Keeping the sticks up
One of the bigger boat improvements that we’re undertaking is having the standing rigging replaced. For those not familiar with the term standing rigging, it is the wires/cables or rods, referred to on a boat as stays and shrouds, that hold up the mast(s).
During the pre-purchase survey it was noted that some (many) of the standing rigging pieces were old and tired, and thus should be replaced. As soon as we arrived in Grenada we scheduled an actual rigging survey with Turbulence, the local riggers, and they confirmed that, and gave us a quote to replace it. With carnival just about to start though, we put the job off until later, later being today. We’ll see how long the job takes. There’s a lot of standing rigging on a ketch like ours!
On our SM2k, one of the long horizontal pins that holds one of the spreaders to the mast was found cracked. Huge unexpected surprise to everyone involved when we replaced the standing r. Check those out; undetected, it could have caused a bad day/month/year to us!
There’s a special fitting between the bow and the lower part of the forestay. Looks like a downward-pointing triangle. Available from a few people or companies who make it around the world and known to people who have worked with Amel before. Replace.
Forestay furler motor needs to be lashed both starboard and port to the stainless lifeline rail tubing, to avoid the furler’s torque from turning the buckle.
Booms should be perfectly horizontal when boat is at mooring.
In general the stays all around should be a bit tighter than in most boats, it seems. Huge exception: the aft stays should be pretty loose when boat moored, so loose that one is like, um, did someone forget something? Riggers who have done Amels before know this.
Unlike most boats out there, the furler aluminium extrusion is one single manufactured piece (over 60 ft long) and… it has no bearings inside. There’s just some rims or shims at the bottom and at the top, designed to slowly abrade across many years, and the forestay cable needs be thickly greased once every 5 years. Simple: take entire forestay assembly to dock. Pull out forestay cable, clean old, gritty grease along entire length of cable (if any left). Reinsert forestay cable, greasing as much as you can.
Cheerio,
Hi FM
Thanks for that. Our boat is pre-electric furling, and our headsail furler is non-standard, I believe.
We also detected some issues with the spreader pins. That will be fixed too.
If your’re going to replace the rigging, consider pulling the masts too. I just went through the same exercise here in Panama. I was concerned about corrosion at the bottom of the aluminum mast where it rests on a stainless steel plate on top of the keel. It was corroded enough that when the mast was pulled, the aluminum plate at the bottom of the mast stayed with the boat, ripping out a couple of bolts that held it to the mast. Some work with a crowbar, liberal amounts of penetrating oil and curses got it free. It cleaned up well, and I put a thin sheet of rubber between the stainless plate and mast foot to prevent future electrolytic corrosion. That was my main reason for pulling the mast, but I was glad I did for other reasons once I did. After 17 years, every SS to aluminum fastener was corroded and a lot of work to free up or drill out. Doing that work from a bosun’s chair would have been a nightmare. Liberal amounts of Tef-Gel were used for reassembly, which I highly recommend.
While no doubt a good idea, the job is already underway. The sticks are staying up for now.