Replacing Our Standing Rigging - Pt. Two
It had taken over two months, but I had somehow managed to get everything to line up. I managed to sublease a slip in Bellingham’s Squalicum Harbor from the local charter company for a couple weeks, which would both save money over the guest docks but also let us stay for long enough to complete work. All the parts had arrived or were scheduled to arrive in the coming days, and I had scheduled a metal fabricator to address the chainplate.
As soon as we tied up to the dock, I began ripping apart Via’s bowsprit to gain access to the chainplate. We dropped the genoa, disassembled the Schaeffer furler, and set up a temporary forestay using a spare halyard so the forestay could be removed. I then removed the fasteners holding in the pullpit and teak plank which sits on the metal frame of the bowsprit. Things came apart fairly easily, and I had ordered all new 316 stainless faster hardware to replace what I was removing.
Dave, the metal fabricator, is a sailor and has been doing custom metal work for decades. He knows his stuff, and at his recommendation we decided to have him “test” the chainplate. He explained that the hairline crack I had found might not mean the death of the chainplate. He would use a method where he would hit the crack with his TIG welder, and if the crack filled in nicely it would be just fine. Dave said that if the crack is more than surface deep, some moisture always remains in it and the welder causes that moisture to flash boil and blow the crack open. He was confident he could tell immediately after hitting it with the welder if the chainplate could be salvaged or needed replacement. This particular chainplate is a unique and frankly strange design by Caliber. It is welded to to a crossmember which is then welded to the frame of the bowsprit. In my opinion, it is not a great design, leaving the chainplate out of line with the pulling forces of the forestay and bobstay. Additionally, the design depends on the strength of several welds, and to make things worse Caliber welded the backing plate for the teak plank to the chainplate. This reduced drainage around the chainplate, and provides a nice place for crevice corrosion to take hold.
We moved Via from our slip to the “working docks” so Dave could use his welder. He ran the welder along the leading edge of the chainplate where the hairline crack appeared, and said it filled in nicely with no signs of splitting. In a decision that would come back to haunt us, I took his advice and decided to leave the chainplate as is, trusting in his years of experience. I had him slot out the backing plate around the chainplate for better drainage, and thanked my lucky stars that we could save some serious time and money. Having a new chainplate fabricated was going to be expensive due to the difficult design. However, as I would come to learn more than once in the coming months, I should have stuck with my gut and my original plan. I really think Dave was trying to do right by me and genuinely believed our chainplate was sound, but as you’ll see this was not the case.
Anyway, we happily motored back to our slip to begin replacing the rigging. Via has a lot of standing rigging, with a bobstay, two backstays, inner forestay, staysail backstays, and two lower shrouds, I counted 17 individual lengths of rigging that I’d have to replace. I was most nervous about the forestay because it lives inside the genoa furler. I asked Hal to help me tackle the forestay first, figuring it would be the toughest and once I had done that with his help, the rest would be easy. I was very happy to have his help, as it was a bit tricky and the furler is quite heavy.
Via’s rigging made use of Norseman swageless terminals at deck level and swaged terminals aloft. Norseman fittings are no longer being produced, but the compression cones that go inside the fitting are still available. The fitting can be reused, but the cone must be replaced. All our old fittings came apart quite easily, and even after 17 years I didn’t find any broken strands or really scary corrosion in any of the fittings. We cleaned up the old fittings, measured each new length of wire twice, cut once, and assembled the fittings with new cones. I decided to reuse our turnbuckles, except for on the forestay and bobstay. I did replace all the clevis pins and bought spare turnbuckles to have on board. I carefully cleaned and inspected all the old turnbuckles and everything looked to be in good shape.
Norseman fitting with the new cone properly installed
After doing the forestay, I did the lower shrouds in pairs, followed by the staysail backstays, inner forestay, cap shrouds and then backstays. I should have counted, but I think it probably involved 20-30 trips up and down the mast. Thankfully, Hal let me borrow his ATN Mastclimber, which lets you climb up and down on your own and saved Taylor from having to crank me up and down each time. Overall, the job was not rocket science but it was a big undertaking. I did have Hal assist with tuning the rig. It took us 12 days to complete putting in 10-14 hours a day. I think we easily saved $8,000 and likely more than that by doing it ourselves.
Check out our Youtube Channel to watch the rigging project in action!