and want to braid an anchor line to it. West Marine wants a fortune for anchor line with a thimble braided in. How do you do this? I'm doing a web search but probably lookin for the wrong key words. It doesn't look hard.Braiding/Splicing Anchor Line
-
Mark Prouty
- Admiral
- Posts: 1723
- Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:52 am
- Location: Madison, WI Former MacGregor 26X Owner
Braiding/Splicing Anchor Line
I bought a thimble and want to braid an anchor line to it. West Marine wants a fortune for anchor line with a thimble braided in. How do you do this? I'm doing a web search but probably lookin for the wrong key words. It doesn't look hard.
and want to braid an anchor line to it. West Marine wants a fortune for anchor line with a thimble braided in. How do you do this? I'm doing a web search but probably lookin for the wrong key words. It doesn't look hard.
Last edited by Mark Prouty on Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
Mark Prouty
- Admiral
- Posts: 1723
- Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:52 am
- Location: Madison, WI Former MacGregor 26X Owner
Thanks!-
Schock Therapy
- Deckhand
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Wed May 26, 2004 8:46 pm
If you buy a fid of the appropriate size, it will likely come with step by step instructions. There are different methods depending on the type of rope you are using.
Be prepared to spend a long time on your first few splices, particularly when you are trying to fit it to a thimble. I decided to save money by spicing my own mooring lines, and I quickly discovered there is more to it than meets the eye! I spent a couple of hours on my first eye, and they did get progressively quicker, but they are still quite a chore. When we decided to replace our cruising set of mooring lines, I wimped out and bought pre-spiced lines.
Be prepared to spend a long time on your first few splices, particularly when you are trying to fit it to a thimble. I decided to save money by spicing my own mooring lines, and I quickly discovered there is more to it than meets the eye! I spent a couple of hours on my first eye, and they did get progressively quicker, but they are still quite a chore. When we decided to replace our cruising set of mooring lines, I wimped out and bought pre-spiced lines.
-
Mark Prouty
- Admiral
- Posts: 1723
- Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:52 am
- Location: Madison, WI Former MacGregor 26X Owner
Fids are best described as tapered tools to help you complete a splicing project. This url is a quick look at a more traditional splicing fid. http://www.sea-dog.com/562008.pdf Brion Toss (a local rigger) has one that looks more like a steel rod with a loop of high tensile cord that comes out the top. Handy but expensive.
The first eye splice is always the worst when dealing with cored line. After the first couple you get much faster. I have learned to really love this skill while racing and cruising when something breaks and you need to be able to replace it on the fly. I keep a set of fids (varying line sizes) onboard to make sure I can fix things in a hurry. It takes me about 4 minutes to do a 12 strand eye splice from start to finish. It takes about 12-15 to do a double braid or cored eye splice. I could be faster, but if I make it look too easy someone is bound to expect me to do it all the time for other boats.
The first eye splice is always the worst when dealing with cored line. After the first couple you get much faster. I have learned to really love this skill while racing and cruising when something breaks and you need to be able to replace it on the fly. I keep a set of fids (varying line sizes) onboard to make sure I can fix things in a hurry. It takes me about 4 minutes to do a 12 strand eye splice from start to finish. It takes about 12-15 to do a double braid or cored eye splice. I could be faster, but if I make it look too easy someone is bound to expect me to do it all the time for other boats.
-
Schock Therapy
- Deckhand
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Wed May 26, 2004 8:46 pm
I have learned to really love this skill while racing and cruising when something breaks and you need to be able to replace it on the fly.
Tripp Gal, I'm impressed! If I needed to reattach a halyard during a race, I would just use a bowline. You would splice the shackle back on? Very cool!
I found that the one thing that took me the most time was milking the cover back over the splice. That took alot of brute force to get the core completely recovered. Maybe it was just the rope I was working with, 5/8 Marlow double braid.
It is definitely satisfying to look at my mooring lines after a stormy winter and see that the splices haven't creeped at all. Maybe I should round up some scraps of techy ropes and start practicing for when I get around to replacing my wire halyards!
Tripp Gal, I'm impressed! If I needed to reattach a halyard during a race, I would just use a bowline. You would splice the shackle back on? Very cool!
I found that the one thing that took me the most time was milking the cover back over the splice. That took alot of brute force to get the core completely recovered. Maybe it was just the rope I was working with, 5/8 Marlow double braid.
It is definitely satisfying to look at my mooring lines after a stormy winter and see that the splices haven't creeped at all. Maybe I should round up some scraps of techy ropes and start practicing for when I get around to replacing my wire halyards!
Several of us get together in the fall right before Grand Prix and have a splicing party. We all bring our new cordage to one house, have a BBQ and splice everything. Many hands make light work and it is nice because you can learn new tricks and techniques from each other.
