Rigger wants to use crane for rig inspection

I couldn't get a rigger to go up my mast when it was ashore last winter. They were happy to do it afloat in a marina. This seems to be the norm now because they were willing to shin up masts in our yard in previous years. I think it is to do with the stability of cradles especially if they haven't been set up by the riggers themselves.
 
thanks to all for comments so far, some questions and assumptions made by other posters so I’ll try and answer them

- as mentioned standing rigging replaced last year,
- I have retensioned shrouds but I am reasonably inexperienced at this as would appreciate a professional to get it right -
- forestay is too loose and I have tightened the backstay as much as I dare as a novice, as I have introduced more mast bend than I had before
- there doesn’t appear to be a turnbuckle at the base of the forestay
- new forestay was different to original as I had them fit a toggle to raise the furler slightly to allow my new anchor to launch and recover without fouling it..
- boat will be in the water

I had assumed the rig tensioning and tuning would be done at deck level, he has flagged up the forestay may need to be done at the mast head

I had assumed he would go up the mast if necessary in a harness. A check over at the masthead by an experienced rigger seemed not a bad ancillary benefit before a crane as mentioned

The post By someone else this morning encountering the same issue on employee insurance grounds suggests this may be starting to be the ‘new normal’ ?
 
Couple of extra questions
Is your rig discontinuous?
Are your spreaders swept?
And, are you content that the new (adjusted) forestay length was correct?

If, No, Yes and Yes Your backstay will help in setting up but is not the primary way to tension the forestay, but the question remains - What will be the purpose in going to the top of the mast?
 
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Quandary said:
Couple of extra questions
Is your rig discontinuous?
Are your spreaders swept?
And, are you content that the new (adjusted) forestay length was correct?

If, No, Yes and Yes Your backstay will help in setting up but is not the primary way to tension the forestay, but the question remains - What will be the purpose in going to the top of the mast?
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No Yes and I don’t know, ..I initially assumed so, it was a well regarded rigging company who did the re-rig ...., but I am suspicious it may be a bit too long, see my comment about adding a toggle, and hence my issue with getting it tensioned correctly ...

if the re-rig company were local I’d taken the boat back to them but it’s Plymouth, which is a bit of a trek from here, especially at this time of year.
 
It's really not that difficult to do yourself. There's a good guide here:-

http://www.seldenmast.com/files/595-540-E.pdf

Get yourself a two-metre folding ruler and a vernier caliper to measure the tension (see page 32). Somewhere in there it says that it is virtually impossible to over-tension rigging with normal hand tools. I certainly found it very hard work getting my backstay to 15% of breaking load.
 
Bathdave said:
The post By someone else this morning encountering the same issue on employee insurance grounds suggests this may be starting to be the ‘new normal’ ?
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If true these people will surely go out of business and deservedly so. If people were prepared to pay £396 for this service why was that not the standard charge before this H&S nonsense was introduced to muddy the waters. What does a tree surgeon do in a forest? Heli-lift a crane in? In this instance HASAWA requires 'reasonably practicable' measures to mitigate risk i.e, measures which balance cost against benefit. No judge in the land would consider a 5 fold increase in cost as a reasonably practicable measure, especially as there is little evidence to support being hoisted by a crane as safer than traditional methods.
 
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What I do
Use a halyard to each side to check that the mast is centred.
Look up mast to see if it is straight
Hang a bucket of water on the main halyard to check for rake, about a foot on a 12m mast is a starting point, if already more you may need to remove the toggle you added.
Pull the backstay on really hard to create some prebend, if your sails are dacron this is increased as they age, check it using the tightened main halyard as a straight edge, tighten the uppers evenly to a point where it takes a really heavy tug to move them toward each other.
Let off the backstay, tighten the lowers to remove about half the pre-bend, they should be really rigid, more than the uppers.
That is your starting point, took you less than an hour.
Nice day, go for a sail, about 10-18 kts, put her on a beat, leeward shrouds will be slack, take slack out, tack, apply same number of turns on the other side. Check that lowers are still hard and that you still have some pre-bend. Job done. Go ashore, nice meal a few drinks and still got cash in your pocket.
But if you intend to race you need to experiment further with rake and pre bend to suit your sails, if you yacht is a type that is commonly raced these dimensions will be known in the class, but you can vary them to suit your helming style.
 
Quandary said:
Nice day, go for a sail, about 10-18 kts, put her on a beat, leeward shrouds will be slack, take slack out, tack, apply same number of turns on the other side. Check that lowers are still hard and that you still have some pre-bend.
Click to expand...

DO NOT DO THIS. On some boats you'll rip out the chainplates.
 
