Lines and Splicing

Last week was a bust boatwise with other social obligations.

This week, I settled down with some new friends, a special type of virus that made standing up rather cumbersome.

But, since I am not the guy to complain or sit around and cry (yeah...) I used my downtime to figure out how to splice double braided line.

Somehow, when I was looking into replacing my running rigging I wasn't thinking it was going to be so expensive.  Its just rope right?

 Well, just rope and some handrails which hit me for something over $600.  That and the mooring rental fee blew my boat budget for the next month or so. Good thing for me I don't pay attention to the money that goes towards Jenny.  As the wise man says, "what the boat wants, the boat gets"...

All the lines are Sta Set from New England Ropes.  Red for main halyard, (Whoohoo! The meathooks coming off the wire to rope halyard were really getting annoying) blue for main jib halyard on the roller furlter plus jib sheets, green for the secondary jib halyard - for the assymetrical spinnaker mostly.  The halyards are all 7/16 line - for comfort on the hands not needed strength.  There is also some 1/4 inch green for the assymetrical for those light air days.  The old 7/16 sheets really pull the genoa down.  I didn't replace the main sheet this year just because it looks fine (enough) and I figured I spent enough already.

Since I was lazy and procrasinated too long I had to learn to splice the eyes in the double braided line myself.  It wasn't too hard.  Then again, I left a bit of room for improvement, but overall I am happy with the results.  I tried to read how to splice the eyes but reading just didn't make sense to me.  After reviewing a couple of videos I found this one to work quite well.

Well, turns out Google wants me to link to one of their sponsored pages and is giving me a hard time linking to the video I want so here is the link if you are interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UghIS9xdiDw

(I am really starting to hate Google frankly)

I made the left one first and was reasonably happy with it.  The green was my second attempt and I was feeling pretty good about it.  I made the red one last and... well I decided to stop for the day.  It is plenty strong but looks a little fugly.  Good thing it is so high up where no one can see it.

Of course I hadn't spent enough yet this month so this week I ordered two blocks (Garhauer) for the jib halyards as the one original was really really decrepid looking and now I am rigged for two jibs so I needed another one anyway.  I ordered new shackles for all three halyards too.  Jenny currently has a mismash of shackles none in particularly good condition.

At over $120 a piece I decided my old snap shackles for the jib sheets look pretty good so I will be re-using them. I need to cut the lines to length and splice the snap shackles to the jib sheets and the rigging will be al set.

Maybe next week I will even go to the boatyard...