It is time
Hi Brian,
Just spoke with Brooks Jones tonight. For those of you who may not know, he is the remarkable man behind Sailing Services in Miami. Anyway, he also brought up the idea of some form of standards, and not for the first time. The topic also came up a couple of weeks ago, when we had some Disneyland riggers here for a splicing workshop. In fact, it pretty much always comes up any time I talk with people who care about this art, and are sick, literally sometimes, at the unfortunate excuses for rigging that we too often see.
Yes, we are only individuals, with our own preferences and prejudices, but we are also the people doing the work, and often redoing it when clients come in with rigs that were done badly elsewhere. If we are paying attention at all, we know what works, and why. If our opinions don't hold water, it will be easy enough for someone to demonstrate this. I say go into this with the idea of setting the standards at a level that many will perceive as unreasonably high; if we start getting squawks about it, we will know we are on the right track.
So let us begin. I don't know where we could begin depositing ideas, but perhaps someone out there can help us. Perhaps we need a Wiki-type setup, where those acknowledged as editors could sort and refine the details. Brooks, long ago, suggested that things could be as simple -- and as crucial -- as the ability to read a tape measure and a caliper gauge. I would add that one should be able to read a metric as well as a rational tape, and know how to convert from one to the other, at least with a calculator, but perhaps with a formula as well. And the gauge reading would involve the use of a Vernier scale, as well as dial and digital. Starting there, we could have a whole section just on measuring. It could also include how to calculate stretch and strength from a variety of materials and lengths.
A natural segue could be to getting the relative sizes and strengths of components, with the ability to track everything back to the righting moment of the vessel. These are not matters of specialized math, but rather of simple arithmetic, for the most part.
Some notion of the nature of rig design would seem essential. Again, I am not talking about elaborate engineering, and not just because I am relatively clueless on the subject. But I personally love it when engineers tell me that I comprehend enough of their subject to meet their standards at putting together a sensible rig, and by extension to know when I should be calling in the big guns. So any evaluation of a rigger should, if at all possible, include proof that they know their limits.
On the handwork side, we need destruction tests done for everyone who claims to know how to splice or to assemble terminals. We need candidates to have mastered -- really mastered -- a basic knot vocabulary, and be able to prove it under pressure, which is to say in a timed event. We need people who can put a reasonable tune onto at least the basic conventional rigs, and to understand what they are doing. We need people who can assemble furlers properly, service winches, drill and tap, set rivets, etc.
So how about it, are we ready to stand up and tell the larger world that high standards are a good idea? Are we ready to have a structure that rewards participants with a certificate that they can hang on the wall, like most good mechanics, so that clients will have at least a better chance with the person they entrust their rigging to?
Let me just add that I am promoting this idea with a profound appreciation for my own faults, and a vivid memory of my own less-than-intelligent work in the past. I don't expect to become infallible; I just know that, to the extent that I have happy clients, it is because to some extent I have managed to work to good standards. Codifying standards that "good riggers", however we choose to define that term, can subscribe to is a high priority.
Any notions?
Fair leads,
Brion Toss
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