrule has the potential to cause rapid damage if correct tension is not maintained.

Begs the question whether a galvanized steel cable or a solid rod is not a better option. Rods may or may not be more prone to work-harding from flexing?

All of course depends on build quality and that means getting your materials from countries where quality is still a cultural predisposition, such as Japan.

Interesting story ,Tillicum- your penultimate para- in my experience ,my simple DIY check revealed that a failure was due if a strand of s.s. fractured at the swage. I found this to be an excellent check if starting a passage.Hence, my call would be cable not rod.

[Kenpimentel]

Bought a 15 year old Beneteau a year ago in France. I was worried about the rig (which had been inspected and one stay replaced a few years before). The surveyor told me that in France, 15 years is common and to think about replacing in 2-3 years. As far as I know, there are no insurance requirements on rigs here.

There does not seem to be any common rule. It does make sense to me to inspect the rig every few years to make sure you catch what you can on an older rig. I will note that I bought a 2 year old Dufour and the rig inspection turned up some problems that had to be fixed, so you can't assume newer boats are OK.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by Bmorgan562

Looked at a boat in the PNW. I inquired about the age of the rigging. the owners didn’t know and had her for 15 years. i was a little suspicious. it looked brand new then it later occurred that with all the rain and the temperatures up there are very hospitable to the ss.

Check out the used boats on Hp the Great Lakes. No salt, cold dry weather, short seasons. The rigs are forever.

[Orion Jim]

Originally Posted by col50

Stainless wire is fully work-hardened during the manufacturing process when it is pulled through a die that determines its diameter.

Are you saying that work hardening is a myth, or that the manufacturing process results in wire which is on the verge of a spontaneous catastrophic failure?

[Bill_Giles]

The issue with rigging is metal fatigue. It is invisible and virtually undetectable. It is caused by constant variation in load on the wires and fittings on the shrouds and stays. Even when the boat is static the loads on the rigging vary through expansion and contraction of the mast and rigging due to temperature variations and simple movements of the boat at rest when it is on its berth. When in use the stresses on the rigging can be huge from the wind on the sails and the motion of the boat in waves.

I sailed a 60’ boat which had recent new rigging. The forestay failed because a turnbuckle broke, this was a 1” diameter stainless steel rod which showed no evidence of prior cracking. It had not been changed when the rest of the rigging wires had been changed. Fortunately the Genoa halyard saved the rig. We were not in strong winds at the time.

So ten years for me.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by Orion Jim

Are you saying that work hardening is a myth, or that the manufacturing process results in wire which is on the verge of a spontaneous catastrophic failure?

Yes, crap. All steel wire is pulled through a die. It is all work hardened. No matter cold steel or SS. It is how strength is developed and it is how wire is made.

The urban legend comes from improper design where the metal is flexed beyond yield repeatedly such as where a rig is too light or a toggle is missing, forcing real bending with elastic deformation. Exactly as when you break a wire by bending it repeatedly. The other failure from fatigue occurs when the metal is repeatedly loaded without exceeding the plastic limit but in excess of the fatigue limit of the metal. This is more tricky since the fatigue limit is a combination of the loading and the number of cycles. Light weight highly stressed cables will reach the fatigue limit sooner than heavy rigs that seldom exceed 10% of the cable load rating. Fatigue data is published for different metals. It is also affected by surface imperfections.

My mains are 20mm. The rig inspectors just shake their heads and tell me it could be downsized by at least half the diameter (1/4 the strength). I think I’ll leave it alone.

[Bill_Giles]

This is why perfectly serviceable aircraft are scrapped after a certain number of cycles of takeoffs, landings and hours in the air. Many high performance aircraft have ‘G’ meters to measure the cycles and these are compared to the results ona static rig where an example of the aircraft’s structure is repeatedly stressed on typical flight regimes.

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by Bill_Giles

The forestay failed because a turnbuckle broke, this was a 1” diameter stainless steel rod which showed no evidence of prior cracking.

I would say that the forestay, (the wire,) did not fail.
The turnbuckle failed.
Was that turnbuckle a machined stainless fitting made from bar stock, or was it made from a forging, there is a difference.
Perhaps it was just too small?
On a different tack, one with which most of us here probably would not want to accept, especially on a "modern" boat;
Anyway, with only a minimum of tools one could use 7x19 wire and put eye-splices around thimbles at each end.
One could also use poured socket fittings.
However, I realize that today's mantra of small/light/inexpensive and aesthetically pleasing can sometimes interfere with sensibilities.
As has been mentioned, it IS about loading and going up a size with wire and fittings never hurts and always gives better peace of mind.

[PhilipL]

On one of my boats the rigging is 40 years. On the other 30 years. The advice I had was that rigging failures happened if the rig was too slack.

The large radio observatory (Arecibo Observatory) was 50 years when it gave way, and had probably had a lot more work to do than my boat's rigging. And the thought is that the cause of the collapse wasn't the early cables, but ones added in the 1990s.

My worry about replacing the older boat's rigging - which I am about to do - is that you don't know the quality of the wire these days or the quality of the workmanship.

[Tillikum]

Originally Posted by col50

Stainless wire is fully work-hardened during the manufacturing process when it is pulled through a die that determines its diameter.

I take your point, and probably it is annealed after die-forming/drawing? Or are you saying it is used in a "pre-stressed" condition?

The question then would be whether it is still prone to work-hardening during subsequent use? Myself I don't know of any reason why it would not be. I believe carbon steel can be repeatedly almost "reset to zero" by proper heat treating, but don't know about SS.

Originally Posted by BobFord

Interesting story ,Tillicum- your penultimate para- in my experience ,my simple DIY check revealed that a failure was due if a strand of s.s. fractured at the swage. I found this to be an excellent check if starting a passage.Hence, my call would be cable not rod.

That sounds very logical as if one strand breaks, unless due to some defect in the metal from new, probably others are in a similar condition. Were it one cable that broke out of an entire rig, usage would be the likely culprit.

Thermal expansion and contraction and the resulting stresses, stretching and straining is an interesting subject as well. Metals in general are much weakened by cold, but AFAIK that is a temporary condition, not one that accumulates as work-hardening does.

Most large scrap yards have a hand-held spectrometer these days so a small payment might be enough to get a read-out on a cable or fitting. If nothing else perhaps a wise precaution when buying a new rig in case the riggers are cutting corners or not checking up on their suppliers themselves?

Something to learn more about!