Redefined
Standing rigging has come an impressively long way from the sturdy but stretchy, wound stainless of our youth. The top end of performance yachting has since gone through rod, early composites such as aramids, Spectra, PBO and Vectran and ended up today mostly with carbon fibre. Teething problems with carbon fibre rigging, especially getting it to turn corners and terminate, have been solved and today, for some, the manufacturing process is more akin to boatbuilding. Incredibly, the very latest high-tech carbon rigging all but eliminate stretch.
Spearing this revolution for more than two decades has been Dr Andy Winistoerfer. For many years Dr Winistoerfer was a leading light at EMPA, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, where he developed the anchoring system for bundled carbon cables which is still in use today. His now well-established company, Carbo-Link, was born in the 1990s as commercial spin-off from EMPA and the STEM university ETH Zurich after they had been commissioned to design, engineer and manufacture the giant cables for the 124m cable-stayed bridge in Winterthur, Switzerland. The bundled carbon fibre cables
66 SEAHORSE
supplied for this had a breaking load of 1,200 tonnes.
The upper echelons of the sailing world were quick to recognise the significance of these developments, especially in Switzerland where leading Orma 60 skipper Steve Ravussin came close to winning the 2002 Route du Rhum using some early Carbo-Link carbon fibre cables on his trimaran Technomarine. Carbo-Link have continued to make major technological breakthroughs since then, many the fruits of working with Alinghi in the America’s Cup. Perhaps most momentous was when they developed the marine industry’s first solid or ‘consolidated’ carbon fibre rigging that helped the Swiss team on their way to victory in 2003 – though the final raceboat did not feature carbon as a result of rule restrictions.
Carbo-Link’s thinking at the
time – which remains unchanged to this day – is that consolidated rigging allows for smaller diameter, lower weight, reduced chafe and easy inspection as there is no cover. This approach has seen Carbo-Link enjoy continuous involvement in the America’s Cup from 2003, their cables having been fitted exclusively on all the AC72s, AC50s and the AC45’s platform rigging. So what exactly is Carbo-Link
yachts first became confident enough in what was previously a race product to fit carbon rigging on these very different boats with their different but equally rigorous demands. Carbo-Link have long operated at the absolute cutting edge with the most aggressive competitive campaigns so the rigours of superyacht certification were just one more thing to deal with…
For many years the invisible power behind the throne of some of the world’s biggest and fastest yachts, the legendary, at times even mythical, Swiss
composites engineers at Carbo-Link have emerged from the shadows… The Dubois 143-footer Ngoni went ‘full race’ with Carbo-Link consolidated rigging. It was a big step when the managers of the world’s biggest
rigging? Instead of being a bundle of protruded rods, it is
‘consolidated’, effectively a solid laminate, made from in-house produced, custom pre-preg carbon fibre tape wound around fully incorporated thimbles. It is also continuous – including not just the Vs but the diagonals too. Typically, the starting point is determining the client’s exact demands – specifically stiffness and workload. Based on this, tapes are tailormade for each project with variables including not only their width but their thickness, the physical characteristics of the carbon fibre unis (modulus, strength, cross-sectional area, UV resistance and so on) and of the resin with which they are impregnated. While Carbo-Link offer the complete solution for their rigging, they can also interface with any deck or mast fittings from any manufacturer. Modifying the tape variables listed above, Carbo-Link can tailor rigging to exact requirements if, for example, they require higher stiffness or increased breaking load (a further benefit of the consolidated system is that these two features are no longer so directly linked). Significantly, the resin matrix used is tough enough to offer excellent chafe and impact
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