Buying used rigging help

[captlloyd]

There was a very recent thread on re rigging using Dyneema, very informative. Should be right up your alley. Dyneema is not ungodly expensive and you can work with it yourself. Watch James on YouTube under “ sailing Zangaro” , he does a whole episode of working with Dyneema. YouTube is your friend, use it. For masts and mast sections there is EBay and Craigslist, they are also your friends. Realize that some folks on CF wash their boats only, they pay for everything else. Good luck, you can do it.

[joelhemington]

Originally Posted by chubasco

Greetings boat freaks,

I'm restoring a 35 ft 1967 Piver Lodestar. I would like some advice on finding and installing used rigging as my boat came with none.
Firstly, can anyone give me some links to salvage boat yards where I could find a complete rig cut for a multi hull? You would think that after all these hurricanes the internet would be chock-full of them but I can't find anything.
Secondly, I did purchase a tapered racing mast with matching sails off a damaged 35-foot Monohull. My goal was to retrofit some of the standing rigging to extend and accommodate the connection points on the Ama's of my piver. One piver enthusiast discouraged me from my plan and said I should look for a complete rig off a multihull but I was unconvinced as to why. Any advice would be appreciated.
If you live in Florida I would even pay a guy to come council me or if you feel like getting out of the cold for a while come see me and I'll put you up!
Carpe diem!

A 35' trimaran is going to smoke, speed wise. It will heel but not much. Given that you've already purchased a mast and sails not original to boat. I wouldn't fool around here. Forget the used rigging (it's been scraped because it's too old) and get yourself somebody that really understands rigging as that new rig will be greatly unlike just replacing the original standing rigging (something you could probably pull off on your own). Dyneema, which costs about 2$ a foot for 3/8" is a neat product for many reasons but it does stretch which means you'll be tuning your standing rigging for at least a month until the stretch is done.

[DefinitelyMe]

Dyneema can be expensive. I've found reasonable prices buying from Southern Ropes (in South Africa) and direct from Hampidjan (in Iceland). Also a place in New Zealand the name of which escapes me. MUCH better prices than US suppliers. I think I paid $220 for 100m of 13mm 'super-12', which is heat-treated, pre-stretched and good for standing rigging applications.

For my part, having switched to dyneema rigging I will never go back to steel.

Having said that, Bernard Moitessier made out pretty well with a telephone pole for a mast and galvanised wire with U-clips for terminals. He also used chain to make the connections at the shroud bases, as have I on occasion. Chain actually stretches more than people realise but a short bit seems to work fine.

Oh, and I've sailed tens of thousands of miles with galvanised wire rigging like the sort used on utility poles. It just needs to be treated properly to prevent rust.

[skipmac]

Here is a logical, unemotional reason that you really should not buy used rigging.

Many metals and this specifically includes stainless steel is subject to what is commonly called work hardening. Have you ever taken an old wire coat hanger and bent it back and forth until it broke? That is work hardening. Bending to acute angles like you do to break a coat hanger is an extreme example but the same thing happens when wire is stressed and bent at very slight angles. It will take a lot longer than the minute or two to break a coat hanger but it's still happening.

With rigging at every point where there is a hard spot, like where the wire exits a swage fitting or where the upper shroud passes over the spreaders this is happening. Depending on the boat, where it's kept, the quality of the SS wire, this could happen in a few years or in many years. One big problem, a visual inspection will not show where the wire is starting to weaken. What is happening is inside the wire the metal is forming a crystallized structure which is brittle and can break at any time with no warning. As far as I know the only way to test for this is by an x-ray process like oilfield pipelines use to check welds. At the end of the day it would be cheaper to just buy new.

But your boat, your choice. You could be used rigging and probably do just fine but if a wire lets go you will likely lose the mast and that would ruin your whole day.

One final concern, if you're buying from a salvage yard or similar you will probably have no idea how old that wire is and how it was used. Just one more unknown to make this a risky idea.

[DefinitelyMe]

Originally Posted by joelhemington

Dyneema.............does stretch which means you'll be tuning your standing rigging for at least a month until the stretch is done.

