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Protect Your Boat from Rust - How do I stop my boat from rusting?

Maintaining Your Erection 


 The most important thing you can do with a new boat—and its rig in particular—is to look at it This costs nothing. It is relatively easy. Just look at it. Look at it really, really closely. Inspect it. Study it. Clean it. Grab a magnifying glass Look. Compare. Think. Do this in good daylight over the course of several days—while reading Brian Toss's book The Rigger 's Apprentice at night. Most boat rigs have swages. Every swage corrodes—and eventually needs to be replaced. Swages corrode relatively fast in the tropics where the trapped ocean water gets boiled away to leave the salt between the strands of rigging wire in the cup of the lower fitting. The salt makes a mild acid that corrodes the swage.

 Look carefully at the swage. Is there excessive rusting? Is the swage banana-shaped instead of straight? And, most importantly, are there any micro cracks developing? (The mild acid causes rusting to accelerate. 

 The rust then expands and tries to burst through the sides of the swage.) While some surface rusting is common, any cracking or pitting is not. Mark it on a list. Wire varies greatly. Some 316 "ultra" wire lasts a long time. For example, I needlessly replaced my forestay on Wild Card after 23 years—merely because it was old and I couldn't inspect it inside the furler foil. It turned out it was fine—as good as new. 

 The problem is that all new wire looks identical—hell, might even come off a reel with nearly the same specs—but some of it is crap. The stainless steel rigging wire I purchased recently in Singapore, at a relatively high price, stranded in four measly months—while the wire it replaced had lasted 12 years. Big difference—yet it looked identical, even under a magnifying glass. Without trust, commerce becomes difficult if not impossible. But back to our rigging survey: After studying every swage fitting for any sign of splitting, cracking, excessive rusting, or pitting—focus on the wire. What you're looking for is a tiny hairline crack that is almost invisible to the naked eye.

 Actually, don't just look. Instead, have someone hoist and lower you up and down on every stay and shroud, while you run your hands up and down the wire continuously. If there is crack, you will feel it immediately, and then you whip out your magnifier and study it. Any place where there is a crack needs to be watched. 

 I always replace any wire with a broken strand if convenient. However, if I'm in mid-voyage and discover a cracked strand I don 't panic—when there are two or three cracked strands, then I panic. On deck and aloft, I constantly compare things. Frankly, I don't know much about spreader tips. But do I know that if one spreader tip is shiny and tight and the other spreader tip is dull and loose, then something is going on? Mark it down. Rigs vibrate, shake, rattle, and quiver. This is bad for the metal. 

 Thus I inspect all toggles and forks and pins carefully—even the faintest crack on a rigging toggle needs to be taken seriously. Mark it down. If the boat is new to me and I'll be sailing it across an ocean in heavy air—I will pull a couple of chainplates off (after, of course, securing the rig) to check for corrosion and cracking, especially where the chainplates go through the deck I will also check the T-fittings aloft. These are susceptible to cracking, especially where they touch the socket. If either the T-fittings or chainplates have any signs of corrosion, I'll pull them all to decide whether to replace. 

 Markdown anything that looks odd or you don't understand. Does personally doing a rig inspection (or engine, battery, sail, electrical, steering, plumbing inspection) take time? Yes, it does. And it's time well-spent. It is your life on the line at sea—not your rigger's. He's not going to be out there in that gale—his spouse won't be crying in the life raft. 

 It is you who must accept the ultimate responsibility. If your rig falls down it is your fault, not your rigger's, designer's, nor builders. If you can't accept that responsibility, don't go offshore. One other thing—many new sailors want to be "extra safe" and thus they want to "go up a size" in rigging wire. Even weirder, some riggers have the same boat come to them a number of times with this same "let's go up a size" syndrome. Don't. It just adds weight and makes your boat heavier aloft and less seaworthy. Your designer probably knew what he was doing originally. Nor should you make your lower shrouds the same size as your uppers. Again, your designer wants those wires to stretch exactly as he's pre-planned—making the lowers less stretchy just puts added load where it shouldn't be.

 Don't try to redesign your rig without reason—just keep all its components at 100% of their original breaking strengths.

Look, Look Again, Look Some More 

Notice how, when I talked about doing a rigging inspection, I never once mentioned the breaking strength of 1O mm 1 x 19 rigging wire? Chances are, you don't need to know that information if your boat's rig is well constructed by a reputable builder. My firm belief, after a lifetime at sea, is that your vessel will never fail without warning. The rig won't fall down or keel fall off or batteries burst into flame or engine overheat without hinting to you first

 Thus, you need to look closely at everything happening on your boat and ask yourself this simple question, "Why?" I can't stress this enough. If the sixth bolt-on your Genoa track looks different from the rest—there's a reason. Is there water in the deck core? Is the nut or washer made out of a different material? Is there a deck leak developing? It might be difficult or require a bit of time to find out what is happening but something is happening, believe me. Why is that thru-hull turning blue or pink? Why are your zincs suddenly corroding in three weeks when they used to last two years? (Check your grounding or the grounding of the boat next to you in the marina.)
In essence, everything tells a story, but we have to look and listen carefully to understand that story. Boats speak to us but we must listen. Thus every single day of our 48-day passage to Tahiti, I took my traditional afternoon stroll around the deck of my vessel—and looked up at the rig with my binoculars—just to listen and look and think at what my boat was telling If you don't look carefully at your vessel, she will keep surprising you— some of those surprises will be costly, but one might be deadly.
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