Possible only replacing turnbuckles on diamond rigg without pulling the mast

[chrisr]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

Thanks Nick, good tip. What will happen if one diamond wire rips?
I understood they support the bending or do they provide the opposite force to the bend?
whould mast come down or break in half?
I am still very much in beginning of getting to know and learn the rigg stuff on cat especially.
As i don't have a squared top main i can run additional permanent backstays without interfering with the main. That supports the mast and bend additional plus security in case a cap shroud breaks.

the diamonds are there to keep the mast straight in column (or technically actually with the pre-bend rather than 'straight'). remove a diamond wire and i think it going to be pretty hard to know exactly what will happen.

strictly speaking the diamond spreader will try to push towards the side without the wire, but it will likely depend on which way the next wave lurches the boat

btw, i echo comments from others about replacing the wire. cheapest peace of mind you can get. how old is it ? judging by the boat history you have given it may well be original. no way i would keep it...but it's your boat

cheers,

[sailingharry]

An observation about going up a mast with significantly less than a full set of shrouds.
At least on a typical monohull with no diamond stays, a mast is removed with a single strop around the midpoint and it hangs there on that single point. The mast weighs several hundred pounds. When supported horizontally like this, the bending moment is vastly more than you can put with your body weight suspended maybe two or three feet outside of column. You are unlikely to make a detectable dent in the mast, and certainly nothing near what you put in it when just adjusting backstay tension!
Of course, the mast has to stay upright. So if removing stays that do that, a halyard would be very prudent.

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

Thanks Nick, good tip. What will happen if one diamond wire rips?
I understood they support the bending or do they provide the opposite force to the bend?
whould mast come down or break in half?
I am still very much in beginning of getting to know and learn the rigg stuff on cat especially.
As i don't have a squared top main i can run additional permanent backstays without interfering with the main. That supports the mast and bend additonal plus security in case a cap shroud breaks.

If a diamond broke under sail the rig would possibly fold in half. The section is essentially unsupported except for at the deck, and where the headstay and cap shrouds attach, so under sail, it's trying to fold/collapse, and the jumper and diamonds hold it in column.


For the Martingale, I would attach a static dyneema line from the masthead area (tied off around the mast) and secured to a bow cleat using a truckers hitch for tension. Then bring the spin halyard forward, as well as the jib halyard (to both bow cleats). Now you have a triple safety.
Ease the cap shrouds.
Disconnect the headstay from the bow beam. Let it rest on the tramps with a small line to secure it.
Now you can safely remove the martingale and replace it.

What boat is this again? Some production cats have the martingale attached using the same pins that secure the beam to the brackets on the bows. Real PITA... but you can do it. Just expect a fight to get everything to align when re-pinning.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by The Yacht Rigger

If a diamond broke under sail the rig would possibly fold in half. The section is essentially unsupported except for at the deck, and where the headstay and cap shrouds attach, so under sail, it's trying to fold/collapse, and the jumper and diamonds hold it in column.





For the Martingale, I would attach a static dyneema line from the masthead area (tied off around the mast) and secured to a bow cleat using a truckers hitch for tension. Then bring the spin halyard forward, as well as the jib halyard (to both bow cleats). Now you have a triple safety.

Ease the cap shrouds.

Disconnect the headstay from the bow beam. Let it rest on the tramps with a small line to secure it.

Now you can safely remove the martingale and replace it.



What boat is this again? Some production cats have the martingale attached using the same pins that secure the beam to the brackets on the bows. Real PITA... but you can do it. Just expect a fight to get everything to align when re-pinning.

Why remove the forestay? Is it not just sufficient to ease the forestay (via easing the shrouds) so that it exerts no upward pull on the beam? That is all we did (plus a couple of halyards to either bow to keep some tension on the cap shrouds) when we had to re-weld our seagull striker, and another time when replacing the martingale stay.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by The Yacht Rigger

If a diamond broke under sail the rig would possibly fold in half. The section is essentially unsupported except for at the deck, and where the headstay and cap shrouds attach, so under sail, it's trying to fold/collapse, and the jumper and diamonds hold it in column.


