Surveyor endangers mast

[jonjo]

I have encountered a downside of the current marine industry vogue for condemning standing rigging after 10 years without engaging brain cells.

Having paid for a full condition survey from a highly respected UK yacht surveyor, in an otherwise detailed 11 page report, I got two cut and paste sentences about replacing the rigging if it could not be proved to have been replaced in the last 10 years. On reading this I think many yacht owners would plan for new rigging sometime soon.

Fortunately prior to my first maintenance weekend on the yacht I had seen a web page describing (with picture) how a small crack at the top of a rigging terminal is a typical first warning sign of pending rigging failure.

Guess what? Within 10 minutes I had found two deck level examples in the port and starboard cap shrouds.

My question: Does a general survey clause about replacing rigging absolve a surveyor from a responsibility to actually inspecting rigging for specific imminent dangers?

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[steve_cronin]

Depends...

..upon what the stated terms of reference for the survey were.

If you ask a professional to survey a car and the rof of the car falls off you would surely have a claim. A yacht by it's very nature has some parts that are difficult to access but is that the fault of the customer?

Seems to me that if you set yourself up as a "Yacht Surveyor" then you can't claim that you only survey 83% of it and besides, you don't like heights! It would be a bit rediculous if the maintenance surveyors of the Blackpool Tower never went up there, don't you think? If you don't like climbing rigging then don't become a yacht surveyor could be a valid point of view. However if you state in your terms of business beforehand that the survey doesn't physically check the condition of the mast or in the report that "Our inspection did not include the mast and rigging and we cannot give an opinion as to it's condition, then...(your quoted bit)" or WtoE then that covers it. In the defence of surveyors though it must be said that hairline cracks in terminals are very difficult to spot and would we pay the costs of x-ray examination bearing in mind that each wire would need to be removed in turn and the rigging re-tensioned to the original afterwards? Pay what it costs to survey a space shuttle and then you might get a VERY detailed report! OOps! so even a "Full Condition" survey it might be argued, must, in a practical world have it's limitations

I think you'll also find that the surveyor's Professional Indemnity insurers call the tune on what he can talk about and what he can't


Steve Cronin

 

[charles_reed]

You're lucky they were at deck-level.
My experience is that failure occurs at the T-ball end, and usually results in rapid destranding in a series of sharp reports.

Even the riggers aren't unanimous on the subject - most seem to consider once round the world or 16 years, whichever is the less as the rigging replacement rule-of-thumb.

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[LadyInBed]

Re: web pages

What site did you find this info on, it sounds interesting.

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[jimboaw]

I also had a survey done recently with a disclaimer about the rigging which is 13years old. My log shows 15,900 miles since it was installed in 95 and I have no idea what the boat did in the previous 4 years. For my own peace of mind I had the rigging inspected by two independant riggers one free and one I paid for.They both aggreed. The "paid" rigger even gave me a written report pronouncing the rigging free from defect other than some discolouration on the swages and fit for continued service.
Maybe riggers professional liability insurance is cheaper?

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[paulstevens]

Resistance testing of terminals

will find any cracks in the terminal body, visible or otherwise. Will also find broken strands inside the terminal when only one or two out of the nineteen have gone due to fatigue, and this is the time to find out. It will also identify any terminal where the wire has not been inserted to the full depth of the body. So just ask your surveyor or rigger in advance whether this test will be carried out, and also find out if he is experienced in using the equipment and interpreting the results.
Ref Steve Cronin below. Most surveyors are happy to go up a mast if the client is prepared to pay for an extra competent person to handle ther winch, but most clients aren't. Would you let a complete stranger haul you up a mast?


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[davidhand]

In my experience, and several riggers I have spoken to agree it is the lower end that goes first. I asked one rigger about using a liquid dye penetrant for inspection, he said he had tried it and did not care for it, made a mess on the deck for one. He then showed me a hand held microscope costs under ten bucks, I got one for myself and gave another to my cousin in Fareham. They magnify 60-100 X it's unbelievable what you can see. Go to www.radioshack.com and do a search for "microscope".

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[jonjo]

Re: Depends...

The simple facts are:

1 - The rigging is mentioned in the report as surveyed from deck level.
2 - There were manifest terminal cracks at deck level that I found quickly.

I just suspect it is an easy cop out for a surveyor to recommend replacement of +10 year rigging and leave it at that.

In fairness to the guy, the 30 year old yacht provided a lot of interesting subject matter so I am not going to name and shame.

