Rigging Cutters

[DJE]

Link doesn't work for me.

Sorry. Now corrected.

 

[KompetentKrew]

Dont they make a pyrotechnic one?

Something like that hydraulic captured chisel and anvil, only driven by say a shotgun cartridge ought to be fairly effective as an emergency device, and nail guns exist even in the Yook.

Or did I watch Flight of The Pheonix too many times as a yoof?

Toolova Shootit - I don't think they make them anymore but you can pick them up affordably secondhand, sometimes even crazy cheap, if you're patient.

Emergency Rigging Cutters - Practical Sailor

Uses Hilti caliber 6.8 / 18M cartridges, part number 50604/8.

The cartridges are prone to corrosion in a saltwater environment.

 

[ducked]

Toolova Shootit - I don't think they make them anymore but you can pick them up affordably secondhand, sometimes even crazy cheap, if you're patient.

Emergency Rigging Cutters - Practical Sailor

Uses Hilti caliber 6.8 / 18M cartridges, part number 50604/8.

The cartridges are prone to corrosion in a saltwater environment.

One could perhaps wax the cartridges.
But, cool though that gizmo is, if I had deadeyes with reasonably non-exotic lanyards, I'd expect they could be cut with a knife.

 

[seeSimon]

I always struggle to imagine myself on deck with an electric angle grinder (battery or otherwise) in a scenario where I am likely to have lost my mast...but do appreciate that this is not always on a dark n stormy Atlantic passage.

 

[seeSimon]

One could perhaps wax the cartridges.

But not with either pork or beef fat...not if you may have any crew of certain religious dispositions onboard. The Brits tried similar in around 1857, and it didn't go well...

 

[ducked]

But not with either pork or beef fat...not if you may have any crew of certain religious dispositions onboard. The Brits tried similar in around 1857, and it didn't go well...

That'd be grease, not wax.

But bees really ought to be sacred to somebody, I mean, If Not, WHY NOT? stylee.

Mayans, Mycenaeans and Minoans, apparently, so still plently of choice for crew.

• In Mycenaean Greek and Minoan myth,

 

[Daverw]

I always struggle to imagine myself on deck with an electric angle grinder (battery or otherwise) in a scenario where I am likely to have lost my mast...but do appreciate that this is not always on a dark n stormy Atlantic passage.

A lot is about familiarity with using the more modern hand grinders, very light weight and with auto stop braking, many on here like myself will have spent many hours using hand grinders whilst working whist hanging off ladders and scaffolding and using them one handed. Very different though with the big disc grinders.

 

[justanothersailboat]

Someone mentioned rebar cutters. I accidentally ended up with a spare one of the Chinese ebay hydraulic rebar cutters, £20 at the time. Experimented on a bit of scrapped stainless rigging wire the same size as my boat has. It very nearly cut right through and the last surviving strands were flattened so thin they broke just by wiggling them a bit. I suspect this was rather hard on the jaws compared to rebar but it doesn't need to work very many times. So, I've left it on the boat just in case - and it'd be the first thing I'd try if I had to cut rigging. I have small and large hacksaws, but this was faster and easier and freed up money for other safety improvements.

 

[ducked]

YM tested various options. The hacksaw did pretty well.

I dunno if they specify, but I'd think biflex blades (Sandvik but probably othet manufacturers too) would be a better choice than the standard blades. More expensive but much less brittle so you are less likely to break them in challenging conditions.

A bonus for me, in ordinary use, was that if/when I did eventually break them anyway, I could make jigsaw blades (which were expensive) from the bits by cutting a tang from the softer backing steel. Standard all hardened steel blades I couldn't do this.