Surveyor endangers mast

[paulstevens]

Re: going aloft

In my first post I was generalising ("Most surveyors")
In my second I was speaking for myself, I wont go aloft at all. Actually its not just a question of safety, more working conditions. For example I am not confident that I will find stress cracks in spreader sockets swinging about in a bosuns chair in January with a -10 wind chill. I have done this, but came to the conclusion I could not sign my name to a report carried out under such conditions.
Its a case of the better the working conditions, the more thorough the job, ie unstep the mast. Which brings me to another point. Insurance companies are jumping up and down about rig failure and demanding surveys every 5 years, but they rarely specify that the mast should come out, or even that it should be inspected aloft, this makes no sense.

You are absolutely right in saying health and sefety has largely bypassed this industry, but due to pressure from insurers things are changing fast. Most of the yards I work in would not now allow me to go aloft singlehanded so the original question doesn't arise. I welcome the same rights and protection as enjoyed by other industries particularly as I work singlehanded. Some years ago I very nearly lost my life working alone in a dry dock and since then its look after number one every time.


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[paulstevens]

rip off Britain again nm

.

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[doris]

Shouldn\'t a mast come out every other year

anyway, this makes it very easy to check everything sufficiently. Boats are full of consumer durables that wear out and to consider standing rigging any different is plain daft! As has been pointed out the annualised cost of new rigging every 10 years should not be a deal breaker on yacht ownership. If it is borrow someone else's boat. Insurance on boats, IMHO, is incredibly cheap when you think of the potential for claims but will only stay that way as long as certain standards and maintained.

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[Gunfleet]

Re: Resistance testing of terminals

<<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. >>
This sounds like absolute sense Paul. I've just had my standing rigging replaced. No-one haad any idea when the rigging was first put up, though it looked pretty good. However it was abt £600 on my 26ft boat including VAT to replace, and I thought it was good value at that price for the peace of mind. Maybe the reason I'm willing to pay up is because I was once on a boat when the rig came down!

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[charles_reed]

Re: going aloft

I'd agree that looking for and finding evidence of work hardening is next to impossible with the naked eye, and pretty difficult with x20 magnification.

After all the researches into fatigue FMEA use electron microscopes.

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[davidhand]

Yes very similar to the one without the stand on the end.

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[paulstevens]

Re: going aloft

Charles I refered to stress cracks in spreader sockets where a stainless steel tube is welded to a base plate. These were in practically universal use a few years ago and failure after say 10 years is very common indeed, but totally avoidable given regular inspection under reasonable conditions.

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[Reap]

Re: going aloft

Unstep the mast...at the end of the day that has to be the best option.
And in reality I don't blame you for not going up the mast I was just being pedantic and trying to pick out some inconsistencies in your two posts.

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[charles_reed]

Spreader sockets

Yes - an appalling piece of design - the last boat on which I had that design had a Proctor mast. But that was deck-stepped and easy enough to get down at the end of every season.

The other "deliberate error" was the insistence of certain mast manufacturers to weld tangs onto their mast with the consequent and invariable fatigue FM all the way around the weld-line.

I personally think it's a waste of time trying to spot fatigue cracking on shrouds - far safer, less expensive and less psychologically traumatic to just replace them, caps/forestay every 6 years, inners, inters and backstay every 9 years.
Even with that regime I've had an inter and an inner start to destrand at the top T swage.

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[colvic]

Know what you mean about cut and pasted sentences. Our full condition survey two weeks ago carried all the usual disclaimers and then said the standing rigging was only inspected to head height. All clevis pin retaining rings were said to be in need of replacement by split pins, which in the past have caught, snagged and torn items. I wish there was a definative standard.


Phil

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[charles_reed]

Whilst I think your headline is extreme, and probably unfair to marine surveyors, one must realise that it isn't as regulated a profession as say, medecine.

As in the years of unregulated medecine you are likely to get a number of "snake-oil salesmen" amongst surveyors - and they all have unique opinions.

One, in all seriousness, told me that a through-deck mast should be wedged with neoprene.
Of some 43 riggers I've asked none have heard of such a practice and all use hardwood wedges.

Ascertaining the current condition of rigging is fairly hit-and-miss but forecasting future performance almost impossible to do with any surety, even using inductance, sonic or stain techniques.

For this reason I don't think a conscientious surveyor has any option but to put in the disclaimers to which you refer.

It's rather like an MoT test, which specifically states that whilst the vehicle was considered roadworthy at the time of the test this should not be considered a guarantee of future roadworthiness.

Most of the surveyors I know are honest, conscientious folk, with considerable all-round marine knowledge, frequently with 1st degrees in naval architecture and really trying to look after their clients' interests.

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[jonjo]

Reasonable general words but these ignore that fact that the rigging terminal cracks most probably did not appear in the two weeks between survey and my visit. The yacht had been sitting in a cradle during this period.

In response to the earlier thread about expecting surveyors to go up a mast, I think this is unreasonable. During a professional lifetime the statistics almost guarantee that a surveyor would experience a halyard failure part way up. For example when removing all my halyards for inspection I found the main halyard 80% chafed through.

I do however think a full condition survey should include 20 minutes inspecting deck level terminals for manifest faults plus a systematic scan of stays and halyards using binoculars.

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