That's not quite right. Dyneema does not stretch appreciably. But it does creep, and should be sized according to creep, not strength, or stretch or anything else. If you have the means to tension your shrouds A LOT after splicing, the creep issue can be mostly avoided.

[Hardhead]

I'd definitely go with new rigging. If you don't - it means you'll only be replacing it that much sooner. Rigging is also where the real disasters can happen... Good luck-

[chubasco]

Wow Chris! You actually met piver? That is so cool

[chubasco]

I really appreciate all the thoughtful advice. I will take it to heart and hopefully make the right decision.

[Mike Banks]

I owned a Piver 42 foot tri for a while. The design was good and it sailed well, but there could have been some simple improvements to the design that would have made a HUGE difference for living aboard. Horstman made most of those improvements regarding access to the large amas without having to resort to those awful exposed deck hatches for entry.

Old rigging can be re-used as it almost always fails at the ends. It can not be simply re-swaged though--that is asking for trouble. I would re-swage a loop on each end, and have a loop or ring welded to the original mast tangs if they are the way the shrouds or stays are mounted in the top of the mast.

Trimarans need a heavy mast but the base angle for stays is larger. I do not mind the expensive bottles used to tension the stays, but any turnbuckle will do if it is properly maintained. If I were to be using old rigging, I would have an eye crimped on the bottom and a length of chain between the stay swaged eye and the turnbuckle--and if possible the same at the masthead tangs or eyes. The stainless hates flexing and it hates crevices--both cause the problems that ruin stainless rigging if it is 316 alloy.

There is a far better alloy containing more molybdenum that avoids the crevice corrosion and differential aeration problems but it still does not like movement or vibration. I bought two lateral stays of this alloy, the pair cost me $800 fitted with mast tangs and bottles, but they were good for ten years plus. I never saw any stainless rigging in 2 316 that did not have signs of corrosion or metal fatigue UNLESS they were fitted with a couple of links to stop flexion from vibration at the mast tangs or deck bottle swages, and sails provide quite a lot of vibration..

[Cpt Mark]

[QUOTE=chubasco;3087636]I can see how throttle cables it said it would wear out over time. I can see how Rusty fittings or the ends of the cables where they meet the fittings suffering oxidation and fatigue. But speaking as a novice it's hard for me to imagine that the stranded cable itself getting so weak as to break. Am I missing something?/QUOTE]

Yes, you are missing something. Standing rigging, stainless steel, in warm, tropical salt water environments has a lifespan of about 5 years. Do people go longer? Sure, but at a risk.

Stainless steel is not stain PROOF steel. It corrodes just slower. The issue with SS is you can't see the corrosion as it is happening on the inside working it's way out unlike mild steel which starts on the outside and goes in.

Almost all the time SS fails it's at the swage areas, (where the fittings are.) Very rare to break midway. If you really wanted to go down this path and bought a used wire of the correct diameter (don't over or undersize which is bad) and was LONGER than what you need you could cut said wire to appropriate lengths and swage new ends on or use stalok whatevers. I do not recommend this as a savings measure.

The cost of new wire isn't the great expense. It's the fittings and labor. If you had to choose between SS or new galvanized, I'd buy the galvanized for cost savings. It will last just fine, just not pretty like SS.

Professional riggers will evaluate your rigging using a 30 power microscope. You can buy these things that connect to your smart phone pretty cheap. Look carefully at any spots that have rust or discoloration. 30 power will show you if the wire is being compromised. If it doesn't look 100% perfect, pass on it.

You might buy rigging off a boat that hasn't been moved since the day the new rigging went on. You'd think, well, it's 10 years old but never used so it's still new! Wrong. Assuming the boat has sat in the water it will have bounced around all that time and the rigging will have flexed back and forth and it will have work hardened. You just don't know how much. Take a metal coat hanger and bend it back and forth a few times and all of a sudden it breaks in 2.

Rigging is one of the most important things on your boat. It's what holds the mast and boom up which you don't want coming down where someone might be seriously hurt or dead or the boat gets holed and sunk. Lot's of places where you can save money on a refit but not the standing rigging.

[chubasco]

Good info..thanks