Reusing rigging wire

[chamac]

Correct Bilgediver. In my case, if I ordered new wires with swagings, theses would have to be imported. The supplier would have to uncoil the wire, swage and recoil it for shipping. I would have to uncoil them to fit them to the boat. So three flexing. My boat used 10mm wire so cost and shipping are a factor. My theory is that using the existing wires would be less risky than using over flexed and fatigued new ones. When did you ever see a stay wire breaking along its length. It's always at a swagings or bend. My rigging never failed in it's 29 years of use. 15 of those sailing hard on the west coast of Ireland.

 

[The Q]

I have used old rigging though on a smaller scale, rigging for a 17ft sailing boat..
I was somewhat short of money at the time.

I do have a 16 ton hydraulic crimping tool, and will be making up new stays with all new components this winter for the current boat.

 

[chamac]

I sold my 12 meter two years ago and went to the dark side.
Bought a Merry Fisher 805 for my retirement.
I do miss sailing my own boat but losing the mast and keel certainly makes life simpler
for a lad pushing on a bit in life.

 

[Ian_Edwards]

Trying to get back to the original question, perhaps.
First up, why I think I'm at partly qualified to venture a view on the question.
Now age 77, honors graduate in physics, originally specializing subatomic physics. By various serendipitous routes I found my self work for a large North Sea Offshore service company in research and development. Eventually managing a large portfolio of R&D projects, mainly in subsea application.
I usually describe my self as knowing a little bit about a lot of things, but not knowing how to do anything.
My first memories of sailing was age 4, with my father in a GP14 on a local reservoir. I've owned a sailing boat since the age of 9.
I know a bit about S/N curves, ductile deformation, think reeling pipe onto a large barge, then straighten it and laying it on the seabed, or an S lay, or J lay in deep water, or the chaotic motion of slack wire.
It seems to me that you simple can't answer this naïve question with out knowing a lot more about the construction and service history of the rig, there are too many known unknowns. No one takes enough data to provide an answer. I'll caveat that, we once fully instrumented the tow of of a riser bundle from Ardersier to the rig including installation, to satisfy the client and the insurance company that we hadn't used up all the fatigue life. But that's a different life and domain. Just to say it is possible, but expensive and very unlikely to have happened.
At one extreme, the wire and terminations could be close to there fatigue limit, and close to failure, at the other end, the boat could have been laid up for most of the year with the mast down, and just launched for the summer holidays, in which case it will probably last for many years. The same argument is true for the the wire and the terminations.
If the wire has failed through fatigue, then it would be prudent to throw the whole lot in the skip
But the crux is the you just don't know. If you are confident of the history of the rig and are short of funds you might take the risk, but don't expect the insurance companies to take the same view. They will most likely apply some arbitrary simple rule, replace after n years. Their motivation is to reduce their risk but not your expense.
So I wouldn't say don't re-use wire, but if you are thinking about it, do you home work, make a realistic assessment, and don't expect an insurance company to agree with you.
Personally I'd bin the lot, but the decision and responsibility that come with is your risk.

 

[Stemar]

So I wouldn't say don't re-use wire, but if you are thinking about it, do you home work, make a realistic assessment, and don't expect an insurance company to agree with you.
Personally I'd bin the lot, but the decision and responsibility that come with is your risk.

The standing rigging on Jazzcat was the original from 1984 when I bought her in 2021. The mast hadn't fallen down, and everything looked fine, but I didn't put the sails up until it had been changed.

New rigging isn't cheap, but it's a helluva lot cheaper than being dismasted, which would turn a nice tidy boat a few years old into a write-off