I Sail Away

Although there may be fiberglass, or wood, or aluminum, or steel, it really FEELS as if a boat were held together with rope–or, lines.  The sails are attached, held up, and held down by rope (wire rope, polyester rope, cotton rope, etc.).  One of the vital skills of seamanship is the ability to work with rope.

Fortunately, I grew up with ropes.  In Boy Scouts, we learned knots, lashing, and splicing–all with single braid rope.  Now, as ropes are more important than pitching my tent, the ropes have consequently become more complex–and, more specialized.

First Splice

New dock line eyesplice in double-braid rope

It may sound like a martial arts move, but it really marks my first attempt at splicing a complex rope.  I started with a useful splice: the eye splice.

This is going to be a bow-painter for the Lido-14, but I put a nice little eye splice in one end of a 20-foot section  of double-braid line.

Tools Required

• 20-foot section of rope
• tubular fid and pusher set (I purchased the Samson kit)
• waxed thread
• whipping needle

Overall, I am happy with the result–although I would prefer less bunching of in the eyelet.  I needed to pull the ends a bit tighter before I pulled the core back inside the cover.

In the next month, I will be replacing ALL of the lines, halyards, and sheets on the boat (with the exception of the lifelines–which I will be removing the plastic coating and assessing).

This weekend, we are going on a little roadtrip, and I am going to take along a little reading.

I bought “The Splicing Handbook” at West Marine last month, and expect it to be invaluable reading.  I have three old boats and they ALL need their lines replaced.

Perhaps, I am most excited about making a peel strop, and correctly splicing the metal wire into the rope halyards–old boats can be so much fun.  On the Ericson, I am going to replace the shivs at the masthead so that I can use all line and no wire in the halyards.  On the other boats, however, I am going to just let them be as they were . . .

I’ll give a full review after I have read the book.