Filling Horizontal LP tanks and what about the standing rigging

[calgryphon]

About 5 years ago I had some pressing issues that caused me to have to haul my boat and she's been sitting in the yard ever since. Finaly have my life back and plan or relaunching in the spring. Meantime I'm going over everything to make sure all systems are working properly. Anyway, to the subject. I don't recall if horizontal propane tanks are filled sitting horizontaly or standing up. Also, I'm wondering about my standing rigging. I replaced everything with new about 8 years ago. Only had about 3 years on the water before she was hauled. Now even though she sat in the yard with her mast up there could not have been much stress on the rigging and of course she was not taking any spray. Naturally though, being so close to the ocean the air is salty. I'm thinking though that as long as everything passes a close inspection the standing rigging should be fine. I've never left my boat sitting like that though so I'm just not sure.

[klubko]

calgryphon,
if yours are the Worthington aluminium cylinders, then they are filled standing upright (this is true at least for the new ones, but it should be the same).
As for the rigging, if you don't know yourself, have it inspected. Rot, fatigue, cracks, dents in the wire can be detected by eye (and magnifying glass). If you have mechanical terminals you can unscrew them, inspect and put them back together with new wedge. Swages have to be X-rayed to see inside.
If you are heading offshore away from help, it might be prudent to change the rigging (or at least have it inspected), but if you are in sheltered waters or just daysailing or generally taking it easy near shore where you would seek shelter before anything bad hits you, it might be safe to use these for a while.
Also check the chainplates if your boat is old and they haven't been changed last time.

[sailingdog]

Run a piece of gauze or pantyhose over the wire rigging. Any hooks or breaks in the wire will snag the material. If there are any snags, then you will probably want to replace the rigging. Visual inspection for rust, especially if you're using penetrating dye, is a good idea.

Also, make sure your tanks have OPD valves fitted.

[calgryphon]

Don't need an OPD valve with horizontal tanks. I will check for meathooks in the wire but not expecting to find any. My biggest concern is that since I wasn't around to do any maintainance that there may be corrosion inside the lower swage fittings. The lower ones are more likely to form corrosion because water can wick down inside the fitting. I've decided that what I'm going to do is to replace all the lower swage fittings with the extra length Sta-lok fittings. These are designed for pretty much exactly this reason and doing them one at a time I won't have to drop the mast. Nothing in my standing rigging is more than 8 years old. The chainplates are new and 50% thicker than the originals as are the masthead tangs. I also went up two wire sizes and went from 3/8" turnbuckles to 1/2".

[klubko]

Actually the OPD valve can be a pain in the posterior when travelling. It took us a while before we found a fitting that allowed filling via the normal US fittings. And some gas stations in Asia (in case you're planning to go this way) wouldn't fill the tanks (most notably in Hong Kong, where they wouldn't fill anything unless it's HK certified).
I just hate the swages since you can't see what's happening inside. But for a comparison: our boat had swages all around, almost 15 years old, some bananas, some even micro cracks and it held OK. Problem is that you just don't know when it fails. The oversized wire, I would probably keep, if you check for the obvious problems.
I didn't know about he extra long Sta-loks (we have regular ones as we were changing also the wire). I would also pay attention that you have everything well toggled, particularly where the long Sta-loks will be.