Synthetic rigging

30boat

30boat

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Following a previous thread I thought it would be interesting to discuss the merits of synthetic rigging systems.Things like bottlescrews , lashings , mast fittings etc.etc.
I for one wouldn't mind replacing my steel rigging with synthetic but at present my capshrouds are tensioned to 25% of the breaking strain of the wire.That's the max safe static load admissible for 1by19 wire and I can't get the rig to work properly with anything less.It's a 3/4 rig with a very bendy mast by the way.
Would synthetic rigging work in this situation?
 
30boat said:
Following a previous thread I thought it would be interesting to discuss the merits of synthetic rigging systems.Things like bottlescrews , lashings , mast fittings etc.etc.
I for one wouldn't mind replacing my steel rigging with synthetic but at present my capshrouds are tensioned to 25% of the breaking strain of the wire.That's the max safe static load admissible for 1by19 wire and I can't get the rig to work properly with anything less.It's a 3/4 rig with a very bendy mast by the way.
Would synthetic rigging work in this situation?
Click to expand...

I am certain you can find a solution in Dynex Dux. First thing I would suggest is to email Colligo marine with your rig parameters. I see they do a complimentary rig design and cost comparison. They can better get you the design you need.
http://www.colligomarine.com/

I will tell you what I know, but Colligo is the expert. I will run through a possible boat rigging.

If it is 1/4" 1x19 SS wire, It has a breaking strength of 6900 lbs. If you need to tension it 25% of that, you have it at 1,725 lbs.

7mm Dynex Dux has a breaking strength of 15,500 lbs. If you tension it 1,725 lbs. it would be 11% of the breaking strength of the Dux. When you start out with a rope that is double or greater in strength over wire, you have a lot of room to play with.

You can see the Dynex Dux is more than double the strength of SS 1x19 wire.

There are plenty of charts and figures on the Colligo website.

The way you size the rope is different than how you size the wire. The rope is plenty strong size for size. You need to size it so that you eliminate any creep.

Dynex Dux need to be sized so that the constant static load is never above 20% of the breaking strength. 10% to 15% is even better. As you can see in the example, you came in at 11%. At these loads, the rope will creep less than wire. By going to 9mm you have 27,500 breaking strength to work with.

That is why they are able to use Dynex Dux for standing rigging. It has been heated and stretched, which makes it much stiffer and tighter weave, and eliminates the creep that you had with the softer SK-75's (Spectra, Amsteel, Dynex)

In the URL below You can see my 34' Trimaran that I have converted the entire boat over to 7mm Dynex Dux, and a "Wireless Westsail" That was recently rigged. The Westsail used 9mm Dux. The original wire was 10,500 breaking strength, the 9mm Dux 27,500 Lbs. He shed 125 lbs. off from up high also.

I know they just did a 58' Catana Cat, and a 60' Schooner that took 600 lbs. off from their rig weight......shed the weight, and gain in strength. What is not to like....:-)
 
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There's an article by Nigel Calder in last months YM on this subject. It seems he's going to have his boat rigged with it and report back during the year.
It looks to me as if more work needs to be done on the terminals and tensioning arrangements - rather bulky and obtrusive.
I understand the advantage is less weight aloft and, therefore, a stiffer boat. I suppose on new boats the manufacturer could reduce cost by using less ballast. Tensions will not be sufficient for racing, Calder says, but OK for cruising boats.
As Ken points out, resistance to cuts and abrasion will need to be considered.
 
have a chat with mike at atlantic rigging. I posted on the other thread and mike suggested i have a chat with them. I gave them a call yesterday afternoon and i was really impressed with mike's honesty and knowledge.

I want fibre rigging, however i will be talking to mike at further length about my requirements and will be using atlantic rigging.

The telephone call was a refreshing change to my usual rigger, mike at atlantic rigging will now have a customer for life in me, it's amazing what a friendly chat on the phone can do. The depth of knowledge mike has makes me think his company will end up leading the field in the UK

FYI mike has said that getting DUX in the uk is almost impossible, this backs up me previous research. It seems colligo is the only way for us in the uk to source it
 
My concern with synthetic rigging is :

1 chafe
2 uv degradation
3 dirt and salt in the weave that may cut the fibres
4 extra windage

4 wouldn't bother me too much if the weight aloft is substantially reduced ..... but the standing rigging HAS to be reliable and predictable.

I don't have any data to back up my concerns ...... would love to be proved wrong!
 
Salty John said:
There's an article by Nigel Calder in last months YM on this subject. It seems he's going to have his boat rigged with it and report back during the year.
It looks to me as if more work needs to be done on the terminals and tensioning arrangements - rather bulky and obtrusive.
I understand the advantage is less weight aloft and, therefore, a stiffer boat. I suppose on new boats the manufacturer could reduce cost by using less ballast. Tensions will not be sufficient for racing, Calder says, but OK for cruising boats.
As Ken points out, resistance to cuts and abrasion will need to be considered.
Click to expand...

