[C38] Life-lines

[S Orton]

I was going to replace my life lines as recommended by the CC, but on detailed inspection, I declined.  My reasoning:

1.  Where there was rust at the swaged end fitting, I cut away the plastic, cleaned up the wire with a "fine" wire brush rotary tool, bent the wire back and forth, and observed no failed strands.

2.  As far as know Catalina still uses coated wire and West Marine still sells the stuff.

3.  I don't understand this oxygen deprived corrosion.  When you think about the roller swaging of the end fittings on all our rigging, there isn't much oxygen moving into the fittings.  It has to be rather stagnate inside the fittings.

4.  My surveyor told me this was a "recommended" not a "mandatory" requirement and it didn't affect my insurance.

5.  I'm not a metallurgist by training, but in my previous life, I worked as a ME in aerospace for 40 years, working with corrosion resistant materials and never coming across the term "oxygen deprived corrosion" in SS.  If some body has some factual engineering info on the subject I would love to read it.

With that said I inspected every inch of the life lines, looking for rust marks, cutting away the plastic, and found no broken stands of wire (fish hooks).  Now I did replace my rigging (25 yrs old) at a material cost of $1700.

 

Cheers, Steve O (Santa Susanna- #304)  
> From: 1derful at comcast.net
> To: Listserve at catalina38.org
> Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2010 19:49:45 -0700
> Subject: [C38] Life-lines
> 
> Someone suggested I replace my life-lines because they are coated in plastic 
> so I can tell if they are fraying. They advised stainless steel. Seems 
> like an expensive retro-fit.. I can't remember every really using the life 
> line to prevent falling overboard.
> 
> Also does anyone know the height of our Catalina 38's? I've been going 
> under some bridges lately and from the cockpit it looks as though I am gonna 
> lose my mast. Hasn't happened yet.
> 
> Patrick
> Blue eyes
> S F Bay 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Listserve mailing list
> Listserve at catalina38.org
> http://catalina38.org/mailman/listinfo/listserve_catalina38.org
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://catalina38.org/pipermail/listserve_catalina38.org/attachments/20100710/64838a74/attachment-0001.htm>