Bavaria 42 - 2001. Selden mast. Failing D1 stays

[Viviane2000]

Hi all,

Our standing rigging has failed now twice in quick succession, in exactly the same place. That's too much to be a coincidence.

Three years ago we replaced all the standing rigging in Greece. It was supplied by Meltemi Rigging in Athens using Blue Wave components and 10mm 1×19 stainless wire. The boat is a Bavaria 42 with a Selden mast, so it's all very standard.

Two years ago, before our Atlantic crossing, the entire rig was inspected. Everything checked out fine and the rig tune was good.

A year later, we discovered that both D1 stays had broken strands at the top terminal. At that point the rigging was only about two years old. The Greek rigger made and shipped us a new pair of D1 stays.

Now, after crossing the Pacific, we've inspected the rig again and, once more, both D1 stays have broken strands at the upper terminal. These shrouds were replaced less than a year ago..

So in the space of three years we've had four D1 stays fail at exactly the same location (the upper end). That can't just be bad luck.

My gut feeling is that it has something to do with rig tension, although as far as I know the rig has always been correctly tuned. The original shrouds were checked for tension before our Atlantic crossing and everything was within spec.

When I installed the replacement D1s, I tensioned them by feel initially, then fine-tuned them during the first few sails. In about 15 knots of wind, I adjusted the leeward D1 until it no longer went noticeably slack, then tacked and repeated the process on the other side. So while sailing, the leeward D1s remain under light tension and don't move around much, although they are significantly less tensioned than the V1 stays. As far as I can tell the mast is straight, although that's always a bit difficult to judge accurately.

TL;DR: At this point we're replacing D1 stays more often than oil filters.

My plan is to fit Sta-Lok self-fit terminals so we can keep sailing, but I'd really like to identify the root cause before it happens again.

Someone suggested that I might be missing a toggle at the eye terminal <> mast tang. https://www.riggingdoctor.com/life-aboard/2016/5/10/rigging-toggles . How are the D1's attached on similar boats? Do you have a toggle or not? Is there any downside to adding a toggle?

Does anyone have other explanations I should look into?

[Yngmar]

Do you have a photo of the failed swages?

The attachment looks normal and there is no additional toggle there by design. Never made any problems on ours. The angle on yours looks fine.

Do your deck chainplates have sideways movement perhaps? That would cause cycling loading on the angled lowers and much less on the (closer to vertical) shrouds.

Tension is normally adjusted on the shrouds first and the lowers are then used to bright the mast into column (with backstay tension off). It may be that yours were too slack. Have a look at the "Hints and Advice" book on rig tensioning from Selden. If you look up the luff groove, it should be easy to see if its straight or not.

[Mirror45184]

Hi

Photo of the failed wire/swage is needed to properly identify the possible cause.
Potential causes are:
- mast pumping due to insufficient shroud tension
- mast pumping due to the D1 being too loose
- over swaging of the terminal
Need to see the failure to diagnose properly. As Yingmar has stated read up on the Selden "Hints and Advice" book. If you don't have a copy of it, down load it from their website.

[Viviane2000]

@Yngmar @Mirror45184 I've included some pictures of the swages. I wonder what information there is to find in the photos of the failed wire / swage, I'd be happy to take more photos if that helps.

"The attachment looks normal and there is no additional toggle there by design. Never made any problems on ours. The angle on yours looks fine."
- I do think this is how it was designed to be. But a few people have mentioned that adding a toggle helps, that's why I'm asking, making sure the toggles are not somehow forgotten.

"Do your deck chainplates have sideways movement perhaps? That would cause cycling loading on the angled lowers and much less on the (closer to vertical) shrouds."
- I would be very much surprised if there is any movement in or at the chainplates. They are connected with a solid rod of SS to the hull where there is a lot of added structural support. It all looks very stiff and solid to me. The hull is laid in 2000, so still reasonable thick and solid as far as i know.
- Is there something I'm missing here?

"Tension is normally adjusted on the shrouds first and the lowers are then used to bright the mast into column (with backstay tension off). It may be that yours were too slack. Have a look at the "Hints and Advice" book on rig tensioning from Selden. If you look up the luff groove, it should be easy to see if its straight or not."
"- mast pumping due to the D1 being too loose"
- I did see the documents from Selden, they don't specify a tension on the D1's. As far as I can tell our mast is straight, whilst sailing I'm making sure the leeward stay has little to no movement

"- mast pumping due to insufficient shroud tension" -> After the new rigging was installed, a year later the shroud tension was measured at 18% of the breaking strength. I havent touched it since, it's still very stiff.

[Happysailor]

Can it be the steel wire is torqued? Obviously the connection will degrade at the edge of the hydraulically pressed connector. Besides the relation of tensioning of V1 and D1, if I am right V1 needs to take more load than D1, this is the option I can think of for this failure if all else is correct.

So improper unwound when making attaching, or twisted when fastening. If the load gets on the wire, the torquing of the wire potentially makes a break at this point.. just my thoughts (being an not a rigging expert..)