[C320-list] Standing Rigging-Winter Layup

[Jeff Hare]

We're in the northeast, and never touch our rigging during haulout over the
winter or at the docks during the summer.  We haul the boat in the winter
and put it on blocks/stands.  Since the rigging is typically tensioned to no
more than about 1/10 of the working load (?) of the cables the tension is
relatively insignificant and whether it's on land or in the water, the rig
is designed to take significantly more stress than it gets sitting at the
dock or even on stand.  Once the cables stretch initially, they're going to
stay pretty much exactly the same for the rest of their working life.

My suggestion is to simply keep it tensioned properly and leave it alone.
When you're sailing on a reach in strong winds, keep an eye out for floppy
shrouds on the downwind side.  I keep my rigging set so that they loosen
some but are still mildly firm and don't flop around in these conditions.

What we do however is to remove the shackles and tie the ends of both the
topping lift and the main halyard together into a large bulky knot, then
connect a new piece of 5/16" or similar nylon line to this knot ball.  Then
pull that knot to the top of the mast.  The nylon line gets wrapped around
the back stay a dozen times and tied off on the stern rail.  We do the same
thing with the spinnaker and genoa halyards, wrapping that nylon line around
the forestay and tying it off near the anchor.  In the spring, we pull on
the nylon line and bring the halyards back down to the deck.

This gets all the halyards inside the mast or under the winter cover so that
they don't get any UV and weather wear and tear over the winter.  Our
halyards are still in excellent shape after 14 years (although the main
halyard did get replaced with a high tech line 2 years after we got the
boat).

-my $.02
-Jeff Hare



-----Original Message-----
From: C320-list [mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On Behalf
Of Kaare Wold
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 12:13 AM
To: C320-List at Catalina320.com
Subject: [C320-list] Standing Rigging-Winter Layup

Skippers-Here in Wisconsin we haul out, winterize, cover, and store outdoors
with mast up.  Is it advisable to loosen each turnbuckle a couple of turns
or is it ok to leave the rig tensioned as is?  Thanks for your comments and
advice on this debated subject.
Kaare Wold. Sheet Music #945

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