Quandary said:
What I do
Use a halyard to each side to check that the mast is centred.
Look up mast to see if it is straight
Hang a bucket of water on the main halyard to check for rake, about a foot on a 12m mast is a starting point, if already more you may need to remove the toggle you added.
Pull the backstay on really hard to create some prebend, if your sails are dacron this is increased as they age, check it using the tightened main halyard as a straight edge, tighten the uppers evenly to a point where it takes a really heavy tug to move them toward each other.
Let off the backstay, tighten the lowers to remove about half the pre-bend, they should be really rigid, more than the uppers.
That is your starting point, took you less than an hour.
Nice day, go for a sail, about 10-18 kts, put her on a beat, leeward shrouds will be slack, take slack out, tack, apply same number of turns on the other side. Check that lowers are still hard and that you still have some pre-bend. Job done. Go ashore, nice meal a few drinks and still got cash in your pocket.
But if you intend to race you need to experiment further with rake and pre bend to suit your sails, if you yacht is a type that is commonly raced these dimensions will be known in the class, but you can vary them to suit your helming style.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't recommend this as a solution on my wooden, deck mounted wooden masted Folkboat, it would damage the boat I feel.
If I'm wrong, then so be it, but on my boat the shrouds, backstay and forestay are set up to be fore & aft vertical, with 'some' rake', and put under hand tension all round. Under sail, the leeward shroud is always slack, with no harm coming to us in 1000's of miles of sailing around Scotland.
I do appreciate that a wooden mast, deck mounted on a wooden boat is rare these days, and this might be different from an AWB.
 
Quandary said:
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Nice day, go for a sail, about 10-18 kts, put her on a beat, leeward shrouds will be slack, take slack out, tack, apply same number of turns on the other side. Check that lowers are still hard and that you still have some pre-bend. Job done. Go ashore, nice meal a few drinks and still got cash in your pocket.....
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....making sure to make that a McDonalds meal deal using the remainder as a down payment on future rectification work ;) :rolleyes:

Seriously:

1. Are we talking fractional or old masthead rig here? Flappy stays on a fractional rig in 10-18kts of wind is an indication of poor initial set-up, possibly poor enough to break the mast in a bit of wind.

2. Pre-tensioning is a precise process with specific loads and it must be accurately followed. Masthead rigs and the existence of lower(s) are slightly different animals.

3. If rig is a discontinuous 2 or 3 spreader setup, or something like a B&R rig I would strongly recommend asking a pro.

4. How much pre-tension did boat and mast manufacturers envisage?

5. Does the vessel have runners?
​

And so on....
 
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anoccasionalyachtsman said:
DO NOT DO THIS. On some boats you'll rip out the chainplates.
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On many modern boats including mine you really won't find much obvious difference in shroud tension between windward and leeward side when beating:. If the hull is as stiff as
it should be it should be possible to set up the rig and leave it there. Also minimal difference between ashore and afloat.

My Jeanneau rig was replaced 2 years ago, riggers said to call them after a few weeks sailing and they'd retension it. I didn't feel the need to, and when they came back this year to go up the mast to sort out a furler problem they were happy that it was still fine. By the way, avoid Facnor furlers!

It does get a good look over at the masthead by ordinary human eyes every year. Whoever does it goes up with a packet of wet wipes as well to clean everything especially the undersides of the spreaders and the radar reflector that go green!
 
anoccasionalyachtsman said:
DO NOT DO THIS. On some boats you'll rip out the chainplates.
Click to expand...

If I was worried about ripping out the chain plates on my last 2 boats (both wooden) I would not have gone to sea in them. If I had slack shrouds to leeward & I let the boom out so the mainsail flogged hard on my current boat, the mast would invert.

My shrouds are set fairly hard (25% on a loos gauge). That is about as hard as I can reasonably go with spanners & bar. 7/8 rig.I have been thinking about another 2%.

If the OP has been told that his fore stay need adjusting from the top, then I would assume that it means taking a link out. I cannot recall ever seeing a shroud with the bottlescrew at the top (except on discontinuous ones). That means disconnecting the shroud. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to be hanging off the halyard with the fore stay disconnected.
 
Is this issue with riggers and H&S more about their insurance conditions rather than their willingness?
 
Quiddle said:
No judge in the land would consider a 5 fold increase in cost as a reasonably practicable measure, especially as there is little evidence to support being hoisted by a crane as safer than traditional methods.
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Sorry. But you are totally wrong.Try standing in front of a coroner with a silly grin on your face & telling him that a bloke was killed because you would not spend an extra £300-00. Falls from heights are common in many industries, not just on boats.

Accidents do happen with halyards. I have had one, when a bosuns chair broke & nearly had another avoided by shear luck. I know of a chap who fell 10 metres from his mast onto the boom below. I know of a rigger who accidentally cut the halyard he was hanging from when drilling holes for a radar bracket. He had been a rigger most of his life.

Accidents happen with all sorts of gear. It is all down to proper planning & I know that I would feel safer hanging from a crane. I have been up buildings of up to17 storeys in cradles, cherry pickers, cat ladders & cranes.
 
We look forward to the first ascent of the Eiger by fork lift truck.

More seriously, as someone said, if the first bloke does not want the work, move on.
 
I did say 'some' boats. If the rig's been correctly tensioned and then has slack leeward shrouds then the boat must be changing shape. Adding more tension will eventually do damage.

I know of one late 1980s cruiser/racer that had a chainplate torn loose. Its owner had done exactly what Quandary was proposing (ad almost infinitum). A warranty claim was made, but in court it was accepted that because the builder had been able to lift an identical boat up using a crane on just one chainplate without damage then the boat was not at fault.
 
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