Rigging screws' pins

[zoidberg]

The cotter pins on my rigg'screws have various pins - some V-splitpin, some R-pin, and some circular splitpin.

There must be some rationale to this, some 'pros and contras'.

Anyone care to share?

 

[Kelpie]

Maybe it's what was to hand last time the mast was stepped?
They all have pros and cons. Split pins are the most secure, but can damage sails and oilies unless taped up, and the tape kept in good nick.
For the adjustment screws, mousing wire has few drawbacks but is fiddly. Some people use small nuts and bolts, with threadlock. I prefer small cable ties.

 

[merlin3688]

We tend to use splits pins although they do not need bending completely round the clevis pin! It is so much easier if they are just opened up and tape put round them, this will make it so much easier to remove when taking the mast down.
We also see many rigging screws that have split pins in the are completly taped up, this is not good as you cannot see the rigging screw and moisture is held in. If you want to tape up just tape where the pins are.
Hope this helps.

 

[Georgio]

Split rings are handy if you are likely to want to do further or regular tweaking of the rig tensions as they are easier to remove/reuse.

 

[Poignard]

Split rings are handy if you are likely to want to do further or regular tweaking of the rig tensions as they are easier to remove/reuse.

One day I noticed some curved bits of s/s wire lying on the foredeck. Investigation found them to be the remains of the split ring from the clevis pin at the bottom of the forestay!

Since then I have never used anything but split pins to secure the clevis pins in my rigging.

 

[sarabande]

There's a fourth category of clips which can be used to secure the pin in the clevis: lynch pins. Found mainly in agricultureand racing cars for quick removal and access to the clevis pin, they tend to be quite large, and may not be suitable in smaller pin sizes.

https://www.grainger.com/category/lynch-pins/pins/fasteners/ecatalog/N-8m3

But speed and frequency of removal is not what's wanted from the tang/clevis system on a boat. It needs to be capable of 100% fixability UNTIL it is necessary to remove it, whereupon the process may have to contend with cold, lots of green water, an element of pressure, and perhaps the immediate lack of a tool.

Split pins certainly need pliers to straighten the legs before the pin is removed; split rings can be taken off by hand unless they hav ebeen distorted by a flogging sheet; an R clip under load will need pliers or a tail of line to remove it; a lynch pin has a grip built in to it, so no tools.

However, all clips need to be partly covered in some way to prevent a sharp metal edge from turning into a sail shredder or sheet grapple. Completely covering them is daft as you cannot see what is going on, as has been noted above.

Here's aversion of lynch pins that might be useful on board, but perhaps not small enough.
http://innovative-components.knobso...ease-pins-wire-lock-pins-round-wire-lock-pi-2


and some others to see if any improvement can be made on split pins or split rings.

http://innovative-components.knobsource.com/category/all-categories-positive-locking-pins

 

[Pye_End]

One day I noticed some curved bits of s/s wire lying on the foredeck. Investigation found them to be the remains of the split ring from the clevis pin at the bottom of the forestay!

Since then I have never used anything but split pins to secure the clevis pins in my rigging.

Same here. I have been advised by last survey not to use spilt rings for this application, and therefore required to change them by insurance company. Having subsequently found one open on deck I couldn't fault the advise!

 

[Corribee Boy]

I've had the same experience as Parsifal and Pye End, except I didn't see the remains of the pin on the deck: I only knew about it when the cotter left the forestay fitting and I nearly lost the entire rig. A rapid turn downwind and a lot of swearing resulted.

 

[pvb]

I serviced and greased my Furlex this year, in the course of which I was interested to note that there was no split pin in the cotter pin holding the whole thing together! The last time the mast was down was at a well-respected yard on the East Coast, presumably since then it's been relying on tension to keep the cotter pin in place.

 

[zoidberg]

I raised the OP question having peered at a fork-fork rigging screw, on my desk for some reason, which has a circular splitpin through the cotter pin at one fork-end, and an R-clip at t'other.... e.g.

I'm painfully aware that the circular ones catch on bits of me, and/or sails, and/or sheets such that they part-fail, then catch some more. I'm tempted to use all R-pins, all taped up, unless someone dissuades me with logic 'like wot I have not got.'

 

[Kelpie]

If you don't have to be able to remove them easily/often, why not use split pins? It's the most secure option.

 

[davidej]

It is far too easy to accidentally push/ pull these R pins out.

Just imagine kicking it with your toe as you walk past or catching a rope in it.