My conclusion is that no matter how many pro’s lend a hand, intimately a yachtsman has to be completely self-sufficient. I am going to invest in one of those Deffee mast ladders once I have worked out what size track sliders fit my 1973 gold 13m sparlight mast? (hint)

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[jonjo]

Re: web pages

I forgot to index the page and tried to find the site again, no luck.

But at the point where the rigging wire descends into a solid lump of stainless look for tiny vertical cracks starting in the lip of cup that surrounds the rigging wire.

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[jonjo]

More like 23 bucks over here but worth following up even so.

Do the items at either of these British web suppliers look familiar?

http://www.blunt.co.uk/cat/misc/microscope/index.html

http://www.1-hydroponics.co.uk/miscellaneous/microscopes.htm

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[Reap]

Re: Resistance testing of terminals

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

Most surveyors are happy to go up a mast if the client is prepared to pay for an extra competent person to handle ther winch, but most clients aren't. Would you let a complete stranger haul you up a mast?

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There are simple systems for getting yourself up and down a mast without using a winch...perhaps surveyors should learn one.


<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.yacht-links.net>http://www.yacht-links.net</A>

 

[jonjo]

Re: Resistance testing of terminals

How do you format original message quotes like that?

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[Reap]

Re: Resistance testing of terminals

If you click on 'Help' at the top of any thread then click on item 27 Markup tags it will give you all tags available to the user. For example for an image, for a clickable link and for smilies etc.
For the quote you simply use (quote)(/quote) replacing the brackets with square brackets [ ]

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[paulstevens]

going aloft

yes thank you we know about systems for going aloft single handed but try convincing public liabilty insurers.

And another thing. There's no way I'm trusting my life to someone else's halyards blocks etc. If you choose to go aloft single handed on your own boat which you properly maintain thats OK by me. Doing it for a living is quite another.

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[charles_reed]

Re: Resistance testing of terminals

Only finds the crack after it's formed, not when the material is hardening and the bonding is going hexagonal.

It's virtually useless for prognosis - though valuable for diagnostics - but then most know when their mast has fallen down.

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[charles_reed]

Riggers reports

They're usually more expert and practical than most of your surveyors - I'd guess that they based it on experience.

But then it's rather like the MoT on a car - when the inspection was carried out there was no fault, it could have gone 10 mins after.

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[Reap]

Re: going aloft

Well in one post you say:

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

Most surveyors are happy to go up a mast if the client is prepared to pay for an extra competent person to handle ther winch, but most clients aren't. Would you let a complete stranger haul you up a mast?

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Fair point.... however if you are paid for an extra competent person to handle the winch then presumably you would be willing to go up the mast.

However you later say

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

And another thing. There's no way I'm trusting my life to someone else's halyards blocks etc.

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Well if you are winched up by the competent person, then presumably you are still trusting to someone else's halyards blocks etc ?
Surely anyone going up a mast should use a back up halyard in case one breaks.

However I will grant you that their is a health and safety issue here.
Anyone commercially working at height on a yacht would probably be in breach of The Health and Safety at Work Regulations and also LOLER Lifting Operations & Lifting Equipment regulations.
Regulations which so far seem to have bypassed the yachting industry, I am sure this will not always be the case.


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[jimboaw]

Re: going aloft

Then there are those of us who have mast steps all the way to the top. Should be standard on a cruising boat IMHO.

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[paulstevens]

Re: Resistance testing of terminals

but it finds cracks before they are visible with or without penetrant dye.

More importantly it finds broken strands inside the terminal typically just inside the neck where fatigue is common. Of course the time to diagnos fatigue is when one or two strands of the nineteen have gone, not when catastrophic failure occurs and the mast goes by the board.
The equipment has its limitations and no practical test in this application can offer a prognosis but its obviously far better than doing nothing.

Actually I find this recurring debate about standing rigging a bit odd. Average cost of new rigigng on say a 32' footer is about £700. Give it ten years (which is very conservative), that's £70 per year. I dont believe that figure is the difference between being able to afford ownership or not. Just drink a bit less and put the money previously spent on rig inspections towards renewal every 10 years.

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[charles_reed]

Not that much

Complete caps (7mm) Intermediates (5mm) and inners (7mm) for my 14.5m mast cost 288€ (about £192).

The forestay from the UK would set me back about £120.

As you say it's a spurious argument.

My daughter is Reader in Materials at Southampton, so I can get the gear for testing and have bags of professional advice for free.

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