While at home and trying to bury splices that are double braid or cored try the following:
Find a good strong tree with space between it and the next tree. Put a butterfly knot back about 10 feet on the cordage. Then take your working end of the line wrap around the tree and through the loop of the butterfly knot. Now you have that nice working end anchored to something nice and strong and whatever working height you want. Put the head of a hammer into the eye or clipped into the shackle, etc. Then you can actually swing with the handle of the hammer. Good old physics kicks in and man over rope wins. This shock loads the core and the splice so that it can bury itself without you having to rub the skin of your hands off trying to milk the cover back. It also makes that last 1/2 inch bury so much faster. For those of you who splice, you know about that last 1/2 inch and how many swear words it takes to move that last little bit. On the boat I use the base of the mast as my anchor to bury.
And after much ado about what type of whipping to use, I have become a huge fan of the Warp method used by Yale. It's online at their site in a wonderful PDF. Their Splicing PDF's are also wonderful. I threw out my New England Ropes splicing guide, it actually has errors in it.
While at home and trying to bury splices that are double braid or cored try the following:
Find a good strong tree with space between it and the next tree. Put a butterfly knot back about 10 feet on the cordage. Then take your working end of the line wrap around the tree and through the loop of the butterfly knot. Now you have that nice working end anchored to something nice and strong and whatever working height you want. Put the head of a hammer into the eye or clipped into the shackle, etc. Then you can actually swing with the handle of the hammer. Good old physics kicks in and man over rope wins. This shock loads the core and the splice so that it can bury itself without you having to rub the skin of your hands off trying to milk the cover back. It also makes that last 1/2 inch bury so much faster. For those of you who splice, you know about that last 1/2 inch and how many swear words it takes to move that last little bit. On the boat I use the base of the mast as my anchor to bury.
And after much ado about what type of whipping to use, I have become a huge fan of the Warp method used by Yale. It's online at their site in a wonderful PDF. Their Splicing PDF's are also wonderful. I threw out my New England Ropes splicing guide, it actually has errors in it.
As far as tying a bolin and moving on, that is an excellent thing for many repairs. Unfortunately, the bolin removes 40% or more of the breaking strength of the line, which for me is not a good thing. Sure we oversize the lines, but I was extremely surprised how much load gets put on those sails, especially in breezy conditions (which is when usually something breaks anyway). So let's say the equiplite shackle breaks on the jib while going upwind. First thing we do is to run the lazy sheet to the windward car and get it back under control. Then we have to find a new lazy jib sheet to replace the one we moved to the working side.
If I tie a bolin on two things happen: 1. The breaking strength is lowered by quite a bit, so I better make sure I compensate for that with a higher breaking strength line. 2. The new high strength lines do not hold a bolin worth a squat. I have seen way too many bolins come loose when using the new materials such as vectran, PBO, and even the aramids. They tell you that you can minimze this problem by tucking the bitter end back through the knot, keeping the loops small and tight, and making sure your bolin is tied properly with the bitter end of the line on the inboard end of the loop. luckily my sheets are tapered to 12 strand, it takes very little time to make an eye and I am fini.
If you have standard double braid, it does quite fine for handling bolins, as long as it doesn't have that slick finish left on it.
Caveat: of course you don't do this for buoy racing, but it sure is great for the offshore races and cruising.
If I tie a bolin on two things happen: 1. The breaking strength is lowered by quite a bit, so I better make sure I compensate for that with a higher breaking strength line. 2. The new high strength lines do not hold a bolin worth a squat. I have seen way too many bolins come loose when using the new materials such as vectran, PBO, and even the aramids. They tell you that you can minimze this problem by tucking the bitter end back through the knot, keeping the loops small and tight, and making sure your bolin is tied properly with the bitter end of the line on the inboard end of the loop. luckily my sheets are tapered to 12 strand, it takes very little time to make an eye and I am fini.
If you have standard double braid, it does quite fine for handling bolins, as long as it doesn't have that slick finish left on it.
Caveat: of course you don't do this for buoy racing, but it sure is great for the offshore races and cruising.
-
Dimitri-2000X-Tampa
- Admiral
- Posts: 2043
- Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2004 5:36 am
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26X
- Location: Tampa, Florida 2000 Mercury BigFoot 50HP 4-Stroke on 26X hull# 3575.B000
Lines are designed to take load basically only one way, along it's length. When you fold, bend, or basically make knots out of line, you are exposing the line to torsion, compression, and strain at different angles from what it was designed to carry. So the weakest link in a line is it's secured point (knot or splice). As line ages due to wear, chafe, and UV your line will continue to lower in breaking strength (each type of line has it's own degredation curve). Putting an eye in a splice allows a load along a wider section of the line but the enemies of chafing, compression, etc still take their toll over time.
Have I had a knot failure? Yep, darned scary stuff, especially nylon. Sure they are stretchy great for anchors and can take shock loads well, but when they snap they have huge amounts of recoil, enough to take someone's head off. Tow boats/tugs use Spectra and 3 Strand these days for a reason. That double braid nylon was great for shock loads, but a real killer when it parts. I saw a nice "cruiser" quality nylon double braid jib sheet break at the knot and come screaming back into the cockpit. Luckily everyone had already come to the high side at that point.