 

[Flica]

Don't know if split pins are the most secure, I do know that when I had all my standing rigging replaced the riggers used all split pins where I'd had a mix of split pins and rigging wire.
The drawback with split pins is that they have a habit on catching in genoa sheets when the cars are well back.
One thing that was anathema to the rigger was having any cover over turnbuckles - the obvious answer to pin-ends that catch!!

 

[Seajet]

Split pins are the most secure, you only have to bother with them at launch and laying up, so a quickly removable system is not required unless you're shooting bridges on canals or something, when a whole better organised setup is required anyway.

When a git who'd seriously p'd me off left his mast up ashore over winter at the club ( he left years ago ) I was seriously tempted to sprinkle some cut off split pin ends on his deck just under the mast...

 

[zoidberg]

On the basis of experience of having to deal with a mast coming down, in the night, in the Irish Sea, which had been put up by a pro rigger just 3 weeks previously without a top toggle, the challenges of releasing the rigging screws via split pins in the dark, the fragility of circular pins, and the likelihood of wanting to drop/raise the mast now and then, cause me to have decided to go with R-pins throughout.

They will all have short retaining lanyards in 1.5mm stuff.

These all will be over-taped secure.

Crucially, I hope, I will inspect each and all of them every day for damage/changes. As one should.

 

[Kelpie]

I would seriously worry that you're swapping one problem for another.
But if you really are going to inspect every single pin every single day (deck level only, I presume?) then I guess you'll be alright. I'll stick with split pins.

 

[Flica]

On the basis of experience of having to deal with a mast coming down, in the night, in the Irish Sea, which had been put up by a pro rigger just 3 weeks previously without a top toggle, the challenges of releasing the rigging screws via split pins in the dark, the fragility of circular pins, and the likelihood of wanting to drop/raise the mast now and then, cause me to have decided to go with R-pins throughout.

They will all have short retaining lanyards in 1.5mm stuff.

These all will be over-taped secure.

Crucially, I hope, I will inspect each and all of them every day for damage/changes. As one should.

It takes real paranoia to achive true safety (but no rest)!!!
Whatever you use on turnbuckles, I've found the failure has invariably at the top, usually where swage bears on wire, so inspecting @ deck level seems pretty pointless.
However if it make you feel better (as Queeg's handwashing did him) I'm sure your professional advisor will recommend carrying on.

 

[Corribee Boy]

I'd never thought of using R clips on rigging, but I do use them on my excavator bucket pins. If the straight leg snags on something it doesn't have to be pushed far (about half the width of the cotter pin) before the spring effect actually pushes the clip out, and if the crooked leg snags it'll open up and fall out under gravity.

Obviously your taping regime should help prevent this, as will your daily check. However, the failure I mentioned earlier was of a pin in my stemhead fitting which was 100% fine when I dropped my mooring chain, but failed about four hours later.

Mind you, I've never had to release my rig while overboard in the Irish sea, but I do keep croppers handy which I hope and trust will release the split pins.

 

[Daydream believer]

I would not use R pins or lynch pins as they are suceptible to being pulled out by a wayward line.
I use split pins & have lengths of waste pipe threaded onto the shrouds to drop over the bottlescrews. They can be lifted up to check the rigging & a piece of sponge lagging squeezed in the top stops them sliding up too easily

 

[zoidberg]

I appreciate the perspectives from 'db' and 'cb'.

As for frequent inspection, I'm a tad surprised by the inference that others don't do a 'walk around check' on every watch and think it odd that I should. That was very much central to my early offshore training - which preceded the RYA's early 'National Training Syllabus' scheme by a couple of years, and now that electronics take away much of the time-consuming task of navigating, what on earth do those others do with all that time? ......Texting? Selfies....?

I'm now into peering closer than before at deck level gear, because during a recent s/h passage to Baltimore, Co. Cork, I identified in the grey dawn that the mast was moving and slamming more than usual. A reluctant inspection of the forestay's open-body rigging screw showed that one of the 2 small screws which lock the body from rotating had had its head sheared off/mangled by the sharp edge of the open-body screw, by heavy slamming, I supposed. The other was wholly missing, but had been there the previous evening. Consequently, the rigging-screw body rotated little by little under the shock load of repeated slamming into a rather lumpy sea - and was almost completely undone.

Fixing that pro tem required a couple of long-shank pop rivets, bent over, and cost me a fine set of Mole Grips 'deep-sixed' involuntarily.