Soft Rigging Solutions

This is an attempt to start a thread (appropriately) on soft rigging solutions based on Dyneema, soft shackles, dogbones, Antal rings/ Colligo static lashing Blocks, the Karver range etc. I've put it in the multihull section as (potentially) multihullers might care more about reducing weight.

There seem to be some great ideas out there but not necessarily a central source for designing systems or how to use the available soft rigging components. Colligo Marine is one obvious source:
http://www.colligomarine.com and also their facebook page.

I also found some useful information on an interesting interview about the new GC32.

http://www.thegreatcup.com/thegc32interview.aspx

...the part on the soft rigging is at about 22 minutes (and there are other bits earlier).

The Karver and Tylaska sites are also worth a look.

I have Colligo shrouds on my F-25c and they are great and the weight difference between the stainless ones with bottlescrews etc is astounding. I am hoping to replace as much conventional rigging as possible with soft rigging. Parrtly because of weight reduction, partly because I can do a lot of it myself.

Anyway, please post photographs links etc.

Thanks

 

Sheets

http://blog.apsltd.com/2011/05/tweak-tastic-and-color-coded.html

 

I find that type of fiber very difficult to handle on winches. I gets hardened fast and twist settle into the sheet. Fine for halyards.

 

There's a lot of good ideas from the past, ships were rigged with natural fiber for centuries, I've worked on refits to Endeavour replica & just last week made some "needle" shroud tensioners for a Viking ship, both a wedge & lever & pretty clever stuff from old times.
Jeff.

 

For inspiration another company (lesser known outside europe ?):

http://www.kohlhoff-online.de/en/

 

I do appreciate the lightness and tensile strength of Dyneema, however the use of it for standing rigging worries me a bit on the subject of "Creep" in the stretch mode.
Also the bigger dia of the plastic fibre lines increases wind drag aloft.
The drag factor is quite appreciable, particularly in fast multihulls where apparent wind can easily exceed 40 kts sailing to windward, even in reasonable true winds.

 

I Like it

I am going to use Dux on my cat which I am rigging soon. I like the idea of lightweight rigging as any extra kilo saved will help when raising the mast. Also I can do the splicing myself and have soft ends that I lash into place on the trailer cat. so money saved.

Do you need to use the special thimbles (for sidestays) or can you just use heavy duty ones? Maybe even the Antal rings would be good. Any ideas?

cheers

Phil

 

Thimbles

Not sure whether this answers your question catsketcher but Colligo has "CheekyTangs"

http://www.colligomarine.com/products/category/43-mast-connections

 

Notice the radius of the thimble.

low stretch ropes need flat bottom sheaves instead of the typical round bottom sheave or thimble.

 

Nice stuff but pretty expensive for a whole rig - diamonds as well. I will look into these and maybe some custom ones as well though - they seem like a good idea.

 

Is there a tutorial somewhere, what hardware, line etc and how to maintain and adjust?

 

Body of knowledge - dogbones

That's the hope, that there will be a body of knowledge developed on this thread. In the meantime, suggest you start at the Colligo site, he has a lot of information.

Here are a few more bits:

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=111357

Which goes with this photo

 

I talked to a guy at school today and he said he will let me loose on the metal lathe. I will see if I can make up some end fittings myself out of 5000 grade aluminium.

I could also see if I can make some dogbones too. If all goes well I could make a heap and then send them away for anodizing.

I liked the way the G32 did the diamond tension. It is the same method used in the Tasar dinghy I used to sail. How to do it with a longer distance between mast base and diamond entry is my problem.

I found this site which has some very good tests on short splices vs longer ones.

http://www.chicagoyachtrigging.com/tag/soft-attachment/

cheers

Phil

 

I have been thinking of how to make a soft eye on a composite deck and using the idea of the hemisphere shown above I have an idea.

First make up a set of small hemispheres like the carbon discs above. Then use a die grinder or saw to cut a slot in one side. To get it to stick to the deck you need to get some uni and stitch in through the deck and then back up again.

cheers

Phil

 

This thread over at Cruisers & Sailing forums may be of interest.

The guy (Jmolan) an Alaskan fisherman re rigged a Searunner 34 in Dynex Dux.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f48/synthetic-searunner-22345.html