Yes Nigel Caulder is rigging his new boat and will be at the Southhampton show. I believe he is using bottle screws. I am not sure what you find "bulky" The rope is spliced around thimbles that are designed specifically for Dynex Dux. The rope is very stiff and a 5:1 ratio on static lode as a minimum. You do not want to bend Dux too tight. A 10:1 minimum for dynamic load. You cannot epoxy or glue this stuff into a terminal. A proper brummel splice with a 72 times diameter tail will break at 95% of the rope rating.
You can see on the opening page www.colligomarine.com a boat that was rigged by Brion Toss www.briontoss.com Bottle screws were used all around. The same fitting that terminates the rope is used for lashings or bottle screws. Also used aloft, same fitting. No mix and match.
It is interesting Nigel would say not for race boats. Usually anything new is from the race boat world. This is not, it is from the work boat world. The same 7mm Dux that I have on my boat, I can get for you in 100mm!!!
I know Colligo is rigging Mini's now. And you can crank this stuff down as hard as you like. If it is sized right, it creeps less than 1x19 wire.
Chafe, I have used Dynex Dux and Dynex Dyneema for 10 years in the Bering Sea, on a 125' Offshore Trawler. We were very concerned about chafe and abrasion at first. We have no steel wire left on our commercial boat. In a 20 boat fleet we have abandon wire. We do horrible things in year round' conditions. And rope out last wire 3 to 1 in this application. It is tougher, and wears better that wire, on rusty steel deck and around blocks and corners etc. Safer, and easier on the crew.
On a new boat, I recal Nigel Irens saying it was cheaper to put up a carbon mast, as the price of lead to ballance a heavy rig, would be much more than the price of carbon. Now there is a carbon offset!.......what if you could loose 100 kgs. aloft on a 45' boat for the same price as regular 1x19?.....and be twice as strong?.....:-)
 
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Can the standard headstay furlers with foils .... Profurl, Harken, Furlex .... be used with a sythetic forestay? Is there a better solution?

How does it stand up with uv?

Does it give reliable signs when it needs replacing?

Jmolam ...... any details on the Catana 58? I have a Catana 40 ..... Are you in the Sea of Cortez?
 
TradewindSailor said:
My concern with synthetic rigging is :

1 chafe
2 uv degradation
3 dirt and salt in the weave that may cut the fibres
4 extra windage

4 wouldn't bother me too much if the weight aloft is substantially reduced ..... but the standing rigging HAS to be reliable and predictable.

I don't have any data to back up my concerns ...... would love to be proved wrong!
Click to expand...

If you make it to San Carlos, my boat is in Marina Seca on it's own trailer, in the new part of the yard. Go check out my rig.

1 Chafe, from my earlier posts, Dux is the most chafe resistant material on my boat, maybe next to chain. Nothing will chafe this and win. If you look at my boat, I ran bronze hanks for a year on my staysail, and headsail. I switch to soft hanks after they were invented. Soft hanks are super nice as there is no friction, super slick up and down. Also if I have a sheet rubbing, it slides around on it as it is so slick. I guess it would be a simple matter to put some plastic hose over a bad spot. When this rope does get any cutting, it will fuzz out. It is millions of fibers. Easy to spot any trouble.

2 UV, my rig is 3 years old. Colligo is guarantee 5 years right now, and testing is ongoing. Look at 1x19 claims, they say 8 years in the tropics. Both of these numbers are very conservative.
The new Covered Dux will outlast anything on the market I would bet. Just my opinion, please check with Colligo for the official call.

3 Dirt and salt How about rust, and grinding in the sand and broken shells, and horrible rusty broken crab pots, and well......this is all in a days work in the Bearing Sea, this is with Dux that is dynamic up and down up the ramp, stacked coiled, tangled, frozen solid etc. The Dynex Dux outlast wire in this situation 3 to 1. I am confident in a standing rigging situation, it will have a rather good life compared to what we do with it trawling.

4 Extra windage I replaced 7/32" and 1/4" wire on my 34' Trimaran with 7mm Dynex Dux. I went from about 7,000 breaking strength to 15,500lbs. breaking strength. (No increase in windage) If I wanted to go up to 9mm (small increase in windage) I would have 27,500 lbs. breaking strength. Almost 4 times the strength.
 
TradewindSailor said:
Can the standard headstay furlers with foils .... Profurl, Harken, Furlex .... be used with a sythetic forestay? Is there a better solution?

How does it stand up with uv?

Does it give reliable signs when it needs replacing?

Jmolam ...... any details on the Catana 58? I have a Catana 40 ..... Are you in the Sea of Cortez?
Click to expand...

