Check your rigging!

When was the last time you took a good hard look at your rigging?
Perhaps it’s time you did, especially after a season’s racing.

At the Parkstone TT event, about to launch for the second day, I happened to glance up at the top of the shrouds, and noticed that my starboard shroud looked like this:

Starboard Shroud

If you look carefully at this picture, you’ll see that there are only three strands left fully connected. Frantic running around the boat park to borrow a shroud ensued. Turning my boat onto its side in the launching area (sorry folks!) meant that I could replace the shroud, but failure to check the shrouds earlier meant that I missed the start, and gave me an unwanted discard. I’m convinced that only one of the strands was damaged at the beginning of the weekend, so most of this damage occurred over one day’s racing.

After the event had finished, I had another close look at the other wires, only to find that my port shroud was also about to break:

Port Shroud

Needless to say, I’ve now replaced all my rigging!

Martin Gibson, November 1998