Standing Rigging

[alanporter]

How often should one replace the standing rigging on a cruising sailboat ?

[Jeff_H]

To some extent it depends on the design of the boat, the amount of useage, the sailing venue and the harshness of conditions. A heavily used masthead rig boat in a tropical high salt venue might need replacement as frequently as every 10 years.

A lightly used, fractional rig, boat in fresh water in a cold climate might last 25 years.

Jeff

[RookieHunter]

"Knotline" the spring 2002 issue of a newsletter/publication from Hunter marine contains an add by Navtec rigging solutions. They don''t give a web address the advertisement is basically a how-to of how to inspect rigging and how often to replace it. The previous response was right on the nose. If in doubt on cruisers it says replace every 10 years. The item that should always be replaced in 10 years (or 40,000 miles) is the turnbuckle screws. Other items you can clean up and inspect for transverse failure points, but turnbuckle screws can hide the apparent weak points until you lose a mast or result in heavy repairs.

I am as the nomenclature indicates a severe rookie, just passing on information contained in an advertisement. Let me know if you have any questions and I can reference the article (but not my experience, ha!)

[Jeff_H]

One minor point, while bronze turnbuckles are not as strong for a certain screw diameter as Stainless steel, they have a significantly longer lifespan. I owned a 40 year old boat that still had its original bronze turnbuckles. On the other hand Stainless steel turnbuckles, depending on use have a 10 to 20 year useful lifespan with 10 certainly being safer than 20.

Jeff

[alanporter]

Thank you for your replies to my post. I have a twenty six year old Westerly Renown ketch that has never had any of it''s standing rigging replaced. It all looks good on visual inspection, but I am concerned about work-hardening etc, that cannot be seen. Non-expert members of my club are telling me that I don''t need to do anything but, frankly, I don''t fancy having a 35 foot mast falling on my head. Of course, being a ketch, I will have to pay for two of everything. Such is boating !!

[dpinorm]

I went through a set of rigging in 4 years of hard tropical cruising. Just as important is to have the rigging inspected professionally, depending on the rig and your usage, at least every couple of years.

The numbers mentioned by others, IMHO, are when the rigging should be replaced regardless of the results of an inspection.

[clayton]

I replaced my rigging ( 24 years old)this way: 1st yr.- New rr headstay and backstay.
2nd. yr. p&s uppers
3rd. yr. p&s lowers
Like your boat the rigging "looked fine", but why take a chance?