I would be interested in member experiences and judgement on this controversial subject.
When I started sailing I would go aloft fairly regularly ( even though I am terrified of heights ) and check my rig. Every year or two I would have a professional check. I and most people I knew never changed their standing rigging unless a problem was spotted, they had treated it hard, had an event that might have damaged it or just felt it was time. There was no ‘ten year rule’.

Then twenty years or so ago I started running into the ‘sorry, if you want your rig insured you need to replace the rigging’ conversations with my insurers. I changed insurers once as I was convinced my boat’s rigging was perfect. A top rigger said it was. They gave me an extra two years and then demanded the new wire.

For a decade I had a beautiful Baltic, custom built to my deck and interior specifications. She was a dream. But she had a very tall rig and rod for all standing rigging. The quote to replace that was eye-watering. I had got to a stage in life where I couldn’t lift the main off the deck, onto the dock, myself and my Admiral ( the Boss, She who must be obeyed ) was worried that if I had to go aloft, lift the anchor by hand because of a broken anchor winch or get a jammed sail down in a real blow, I might not be able to cope. So the need to change down in size was starting to seep into my thinking. The cost of replacing those rods, terminals and bits and pieces was the final straw. I hated it, but I sold.

My last two boats were both second hand. Semi-retirement and dwindling savings meant no more new builds. One was a beauty. But two years in I was told by my insurer that I had to change the rigging. The cost quoted was again a blow. She was sold for a smaller and older boat. But that one was coming up to being 13 years old and, yes you guessed it, three insurers all insisted on new rigging.

Now we are up to date. I bought a small basic boat last December. She was eight years old. Soon I will be told to buy new wire.

So knowing the owner of the company that currently insures me, I wrote to him making an argument that the arbitrary 10 year requirement is wrong. How, I asked, could they treat all boats the same. Some people race, others cruise oceans, some cruise dangerous area of oceans. Why, if we have to state our cruising grounds could we not just state our cruising or racing intentions too, with insurers making decisions that fit the owner’s profile? I pointed out that some of my boats had tens of thousands of miles in every sort of sea and wind condition, but now that I was an old salt my intention was to potter locally, I would be treating F5 as a stay on the mooring forecast and expected the boat to be very lightly used. She was immaculate and had clearly not been heavily used by the previous owner.

My friend wrote an impassioned reply, telling me that by far the biggest pay outs by yacht insurers every year were for the rigs that fail and things that happen when rigs fail. He argued that stainless steel, rod or woven is just too unreliable to trust and that even brand new boats lose their rigs due to rigging failures. I could not argue with most of his points.

Now, of course, you don’t have to have rig cover in your policy. But even if you reckon the risk of having to buy a complete new mast and rigging is a fair one, are you happy not to be covered if a rig falls on your head, or worse on your American lawyer friend’s head?

What do we all think? What are our experiences? How many of you sail without rig cover? What do you recommend?

Julian Mounter.

For about eight years, up until 1996, I worked for Kemp Masts, now Selden UK. At that time, a commonly used shroud termination was the T terminal, made by Gibb and Hasselfors. These were very prone to fatigue failure, which, understandably, the insurers weren't happy about. I designed a new form of terminal, and built a rig to fatigue test this, the wire, the mast wall, the rigging screw, everything. I can say this without fear of contradiction: a swage terminal will cause the wire to fail, just inside its mouth. It's only a question of how many load cycles at how big a percentage of the wire's ultimate load. Norseman and Staloc terminals performed rather better, but the wire would eventually fail. Rod rigging performed best of all - so long as the load was truly axial, and there was no bending load. The old fashioned through-bolted tangs, used with Staloc terminals, were about as good as it got, with 1x19 wire. Terminations that relied on just the attachment to one face of the mast would cause the mast extrusion to crack and fail eventually. The kind of rigging screw that has a built-in strip toggle will fail, eventually.

What do I recommend?

Sail with an unstayed mast. If you design it right, and build it right, it's pretty difficult to make it fall down. When did aircraft designers quit using wire stays on their wings? About 1930, was it?

Sail uninsured, except for third party and legal cover. Accept the fact that when you're in the middle of the ocean, insurance isn't going to help if the mast falls down. Put the money you save into renewing your boat's equipment as you see fit. You save thousands that way.