Standing rigging question

[brak]

As I mentioned a 100 times or so, back in the day I lost a turnbuckle on my forestay. To fasten forestay to the bow somehow we used lots and lots of lines (man, the darn thing is under a lot of load) tied to anything we could on the bow. Among other things, this caused the furler foil to bend perhaps 60-80 degrees just above the furler (where we tide the lines).
Rigging company (which will remain nameless ) fixed this by basically pulling on the foil until it was almost straight (serviceable anyway). This happened perhaps 3-5 inches above the furling drum.

As I worked on rebedding chainplates today I realized, that it is very difficult to bend rigging wire (9/32" diameter) to such an angle in short distance, it seems to want to separate when this happens. Here is my question - could a bend like this have damaged the forestay wire? Could it have pulled the wire out of mechanical terminal?
Mind you, I sailed with my foresail out a few times since and also motored for a total of 200 hours. However, this in itself does not mean much I am sure. Opinions welcome

[denby]

I'm going to say the forestay wire should be replace, I would not trust it. But wait for a rigger's opinion.

[sailingdog]

Brak-

First of all, the rigger should have told you that you can generally replace the bottom portion of the foil on most furlers. When we were lowering the mast on my boat two years ago, I snagged the furling line, and crimped the lower section of the foil about where you did. I called Furlex, and they sent me a replacement portion. Took about two hours to take the drum down and swap out the foil.

You may have crimped the forestay. I was lucky and didn't...but mine didn't bend quite as far as yours did. Replacing the forestay is relatively easy, and if you're replacing the lower foil section on the furler, you'll be most of the way to replacing the forestay to begin with. You'll need to support the mast with the spinnaker and jib halyards... but you should be able to go up the mast and rig an new forestay and then reassemble the furling unit over it. Obviously, the bottom fitting has to be a mechanical terminal, like a StaLoc, Norseman or Hayn HiMod.

[brak]

Actually, my furling unit is long out of production and replacement foil does not exist. I specifically looked for replacement when this happened - but no such luck, So, if I have to replace anything - I'll have to buy a whole new furling system, which is well out of my plans. I also don't think it can be taken apart anymore - when they replaced the forestay, they basically put it through the assembled foil. So it may not be possible to replace the wire without taking the mast down.

Back in the day riggers from Zahnisers told me I should be ok, but I am thinking I should probably ask them to take the drum apart and look at the wire. They are doing some work on link plates soon anyway, I guess I'll ask them.

BTW, my mast stands just fine without either forestay or backstay (or both) - at only 33' or so the rig is just very short by modern standards (boat of this size today would probably have a mast at least 10-15' longer)

[xort]

Brak
There are quite a few used gear places around the country. You might try contacting them to see if any have a used foil for your system

[sailingdog]

Brak-

If you said what furler you had, it might help. Many of the furlers do have replaceable lower sections...for just this reason.

[knothead]

Originally Posted by brak

As I mentioned a 100 times or so, back in the day I lost a turnbuckle on my forestay. To fasten forestay to the bow somehow we used lots and lots of lines (man, the darn thing is under a lot of load) tied to anything we could on the bow. Among other things, this caused the furler foil to bend perhaps 60-80 degrees just above the furler (where we tide the lines).
Rigging company (which will remain nameless ) fixed this by basically pulling on the foil until it was almost straight (serviceable anyway). This happened perhaps 3-5 inches above the furling drum.

As I worked on rebedding chainplates today I realized, that it is very difficult to bend rigging wire (9/32" diameter) to such an angle in short distance, it seems to want to separate when this happens. Here is my question - could a bend like this have damaged the forestay wire? Could it have pulled the wire out of mechanical terminal?
Mind you, I sailed with my foresail out a few times since and also motored for a total of 200 hours. However, this in itself does not mean much I am sure. Opinions welcome

Brak, SD is correct in that if you identified your system we could speak more intellegently about it.
That said, if the rigger who repaired it was able to straighten the extrusion just by bending it back to "almost straight". Then I am assuming that the extrusion wasn't kinked.
If the extrusion wasn't kinked, the wire inside it wasn't kinked.

