On Oct 8, 10:15 am, Frogwatch wrote:
On Oct 8, 9:49 am, "Ernest Scribbler"
wrote:

"David Martel" wrote

The man complained of nicking a couple of strands. He did not tell us how
old or what the "general" condition of the forestay is.

One man's nick is another man's gouge. The OP didn't really provide any
clues as to how much damage the hacksaw (?!) did. The strands might be
scratched, or they might be nearly severed.

I simply made a generalization concerning safety of aged wire. I said
nothing about the age of his wire but was simply saying that most
sailboats have wire that should be considered unsafe relative to new
wire that has been "nicked" and then filed. If his wire is old he
should replace it anyway.
He called it a nick, not a gouge. If he was truly concerned, he would
have called it a gouge.
This is all about relative risk. I feel (no proof supplied) that the
risk is minor compared to most things that you do not worry about but
should.
BTW, if this was rod rigging, he would be in serious danger until he
smoothed the nick.
I have looked over various failed (or nearly failed) wire and it
almost always fails at the fitting, not at the wire in spite of some
seriously bad wire I have seen. This was not a scientific survey but
simply a general impression.

Here is a web site about rigging failu

http://dixielandmarine.com/yachts/DLrigprob.html

Oddly, they do not address failure of the actual wire. However, they
do discuss replacing cracked fittings by cutting the wire and then
using a longer fitting. This might be a reasonable thing to do if the
"nick" is close to the fitting and the wire is fairly new.