Rig Refurbishment

[pelorus32]

I thought there might be some interest in a recent re-rig - including some hard numbers.

After having been unwell and therefore neglectful for the last 4 years it was time for a rig refurbishment on Zuline our Lyle Hess Itchen Ferry.

The mast varnish was in a pretty sorry state, the mast needed some minor repairs and the bobstay, whisker stays and boomkin stays all needed replacement due to corrosion. The rig was hand spliced galvanised and was originally sized I think using the "for goodness sake don't make it too small" rule. It was heavy.

We pulled the mast on 16 December and as these things have a habit of doing the job grew and grew. Firstly we could find nobody in Melbourne to splice the near water stays in stainless - or anything else. Then the work on the mast grew and we decided to go right back to a bare mast and repair some minor problems as well.

Meanwhile we searched for somebody to splice the stays. Eventually I decided I'd have to search in Sydney and ended up talking to a regular from this board, Joe Henderson. We decided to spec the near water stays in Dyneema.

Then as we looked further it became apparent that the rest of the rigging has some issues. We sent it to Joe who very candidly said to us that with some work - a clean up and parcelled and served overall it would do a few more years. We discussed it and my better half said "I'm not doing this again anytime soon, let's bite the bullet and do the job right". So we got Joe to price the options and ultimately opted for a complete Dyneema rig.

We dressed and stepped the mast on Tuesday - after repairs, sanding, 12 coats of varnish from my better half and return of the hardware. We gave the rig a static tune on Wednesday.

So here are the hard facts:

• The rig is heat set Dyneema from Marlow with a Dyneema overbraid
• Joe ran the loads on all elements and sized the rig accordingly, from 8mm plus overbraid for the inner forestay through to 13mm plus overbraid for the bobstay
• 9 kg of near water stays came off and 3 kg went back on; 52 kg of above deck stays came off and 13 kg went back on. That includes new aluminium bronze thimbles which we had CNC machined to files from Joe
• Total weight saving 45 kg or 73%

Pictures to come

Now for the rest of the boat and bright work...