For the Martingale, I would attach a static dyneema line from the masthead area (tied off around the mast) and secured to a bow cleat using a truckers hitch for tension. Then bring the spin halyard forward, as well as the jib halyard (to both bow cleats). Now you have a triple safety.
Ease the cap shrouds.
Disconnect the headstay from the bow beam. Let it rest on the tramps with a small line to secure it.
Now you can safely remove the martingale and replace it.

What boat is this again? Some production cats have the martingale attached using the same pins that secure the beam to the brackets on the bows. Real PITA... but you can do it. Just expect a fight to get everything to align when re-pinning.

Its a Lavezzi, thank good they have seperate attaching points and pins. Its a good point by why its necessary to completely remove headstay and loosening it is not enough?

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by chrisr

the diamonds are there to keep the mast straight in column (or technically actually with the pre-bend rather than 'straight'). remove a diamond wire and i think it going to be pretty hard to know exactly what will happen.

strictly speaking the diamond spreader will try to push towards the side without the wire, but it will likely depend on which way the next wave lurches the boat

btw, i echo comments from others about replacing the wire. cheapest peace of mind you can get. how old is it ? judging by the boat history you have given it may well be original. no way i would keep it...but it's your boat

cheers,

About replacing it why? Yes i assume its original means from 2006 but it was hardly used. It was a motorboat with the stick up hold by the wires as decoration... 2 riggers and surveyor said its ok. Swage, terminals etc. Everything looks fine, no strands, no swallowing or any serperation of strands. Just turnbuckles look bad because this idiot put duct tape or better wrapped the whole turnbuckles like a birthday present in duct tape "to protect" because of pins. I use sizing wire, that needs no protection as no sharp edges, except for the martingale.
Yes sure it ages too being not used but significantly less then a heavy used rigg.
Well a 10k piece of mind...
Todays stainless wire quality compared to 2006 is very bad. I done that mistake on my old ketch where i replaced the main mast cap shroud and backstays for piece of mind original from 2000. Good quality wire i was told but they looked worse after 15month then my 19 years old stays/shrouds from 2000.
So my strategy is to add rigging to have additional tuning possibilities and secure the existing rigg where possible at the same time.
Backstays backup the cap shrouds plus i use the spi halyard in parallel to the cap shroud under load (like the racers do) to the middle cleat when sailing main and genua, will do that with a repalced rigg too.
The same with the headstay, i have an inner halyard that ment to be used for an inner stay with a storm sail which i don't have and not make sense on my cat (genua with 33sqm is quite small, no attach point on the bottom for a stay...same mast is used on mono's too). I use it to run it parallel to headstay and back it up this way in case that would fail.
And if any swag or wire show any wear or strand seperate or swallow i will replace the complete old rigg.

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

About replacing it why? Yes i assume its original means from 2006 but it was hardly used. It was a motorboat with the stick up hold by the wires as decoration... 2 riggers and surveyor said its ok. Swage, terminals etc. Everything looks fine, no strands, no swallowing or any serperation of strands. Just turnbuckles look bad because this idiot put duct tape or better wrapped the whole turnbuckles like a birthday present in duct tape "to protect" because of pins. I use sizing wire, that needs no protection as no sharp edges, except for the martingale.
Yes sure it ages too being not used but significantly less then a heavy used rigg.
Well a 10k piece of mind...
Todays stainless wire quality compared to 2006 is very bad. I done that mistake on my old ketch where i replaced the main mast cap shroud and backstays for piece of mind original from 2000. Good quality wire i was told but they looked worse after 15month then my 19 years old stays/shrouds from 2000.
So my strategy is to add rigging to have additional tuning possibilities and secure the existing rigg where possible at the same time.
Backstays backup the cap shrouds plus i use the spi halyard in parallel to the cap shroud under load (like the racers do) to the middle cleat when sailing main and genua, will do that with a repalced rigg too.
The same with the headstay, i have an inner halyard that ment to be used for an inner stay with a storm sail which i don't have and not make sense on my cat (genua with 33sqm is quite small, no attach point on the bottom for a stay...same mast is used on mono's too). I use it to run it parallel to headstay and back it up this way in case that would fail.
And if any swag or wire show any wear or strand seperate or swallow i will replace the complete old rigg.

