2026 Captain’s Edition
Standing Rigging Inspection & Tension Record PDF
Rig Inventory, Tune Baseline & Age Register
- 27 Pages / 168 Register Lines A4 and US Letter included.
- 788 Live Fields Interactive and 100% offline.
- 6 Calculation Models R1 through R6.
- Instant Digital Access Download links the moment you pay.
A rig can be at target tension on both sides and still be leaning. Nothing on the boat tells you.
You tune to the figures, both cap shrouds read the same on the gauge, and the mast is still half an inch out of the middle of the boat. Or the port lower needs taking up every single spring and the starboard one never does. Both facts are visible only if somebody wrote down last season's readings, and almost nobody did.
This record holds every position across six tuning sessions on one page, with the conditions of each session underneath — because a reading taken on a cold morning with a different gauge is not comparable to one taken in August, and pretending otherwise is how people chase a problem that was never there.
What you receive
A seven-part record for the life of the rig
- A 24-line reference page for the tensions, limits and intervals you transcribe from your spar maker and your rigger, with the source and page beside each
- A 20-line wire inventory — size, terminal type, pin-to-pin length and the year each individual wire was fitted, with four spare lines for positions your rig has and ours does not
- A rig geometry baseline — rake, prebend, and the halyard measurement that tells you whether the mast is actually centred
- Twelve positions across six tuning sessions on a single spread, with session conditions logged underneath
- A 20-line visual register and a separate 14-line professional record — deliberately not the same page
- 6 calculation models for share of breaking load, deviation, asymmetry, prebend, elongation and rig age
The number that finds a leaning rig
Model R3 is the sleeper in this record: the difference between a matched port and starboard pair, divided by their average. It survives a gauge that reads a little high or a little low, because the error cancels across the pair — so it works even when you are not certain the instrument is right.
Model R5 is the other one worth the price: pin-to-pin length now against pin-to-pin length when the wire was fitted, with the remaining turnbuckle thread recorded beside it. A new rig settles. What matters is whether it is still settling three seasons later, and that is a question for your rigger, not for you — but you cannot ask it without the two numbers.
Not one published tension. Deliberately.
Target tension depends on the rig geometry, the spar section, the spreader sweep, the sail plan and the water the boat is sailed in. A figure correct for a masthead sloop with in-line spreaders will put a swept-spreader fractional rig out of column and load the wrong wires doing it. So this record publishes none — you transcribe yours once, from your own spar documentation or from the rigger who tuned the boat.
Interpreting a rig is qualified work. This is a record of it.
No page here tells you what a mark at a swage means, when a wire should be condemned, how to carry out non-destructive testing, or how far to turn a turnbuckle. Part V is split for exactly that reason: twenty lines for what you can see, clean and photograph, and a separate fourteen recording what a qualified rigger examined, by what method, what they reported and what they recommended — with their name and qualification against it.
You describe. They conclude. A rig failure is not a gradual event.
The page that decides whether a claim is paid
Part V closes with an age and insurance register. Your insurer's rigging age requirement is often shorter than your spar maker's, and it is the one that matters at the moment you need it. Model R6 turns the year each wire was fitted into a percentage of whichever interval you transcribed — and the record makes it obvious when one new forestay is sitting in a rig of fifteen old wires.
Who it is for
- Owners who have just had the rig tuned professionally and want the figures kept before they are forgotten
- Owners who inherited a boat with no rigging history and need to establish what is actually aloft, and how old
- Racing crews who re-tune through a season and want last season's settings to still exist
- Anyone whose insurer or surveyor has started asking about rigging age
- Owners preparing to sell, where an undocumented rig is a five-figure deduction waiting to happen
How it relates to the Due Diligence Kit
The Due Diligence Kit inspects a rig once, from the deck, before you buy. This record is what you keep afterwards: the figures your rigger specified, the tune they set, and every session since. One answers should I buy this boat. The other answers what has this rig been doing for three years, which is a question only a record can answer and no inspection ever can.
Technical specification
| Product ID | AML-RIG-2026-01 |
| Extent | 27 pages · 7 parts · 6 calculation models |
| Register lines | 168 across reference, inventory, geometry, tuning, inspection and age |
| Interactivity | 788 live PDF form fields — 44 tick boxes and 744 entry fields |
| Formats included | A4 and US Letter, both fillable and print-ready, 27 pages each |
| Rigs | Masthead or fractional, wire or rod, up to 20 positions — no rig-specific data |
| Units | Unit-neutral — kg, lb or gauge reading, you set them and record which |
| Offline | No app, no account, no connection required once downloaded |
What it is not
This document records, structures and compares figures that you supply. It publishes no tension, no share of breaking load, no rake, no prebend, no replacement interval and no threshold at which a wire should be condemned, and it reaches no conclusion about any rig.
It is not a rigging inspection, not a tuning guide and not engineering advice. Those judgements belong to a qualified rigger or spar maker working to your own spar documentation and to the requirements of your insurer.
Instant download. Your links appear on screen the moment payment clears, and arrive by email within a minute. They do not expire.
2026 Captain's Edition · Revision 1.0 · AML-RIG-2026-01. Apex Marine Labs designs the organisational process behind good seamanship. Our documents record and organise; they do not replace a certified marine survey, a rigging inspection, or a qualified rigger.