Low cost conversion to synthetic rigging

[Owly055]

There is an alternative to the conventional hardware that most folks use on synthetic standing rigging that does away with turnbuckles & such.  A method that hearkens back to the days of yore and the tall ships.  Modern hardware can add up to a pretty penny, and this is if anything more reliable, and worth at least a good read.  The foundation of the tension system is the deadeye, and though it takes about an hour to make one, and tensioning is not the effortless process using turn buckles, turnbuckles are expensive and have a limited life span.  This series of 3 articles is dedicated to this system using Dynema, and can potentially save you many thousands of dollars.
https://www.riggingdoctor.com/life-aboard/2015/8/10/synthetic-rigging-conversion
https://www.riggingdoctor.com/life-aboard/2018/3/21/an-alternative-method-to-tensioning-synthetic-standing-rigging
https://www.riggingdoctor.com/life-aboard/2015/9/20/how-to-tension-your-synthetic-standing-rigging-with-deadeyes

Enjoy...........and save!

                                                        H.W.

[Bubba the Pirate]

Interesting article.
I have ZERO experience with synthetics, but I was in a rigging seminar last October with Brion Toss, rigger extraordinaire, his caveat was that synthetics are very high maintenance with regard to keeping tension. He said, if you like fiddling with your rigging you might like synthetics. If you don't, thanstick with stainless wire. Further, there is infrastructure all over the world for SS wire rigging. If you're going far afield, you can't expect expert help everywhere for synthetics

[Owly055]

Interesting article.
I have ZERO experience with synthetics, but I was in a rigging seminar last October with Brion Toss, rigger extraordinaire, his caveat was that synthetics are very high maintenance with regard to keeping tension. He said, if you like fiddling with your rigging you might like synthetics. If you don't, thanstick with stainless wire. Further, there is infrastructure all over the world for SS wire rigging. If you're going far afield, you can't expect expert help everywhere for synthetics

     According to what the author says, and what I've read about Dynema, it will stretch initially, and then not stretch at all until it's worn out.   The procedure is to tighten and leave it a day or two, tighten again, a couple of times, until it stabilizes.    I don't see this as being high maintenance, or excessive fiddling.    Stainless steel rigging and hardware are subject to sudden catastrophic failure due to crevice corrosion.   In many cases dismastings involve failed components that looked perfect when examined last.   The solution is preventative replacement of what appear to be perfectly good parts, because you cannot predict failure.

     I would suggest reading more widely than just the words of one expert.  The field is full of experts, and they often have different opinions.  Crevice corrosion is a common problem with stainless steel.  It is not the miracle material many people think it is.  Crevice corrosion by nature occurs where you can't see it.  Rather than providing links, I suggest that you google Stainless Steel Crevice Corrosion, and also perhaps read the series of articles I posted links to rather than simply dismissing dynema rigging as being fiddly and unreliable without digging deeper.

                                                                         H.W.

[Bubba the Pirate]

I agree, and am aware of crevice corrosion. A good part of the same seminar dealt with stainless and it's problems. In what I have read in many sources, and my experience in the plastics industry, tensioning Dyneema is not as simple as that. "A couple of times" is a gross mistatement. "Creep" is a physical property of plastics that Dyneema, Amsteel, etc are not immune to.

I am going with stainless rigging because of cost. It will be fine for several years and then I'll replace it. My next big project is standing rigging. The mast will come down soon and all components inspected, many replaced, wire rope replaced, chainplates replaced, and half rotten home-built bowsprit and boomkin replaced.

PS: Brion Toss is a world renown rigging expert, author of The Riggers Apprentice boom and hundreds of articles, and consultant to America's Cup and Volvo Ocean teams as well as tall ships. Also, often an expert witness in court regarding rigging. A bona fide source with impeccable credentials. If many experts have different opinions, most of them are wrong. This is science and engineering, not opinion dependent.

[Norman]

I am surprised that the subject of solar degradation has not come up here.  Particularly in the southern climates, and summertime up here in the north, exposure to the sun ruins running rigging, even on lightly used boats. 

I was given a small sailboat that had set outdoors for 4 years, and all the running cordage was falling apart.  The anchor rode, below deck was fine, as were the dock lines.

I have a 75 foot 1/4 inch 3 strand nylon that I bought in 1959, smooth and sound, stored indoors when not in use.

