It's with much fear and trepidation that I start the process of replacing the Standing Rigging.  Not because it's so complicated, it's just so expensive and means a lot of work.  Below is my story of installing new Standing Rigging on a 1979 Pearson 35.

THE OLD STUFF

    Some pictures of my ORIGINAL 1979, Pearson installed Standing Rigging.  Notice the rust on the Marine Eyes, the corrosion on the turnbuckles and the stress at the wire/swage points not to mention being almost 25 years old!

So what is this Old Stuff?

     First of all I was amazed to really find out that it's ORIGINAL 1979 Rigging.  The hardware is 1979 NAVTEC© turnbuckles, swaging and toggles.  Pearson used the best rigging for production P35 boats.

   I called NAVTEC© and told them what I had on my P35.  He asked me how many miles it had on it?  That was kind of a strange question so I repeated that as far as I knew it was original 1979 rigging.  Well, turns out that you are supposed to replace the "SCREW" in the C500 turnbuckles every 10k miles (how does one determine that...).  So we got past that bit of making me feel dumb exercise and we determined that I truly owned NAVTEC© hardware and that to replace it would run somewhere conservatively in the neighborhood of $2000 just for hardware without the wire.

   So I decided that there had to be an inexpensive way to pull this off or my kids didn't really need birthdays for the next five years.

Research
     I made some measurements on board, checked my owners manual for measurements and did some internet research about the NAVTEC© rigging.  Here's what I came up with.

     Interesting to note in the above table that the Lower Fore and Aft cables are slightly different length (deck slopes slightly up).  The length came from my parts list in the owners manual.  The NAVTEC # came from their web site.  The fork # came from an actual number stamped on the fork (see the above pictures).  The marine eye for the 1/4" wire is a "best guess" from the MS data sheets.

Before the Order...

• Make sure you know the the wire size and the size of the "eyes" at both ends.  The chain plates need to match the toggle eye.

• If the mast will be up then you could replace maybe two at a time, going up and down the mast.  Local riggers do this all the time.  Climb up and take two down and order replacements with the correct size.  When they come in replace them and pull two more down and so on.  Slow process but financially it makes sense.

• If you pull the mast you can check them all and get the best measurement at one time.

• If you decide on a local rigger then get online quotes and ask him to beat them.  They usually do.

Removing the Old Rigging

 I had pulled the Mast during the Nov 03 Haul Out and removed all the rigging.

     Pulling the mast made the rigging job a lot more manageable.  I marked all of the rigging, measured it and dropped it off at the riggers shop.  Turn-a-round was three days.  I cleaned up the mast head pins and replaced the cotter pins.

Installing the New Stuff

New Rigging Details

The Spreader Details 

New Turnbuckles

Butch Working the Rigging

Stay-Loc® Fitting Going On

Ready to Step the Mast

Things to Consider...

• My P35 manual gave the lengths for the P35 rigging.  In each case the manual was about a foot off of the actual installed length.  I feel that the manual only indicates the actual wire length and not the total eye to eye length.

• I paid the same price locally for the rigging as I would have on line.  Big different was the extra work to make the Fore Stay fit using Stay-Loc® fitting.  I don't feel that I could have pulled this off by myself.  Would have been more time to work this out on the phone and get materials, etc.

• Mark all your rigging before removing it.  Be sure to mark were the turnbuckles are set at.