Originally Posted by brak

So it may not be possible to replace the wire without taking the mast down.

??? Did they take the mast down to replace the wire last time? You should only have to take the furler down.

Originally Posted by xort

Brak
There are quite a few used gear places around the country. You might try contacting them to see if any have a used foil for your system

Many rigging shops keep spare parts from older systems.

[brak]

Originally Posted by knothead

Brak, SD is correct in that if you identified your system we could speak more intellegently about it.

Really old Hood furler from mid-70s. Zahnisers attempted to locate replacement foil and were unable to do that, and they are pretty good at locating things. They said my only hope was to find someone who just disposed of the same system - and this seems like a long story.

That said, if the rigger who repaired it was able to straighten the extrusion just by bending it back to "almost straight". Then I am assuming that the extrusion wasn't kinked.

What is "kinked"? It was bent in a 60+ degree angle but (fortunately?) only in the plane of the foil (not side to side). The way rigger repaired it was by wrapping line around the bent area, and tightening it on the winch, pulling on the extruded area until it was more or less straight. I need to find a picture of it before and after.

??? Did they take the mast down to replace the wire last time? You should only have to take the furler down.

I had all standing rigging replaced, and the mast was down for that (and taken to the rigging shop).


I am going to post here some pictures, hopefully I'll get a few ideas on rigging stuff

[knothead]

Originally Posted by brak

What is "kinked"?

Brak, when I say kinked, what I mean is, bent to the point that the extrusion is actually damaged to the extent that when straightened, cracks appear in the aluminum.
Imagine a piece of copper tubing that you are trying to bend into a radius. If you make a mistake when bending the tubing, it will in effect fold. Leaving a crease at that point. Even if straightened, the fold will remain. It's been kinked.
If your extrusion looks pretty much the same as it did before it was damaged then it probably wasn't kinked.

Maybe someone else could offer a better description of kinking is.

Guys, ...I said kinking not kinky.... Behave.

[brak]

Ok, so first chainplate rebedding project - as always from a small issue arises a giant repair

This is what chainplates used to look like:


I disconnected shrouds one at a time, and removed the plate. I will spare everyone the sight of what was under these plates - suffice to say it was a mix of a few different sealants and unknown compounds.

After 2 hours of chiseling, digging, filing, polishing and cleaning, here is how chainplates go through the deck:


Rebedding with Sika 521UV was easy (and it even worked in the rain, which is good because otherwise I would have to stop working and finish next week). Here is an almost-complete chainplate (got to clean off a few streaks, Sika 521 cleans up nicely with dry paper towel)


That white residue a little away from the plate is remainder of really really old polyurethane (5200?). It's as hard as rock - will never come off. Please people, don't use 5200 for sealing or bedding, for the sake of a next owner of your boat!!!

Now, here is what the chainplate looks like from inside.

Chainplates were originally painted with what appears to be epoxy (same epoxy based paint that all the inside boat surfaces are painted with).
As clearly can be seen, it peeled in a few places where water intrusion used to be, presumably. However, outside those areas it is pretty well stuck to chainplates and virtually impossible to remove even with a chisel. Interestingly enough (and apparently against the theory that stainless needs to be exposed to air) in places where epoxy was well stuck to the chainplate, and I was able to break off a piece, metal surface is nice and shiny. Most superficial rust is found where paint was loose but not quite came off - perhaps trapping water underneath? Anyway, they clean up really nicely with a copper brush, but since I can't remove most of the epoxy paint, I didn't try to clean them too much - they would never look nice and uniform anyway.

And here is how chainplates are bolted to the bases:


Note how deeply the nuts are embedded - they are essentially inside fiberglass surface (that covers plywood base) and painted with the same epoxy compound. Dremeling them out would significantly damage chainplate base.


And here is what can happen to a brand new part. This is the same broken fork that I posted a picture of previously. I took a somewhat higher resolution photo today (I really need a camera with better close-up mode).

Looks like swiss cheese