My 10 year old 1/2 inch nylon halyards, always on the mast, are shedding quantities of brittle bits of strands as the halyards turn on blocks, and even more at the winch.

Since the Rays from the sun penetrate into the plastics, this failure is happening invisibly, which explains why the running rigging from that free boat looked fairly good, but pulled apart easily.  The boat was a 16 footer, and running rigging was 1/4 inch braided white Dacron.

I replace my nylon clothes line when it breaks, about every 10 years.   My grandmother's cotton clothes line lasted much longer, but, she took it down as soon as the last garment came off, the rolled up line came in with the clothes, resulting in about 52 days a year of exposure.   Mine gets 7 times as much per year.

The stainless standing rigging on the 16 footer was subjected to repeated tests by rolling the boat over 90 degrees with the centerboard extended, to do maintainance on the CB.  The masthead was tied to a fence, while barnacles were vigorously scraped off, followed by sanding and painting.  That far exceeded the maximum wind load that was possible.

I suspect that crevice corrosion progresses at a slower rate than solar destruction of plastic.

As Bubba points out, plastic continues to slowly stretch over time, and standing rigging would be an ongoing neusence to keep properly tensioned.  My nylon clothes line requires retensioning periodically for over a year after replacement, which is annoying.  Actually, my wife would like it tightened again, and it has been more than a year since it was replaced.

If I were just a bit smarter, I would have bought galvanized steel wire, but one end is attached to a tree in the yard behind us, and it has changed owners many times, so I never know when we will be told to get it off the tree.  Nylon stretches as the tree grows, and the loop is loose, wire would strangle and kill th limb we tie to.

[CharlieJ]

same with me

[rorik]

Not to throw fuel on the fire, but take a look at Samson Rope's Product Guide/User Manual, pages 14 - 16. Specifically the right side of the graph on page 14 and footnote 6 on page 16 which defines "creep" as "a material's slow deformation that occurs while under load over a long period of time. Creep is mostly non-reversible. For some synthetic ropes, permanent elongation and creep are mistaken for the same property and used interchangeably when in fact creep is only one of the mechanisms that can cause permanent elongation.".

[CapnK]

Regarding UV and synthetics, from th elatest I have been able to find it seems that people are seeing similar lifespans to the recommended stainless lifespan in the tropics - ie; 5-10 years before renewing. Theory is that the outside layer degrades and forms a barrier against UV that protects the inner (like aluminum oxide does on a spar), and because synthetic for diameter is so much stronger, the inner is all that is needed to stay within rig design parameters. That it weighs so much less and can be of a smaller diameter for strength is its main bonus - along with perhaps that spares stow easier. :)

I met a couple this year who had just completed the NW Passage on their 52' Herreshoff (or however you spell it ;) ), the 30th US Flagged vessel to have ever done so. Part of their rig was done with synthetics, and he was pleased with performance etc...

interesting to see that Toss might be backing off a bit on his stance WRT synthetics, seems I remember a quote from him when they first were out that the use of stainless wire would be seen in the future as a sort of anomaly in the history of rigging, a time between the use of old school cordage and the emergence of synthetics. Maybe he isn't quite so sure of that now?

He also pointed out in the Apprentice that a rig done with galvanized wire, properly wormed, parceled, served, and then most importantly, maintained, would outlast the length of nearly any one owner. But its a lot of maintenance. :)

TANSTAAFL, dang it. :)

[Owly055]

Personally I'm an advocate of no standing rigging at all................  A free standing mast eliminates dozens of components, any of which can fail and bring the mast down....  But it's pretty clear that I'm in the minority on that   ;-)  Unfortunately the poorly engineered and built masts on the Freedom series have not helped the case.

                                                                                             H.W.

[w00dy]

I had some 9mm dyneema laying around the boat. Our boat came with it and it was rigged up as part of our self steering windvane system. Unfortunately, it was too slippery and would often come out of the cam cleats I have mounted on the tiller. It sat in a locker for years.



Recently, I picked up some tree climbing gear and started playing around with different climbing systems using friction hitches. I pulled out that old dyneema and put some long bury eye splices in. It will serve as a prusik cord, which can be used for tree climbing as well as going up a mast!

It's quite easy work with, because the core is hollow and it's so slippery and malleable. Some whippings and lock stitches keep the splice from un burying it self when not under load.

It turned out nicely I think. I love it when old junk laying around becomes useful again!