JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
OK, having thought about it, here's why I wouldn't replace ... yet ...
(1) The wire doesn't look badly damaged, and the fact that the strands have popped back into place strongly suggests that no irreversible (ie plastic) deformation has happened.
(2) 7mm wire is bloody strong stuff. Ultimate strength is about 3.5 tonnes compared to 2.9 tonnes for the 6mm it replaced, so even if some damage has happened the wire can lose 20% of its strength and still be as strong as what was there.
(3) The mast is still up! Since all sailing, by definition, pushes the top of the mast forwards, the loads on the forestay don't increase nearly as much as the forces on the other stays ... if they do at all. Obviously there is a load top and bottom as the jib pushes the furler forward and the furler pushes the stay forward, but that will be at least partially offset by the main pushing the whole mast forward. This is fairly speculative and I am happy to be corrected with real numbers.
(4) There is a backup. Unlike any of the other stays, the jib halyard shares the forestay loads. Even if the forestay were to go bing! the halyard would still be there to hold the mast up.
(5) Nobody can do reliable non-destructive testing of stays, certainly not without measurements taken before The Incident. Inspection is pointless, so the only realist choices are carry on or replace.
(6) Or maybe just replace that end, but then you are betting that an amateur Sta-Lok will be stronger than a professional swage which has had the same amount of un-ravelling and re-ravelling (does that word exist?). I found fitting a 6mm Sta-Lok to be an absolute pain because the slot in the cones was much wider than the strands, and it took me four goes at assembly before I was reasonably confident that a strand hadn't fallen down a slot and mucked the whole thing up.
In the circumstances I would therefore keep on with the existing forestay but make every possible effort to find out why The Incident happened and stop it happening again. One thought: is 7mm wire perhaps too thick and causing the furler bearings to bind if they were designed for 6mm? If that's a possibility I woul dorder a 6mm replacement pronto.
This is all a personal view and I fully accept that others might decide differently.
(1) The wire doesn't look badly damaged, and the fact that the strands have popped back into place strongly suggests that no irreversible (ie plastic) deformation has happened.
(2) 7mm wire is bloody strong stuff. Ultimate strength is about 3.5 tonnes compared to 2.9 tonnes for the 6mm it replaced, so even if some damage has happened the wire can lose 20% of its strength and still be as strong as what was there.
(3) The mast is still up! Since all sailing, by definition, pushes the top of the mast forwards, the loads on the forestay don't increase nearly as much as the forces on the other stays ... if they do at all. Obviously there is a load top and bottom as the jib pushes the furler forward and the furler pushes the stay forward, but that will be at least partially offset by the main pushing the whole mast forward. This is fairly speculative and I am happy to be corrected with real numbers.
(4) There is a backup. Unlike any of the other stays, the jib halyard shares the forestay loads. Even if the forestay were to go bing! the halyard would still be there to hold the mast up.
(5) Nobody can do reliable non-destructive testing of stays, certainly not without measurements taken before The Incident. Inspection is pointless, so the only realist choices are carry on or replace.
(6) Or maybe just replace that end, but then you are betting that an amateur Sta-Lok will be stronger than a professional swage which has had the same amount of un-ravelling and re-ravelling (does that word exist?). I found fitting a 6mm Sta-Lok to be an absolute pain because the slot in the cones was much wider than the strands, and it took me four goes at assembly before I was reasonably confident that a strand hadn't fallen down a slot and mucked the whole thing up.
In the circumstances I would therefore keep on with the existing forestay but make every possible effort to find out why The Incident happened and stop it happening again. One thought: is 7mm wire perhaps too thick and causing the furler bearings to bind if they were designed for 6mm? If that's a possibility I woul dorder a 6mm replacement pronto.
This is all a personal view and I fully accept that others might decide differently.
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