As I understand it the roller furler gear is all designed for wire, something about the bearings. Best to ask Colligo on that. I use continuous line furler, and I love it! There are Photos in my links below.

If you contact John at Colligo http://www.colligomarine.com/Contact-Information.htm

He can give you all the details on the Catana 58. A guy with a go fast 49' cruising boat saw the rig, and wants to replace his.....:-)... I know they rigged the Catana in Annapolis and he took off for the Caribbean. They are doing another Catana in Annapolis I think. Colligo can show you how much weight and money the Catana saved by going with Colligo Dux over an aramid. When you get to replacing 1/2" wire with lightweight rope, it really saves weight big time on the bigger boats.
 
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Tradewindsailor, no problem, hope to catch up with you some nice anchorage, hope all goes well for you!

My avatar is me holding my entire rig in one hand. After splicing the fittings and all. 15 lbs. one hand. And my cutter rig has a lot of ropes. 11 in all......

30Boat, you never did say what size wire your boat was using. Here are two pages anyone can use to compare wire size and strength, as well as weights.

If you have a big boat. 1/2" Wire is 27,500 lbs. breaking strength and it weighs 52lbs per 100 ft.

13mm Dynex Dux is 49,000 lbs. breaking strength. Weighs 11.2 Kgs. per 100 mtrs. 7.7lbs. per 100 ft.

I do not know how to calculate righting moment, but I have heard guys bring up some number that were pretty astounding:eek:
 
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fibre rigging

3 years ago I took a good look at the 4 maxi yachts (100fters) at the end of the Sydney to Hobart race. They all had fibre rigging. This in a situation where cost is no object just performance. If I recall the ends seemed to be glued into terminals. There seemed to be no stainless steel in sight except for the lfe lines. Probably an old requirement of rules.
Typically a kilo saved in rigging weight would equate to 6 kilos saved in ballast so a total of 7kgs saved.
olewill
 
William_H said:
3 years ago I took a good look at the 4 maxi yachts (100fters) at the end of the Sydney to Hobart race. They all had fibre rigging. This in a situation where cost is no object just performance. If I recall the ends seemed to be glued into terminals. There seemed to be no stainless steel in sight except for the lfe lines. Probably an old requirement of rules.
Typically a kilo saved in rigging weight would equate to 6 kilos saved in ballast so a total of 7kgs saved.
olewill
Click to expand...

PBO fibre rigging. Not what is being discussed.
 
Jmolan said:
Tradewindsailor, no problem, hope to catch up with you some nice anchorage, hope all goes well for you!

My avatar is me holding my entire rig in one hand. After splicing the fittings and all. 15 lbs. one hand. And my cutter rig has a lot of ropes. 11 in all......

30Boat, you never did say what size wire your boat was using. Here are two pages anyone can use to compare wire size and strength, as well as weights.

If you have a big boat. 1/2" Wire is 27,500 lbs. breaking strength and it weighs 52lbs per 100 ft.

13mm Dynex Dux is 49,000 lbs. breaking strength. Weighs 11.2 Kgs. per 100 mtrs. 7.7lbs. per 100 ft.

I do not know how to calculate righting moment, but I have heard guys bring up some number that were pretty astounding:eek:
Click to expand...

I have 7mm rigging.My boat is a 32ft Westerly Fulmar.It seems from what I've read that I can change the caps lowers and babystay to synthetic but the forestay must remain in 1by19 because of the furler.My backstay is also the SSB aerial so must be kept unless I get a whip aerial.
 
30boat said:
I have 7mm rigging.My boat is a 32ft Westerly Fulmar.It seems from what I've read that I can change the caps lowers and babystay to synthetic but the forestay must remain in 1by19 because of the furler.My backstay is also the SSB aerial so must be kept unless I get a whip aerial.
Click to expand...

You are correct on all. The backstay for a SSB is interesting. Dynex Dux is an insulator. There are two boats in the last ARC rally that ran a bare copper wire up the inside of the backstay. The rope is hollow. Some boats have chose to run a wire up the side of the backstay, secured with lashings.

Your boat is similar to mine in rig size and length. My boat is 34'.

Changing out lifelines, or maybe running backs is a good way to get familiar with Dyneema and Dynex Dux. It is so user friendly, you start to look for all kinds of new solutions.:D
 
William_H said:
3 years ago I took a good look at the 4 maxi yachts (100fters) at the end of the Sydney to Hobart race. They all had fibre rigging. This in a situation where cost is no object just performance. If I recall the ends seemed to be glued into terminals. There seemed to be no stainless steel in sight except for the lfe lines. Probably an old requirement of rules.
Typically a kilo saved in rigging weight would equate to 6 kilos saved in ballast so a total of 7kgs saved.
olewill
Click to expand...

PBO 4 times the price, and a much shorter life than Dynex Dux. And the rules for racing were recently changed to allow life lines in Dux now.
 
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