Short answer
Keep rigging records as a single dated file containing invoices naming wire specification and terminals, annual inspection notes, photographs of each fitting taken from repeatable angles, tuning settings, and every overload event. Records survive owners and answer the question insurers, surveyors and buyers all ask: how old is this rig, and what is its history?
The single most valuable document is a dated invoice naming what was fitted: wire type and diameter, terminal type, and whether turnbuckles, toggles and the forestay were included. Everything else supports it.
Photographs are worth as much as text if they are repeatable. Frame each fitting the same way each year, include a date, and store them together. Deterioration that is invisible year to year becomes obvious across five years of images.
Record what you could not verify as well as what you did. "Forestay not inspected — inside furler foil" is genuinely useful information to the next reader, and it prevents a future owner assuming the whole rig was cleared.
Log every overload event: groundings, knockdowns, accidental gybes and heavy-weather passages, with dates and what was done afterwards. Keep the file with the yacht’s papers so it transfers on sale — see how to prove rigging age when selling.
Key facts
- Most valuable single item
- Dated invoice naming wire specification and terminals
- Photograph method
- Same framing, same angle, dated, every year
- Also record
- What could not be verified, and why
- Always log
- Groundings, knockdowns, gybes and heavy-weather passages
- Storage
- With the yacht’s papers, so it transfers on sale
Full background: read the guide
Primary sources
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