Did the riggers strip apart your furler to inspect the internal headstay and all its fittings?
I would be absolutely terrified to be out sailing with original rigging from 2006 on a cat. Or mono...
I've seen WAY too many rigs lost on boats that have had recent passing rig inspections, to not stick to the 15 year max age rule. No matter how little sailing has been done.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by The Yacht Rigger

Did the riggers strip apart your furler to inspect the internal headstay and all its fittings?
I would be absolutely terrified to be out sailing with original rigging from 2006 on a cat. Or mono...
I've seen WAY too many rigs lost on boats that have had recent passing rig inspections, to not stick to the 15 year max age rule. No matter how little sailing has been done.

Good point, will have a look again when i exchange the martingale, need to take it off anyhow due to your description above. Will definitely replace all the fittings and 2 bolts too.
The lower fittings are visible and one year ago together with surveyors we took the furler apart and also could inspect the headstay.

Well you see the boats that didn't make it.
But how many made it past 15 years or even past 20?? I know several and they were used much more then mine. My insurance accepts till 20 years from 15 years with a yearly rigg check.

I am quite a noobie regarding rigg but i saw several riggs that even i can judge definitely shouldn't have passed inspection but did. Like bent bolds of the headstay that additionally showed several stress cracks and its U fitting too on a Lagoon 400S2 10years old rigg or swallowed swage fittings.

Whats your opinion on the stainless cables sold now?
i had it on my old boat and saw it on a couple of others too that the 19 year old shrouds were sparkling clean while the new after 15month showed first rust marks and oxide layers...definitely much less quality stainless steel.

Do you have a good quality source for turnbuckles and the additional hardware for a FP Lavezzi?

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

Good point, will have a look again when i exchange the martingale, need to take it off anyhow due to your description above. Will definitely replace all the fittings and 2 bolts too.
The lower fittings are visible and one year ago together with surveyors we took the furler apart and also could inspect the headstay.

Well you see the boats that didn't make it.
But how many made it past 15 years or even past 20?? I know several and they were used much more then mine. My insurance accepts till 20 years from 15 years with a yearly rigg check.

I am quite a noobie regarding rigg but i saw several riggs that even i can judge definitely shouldn't have passed inspection but did. Like bent bolds of the headstay that additionally showed several stress cracks and its U fitting too on a Lagoon 400S2 10years old rigg or swallowed swage fittings.

Whats your opinion on the stainless cables sold now?
i had it on my old boat and saw it on a couple of others too that the 19 year old shrouds were sparkling clean while the new after 15month showed first rust marks and oxide layers...definitely much less quality stainless steel.

Do you have a good quality source for turnbuckles and the additional hardware for a FP Lavezzi?

Understood, I hear you, but I always just ask people, is it worth the roll of the dice? It's obviously a chunk of money, believe me, we're too busy to keep up with demand, I'm NOT trying to drum up business... but IF you end up being the unlucky ones who lose their rig, it can totally end your cruising dreams, bot financially, and emotionally.

Stainless wire... it's hard to say, we only use KOS wire, which is regarded as the highest quality available, but I was told by one metallurgist that technically it's possible that older wire could have been slightly more corrosion resistant because "back in the day" they had less accurate means of mixing the raw materials, so erred on the side of caution - so you may have had higher chromium and molybdenum in the older stuff. Maybe. The same conditions could have caused the opposite in quality though...

Regardless, we have no issues with our wire, apart from one incident a few years back when a supplier (whom shall not be named and I no longer use) supplied us with a spool of non KOS 1/4" 1x19 that proceeded to corrode quickly on some of our installs and cost me a lot of money.

Parts for your boat... we are the US distributor for Blue Wave, so yes, we should have all the parts you could possibly need x10. I don't believe I have the Lavezzi rigging spec on file though.

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Why remove the forestay? Is it not just sufficient to ease the forestay (via easing the shrouds) so that it exerts no upward pull on the beam? That is all we did (plus a couple of halyards to either bow to keep some tension on the cap shrouds) when we had to re-weld our seagull striker, and another time when replacing the martingale stay.

Definitely an option, but not so much when the martingale is attached to the same pins that the beam is connected to the boat with.