Object Lesson: Never buy a line that has the breaking strength of the loads that you expect to put on it. There is some debate among riggers whether you should use the 5:1 rule or the 3:1 rule for buying line for your boat. If your jib hal has an expected working load of 1000 lbs, you need to consider 3000 or 5000 lb line. Now if you are going to put a bolin in it, you need to compensate for the loss of strength of that line as well, so for this example you would need between 5000 and 8600 lb. line. That is 7/16" to 1/2" in Samson Yacht Braid. In Ultra-Tech (moderately priced technora line with cover) you are between 1/4" and 3/8 (10k test)". The weight difference between the two highest breaking strengths is: 7.4 lbs/100 ft (1/2" Yacht braid) vs. 4.6lbs/100ft (3/8" Ultra-Tech)
Here is an industry standard look at strength loss of lines when knots/splices are introduced.
Knot/Splice Strength Lost
Square 46%
Bowline 42%
Two Bowlines 46%
Becket Bend 41%
Double Becket Bend 41%
Round Turn 30-35%
Timber Hitch 30-35%
Clove Hitch 40%
Eye Splice 5-10%
Short Splice 15%
Have I had a knot failure? Yep, darned scary stuff, especially nylon. Sure they are stretchy great for anchors and can take shock loads well, but when they snap they have huge amounts of recoil, enough to take someone's head off. Tow boats/tugs use Spectra and 3 Strand these days for a reason. That double braid nylon was great for shock loads, but a real killer when it parts. I saw a nice "cruiser" quality nylon double braid jib sheet break at the knot and come screaming back into the cockpit. Luckily everyone had already come to the high side at that point.
Object Lesson: Never buy a line that has the breaking strength of the loads that you expect to put on it. There is some debate among riggers whether you should use the 5:1 rule or the 3:1 rule for buying line for your boat. If your jib hal has an expected working load of 1000 lbs, you need to consider 3000 or 5000 lb line. Now if you are going to put a bolin in it, you need to compensate for the loss of strength of that line as well, so for this example you would need between 5000 and 8600 lb. line. That is 7/16" to 1/2" in Samson Yacht Braid. In Ultra-Tech (moderately priced technora line with cover) you are between 1/4" and 3/8 (10k test)". The weight difference between the two highest breaking strengths is: 7.4 lbs/100 ft (1/2" Yacht braid) vs. 4.6lbs/100ft (3/8" Ultra-Tech)
Here is an industry standard look at strength loss of lines when knots/splices are introduced.
Knot/Splice Strength Lost
Square 46%
Bowline 42%
Two Bowlines 46%
Becket Bend 41%
Double Becket Bend 41%
Round Turn 30-35%
Timber Hitch 30-35%
Clove Hitch 40%
Eye Splice 5-10%
Short Splice 15%
-
Schock Therapy
- Deckhand
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Wed May 26, 2004 8:46 pm
I knew that knots weakened rope, but I certainly didn't think it was that dramatic. I personally have only seen a few ropes fail. two were halyards that broke at the mast exit, and one was an old guy that let go where the un-thimbled eye splice contacted the shackle. I guess the boats I've raced on have all had over-sized lines. Personally I am a fan of extra strength in exchange for a bit of weight. The exception being light air spin sheets of course!
For the most part the only times you see lines parting on boats is when they are old and UV, chafe, and salt have destroyed the lines. In big chop or gusty weather you can exceed the working load as well when the boat/sails/lines pump with the wind/waves.
For those of you who asked me offline about what loads you see on sails and how to determine working loads, let me give you the basic equation to figure it out for your sails.
Load=Windspeed^2 * 0.004* Sail Area in sq. ft.
So for my spinnaker in 10 knots of wind only see 575 lbs. but when we fly it in 20 knots we see 2301 lbs.
For those of you who asked me offline about what loads you see on sails and how to determine working loads, let me give you the basic equation to figure it out for your sails.
Load=Windspeed^2 * 0.004* Sail Area in sq. ft.
So for my spinnaker in 10 knots of wind only see 575 lbs. but when we fly it in 20 knots we see 2301 lbs.
-
Paul S
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1672
- Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:50 am
- Sailboat: Other
- Location: Boston, MA
- Contact:
Re: Braiding/Splicing Anchor Line
FWIW. I thougth the same. Then I thought how important it was and gladly paid the (sale) price for a New England Rope 200' 7/16", 10' of SS chain, SS shackles for the FX-11 anchor.Mark Prouty wrote:I bought a thimble
Some things I am cheap on. Some things I don't want to screw around with saving a few bucks.
BTW, the FX-11 kicks butt. Bites instantly, super light pulling up. Would strongly recommend. Very impressed.
Paul
-
Dimitri-2000X-Tampa
- Admiral
- Posts: 2043
- Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2004 5:36 am
- Sailboat: MacGregor 26X
- Location: Tampa, Florida 2000 Mercury BigFoot 50HP 4-Stroke on 26X hull# 3575.B000
Paul, does that FX-11 fit inside the 26M anchor locker? If so, it must be larger than the locker of the 26X as I remember reading lots of reports that the FX-11 wouldn't quite fit. I have the GX-11 which is Guardian (the lower cost division of Fortress?) and it does just barely fit inside the locker. I also have never had the GX-11 come unset either...but still wonder if it is big enough for serious overnight cruising.