The rig is a running cost, not a feature

A new owner looks up at the mast of a forty metre sloop and sees a spar. An experienced owner sees a schedule: an inspection every other year, a rod rigging replacement somewhere around the tenth season, a sail wardrobe with a four to six year life, a furler that will be rebuilt, winches that will be serviced and a set of loads that are quietly working on every fitting they touch.

None of this is a problem. All of it is a budget line that is missing from most first year forecasts.

Standing rigging

The wire or rod that holds the mast up does not fail gradually in a way anybody can see. It fatigues, and the industry answer is time and inspection rather than appearance. Rod rigging is commonly replaced at around ten years, wire earlier, and insurers and class societies increasingly ask for the date rather than the opinion. On a forty metre sloop the replacement is a six figure job and the boat is out of commission for weeks.

Carbon rigging, now normal on performance boats, changes the numbers rather than the principle. It is lighter, lasts longer and is inspected by ultrasound instead of by eye, and the inspection is not optional.

The sail wardrobe

A cruising wardrobe for a forty metre boat is a mainsail, a self tacking jib, a genoa, a staysail, a reacher and something for downwind. In modern laminate that is a six figure sum, and the sails do not last forever: they stretch, they delaminate at the leech, and a mainsail that has done five Mediterranean summers has lost the shape that made the boat sail well in light air.

The temptation is to keep sailing on tired sails, and the reason it is a false economy is that a boat with soft sails motors more, which costs fuel, which was the reason for the rig. Sails are the part of a sailing yacht that most directly converts money into performance.

Deck gear and furlers

Captive winches, hydraulic furlers, travellers and the hydraulic power pack that runs them are the systems that actually break, usually on a Sunday with guests aboard. They are serviced annually and rebuilt on a cycle, and the spares for them are expensive and slow. A boat with a well kept spares inventory sails; a boat without one waits for a package.

What it adds up to

Across a ten year ownership of a forty metre performance cruiser, the rig, in rigging, sails, spars and deck gear, is comfortably the largest maintenance category after paint. Budgeting it as an annual number rather than as a series of shocks is the difference between an owner who sails hard and one who becomes cautious with the boat.