Homemade shackles secure our boat during Harvey

[estarzinger]

Tipto 12.... I believe its actually made from a high tenacity Polyolefin fiber, like Samson's Ultra Blue-3. So (I believe) this is same general family as polypropylene but chemically different.

This sort of line was popular as Chile shore lines.

The loosish 12 strand braid provides a good deal of constructional elasticity (at least at loads well short of deformation)

Regarding splicing, Lankhorst was given an award for what they call the "A3" splice. Don't know if there are any net instructions for it around. It is a neat low bulk 100% strength splice.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by conachair

Doesn't it look a bit low from this website for used rope?
TIPTO TWELVE

You are right, it does drop significantly when used, as opposed to new. I think unless otherwise specified, all tables given data on new line though, so comparisons need to be made with this. I don't know how much nylon's elasticity drops with age, but I have read its strength decreases about 15% when wet and that it suffers from UV damage more easily. I guess all the pros and cons need to be weighed up. You pick your poison .

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Tipto 12.... I believe its actually made from a high tenacity Polyolefin fiber, like Samson's Ultra Blue-3. So (I believe) this is same general family as polypropylene but chemically different.

This sort of line was popular as Chile shore lines.

The loosish 12 strand braid provides a good deal of constructional elasticity (at least at loads well short of deformation)

Regarding splicing, Lankhorst was given an award for what they call the "A3" splice. Don't know if there are any net instructions for it around. It is a neat low bulk 100% strength splice.

That is useful info. Thanks.

I had not previously heard of an A3 splice. I could not follow the YouTube I found, as it was in Dutch.

StuM did find online instructions in English on this Australian site though:
http://www.leaustralia.com.au/templa...structions.pdf

I am about to give it a go. The splicing should be physically quite easy, as the weave opens when scrunched up, just as single braid dyneema does.

SWL

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

StuM did find online instructions in English on this Australian site though:

That's a pretty conventional tuck splice - it is a good splice - it is not sensitive to small variations, so quite hard to mess up the strength.

The A3 is like a long splice, but for 8 and 12 braid. That is you lay out strands in the working part of the rope and then lay in strands from the loop in their place. So the 'splice' is close to the same diameter as the working part of the rope. It is very elegant, and if you like rope work one of those you see and say to yourself 'how did they do that'.

The reason for it's development is that when you are dealing with ship and oil rig size lines (like starting at 4" diameters and up to +12" diameter) the tuck splice starts to get heavy and bulky for the crew to manhandle, and the A3 eliminates that extra bulk without sacrificing strength.

The only place I can see it really useful on a yacht is if you need to bring the loop right up to a sheave, and the tuck bulk would jam in the sheave. Otherwise it is very attractive and elegant but not really worth the effort.

PS1: The reason the normal bury splice is not commonly suggested with the commercial 12 strand ropes is that the tuck uses less rope (you dont need a 62 or 72x bury), and when you get into larger ship/oil rig sizes saving some feet of rope is worth an extra 15 minutes of splice time.

PS2: oh yea, the difference between the new and old rope elasticity in that graph is mostly the constructional stretch being pulled out. That happens with all rope to some extent but more with ropes that have fibers braided at high angles to the load and less for ropes that have fibers that are near parallel to the load. It usually has less to do with actual changes in the fibers themselves, except that Polypro does change (rather more than other fibers) internally with use/age. I don't know where this high tenacity Polyolefin falls on that 'aging' spectrum, never see fiber level data on it, but probably somewhere better than polypro but less than the polyester.

[Jerry Schwab]

These are nice looking but I'm afraid they wouldn't have done us much good in Key Allegro Rockport the docks disintegrated

[Pilgrimtex]

Went back to single line docking.
In the photos you can see there was NO chafe on the 3 strand line and limited chafe on the shackle chafe guard.

[DeepFrz]

Thanks for sharing this Pilgrim.

[kryg]

Originally Posted by Pilgrimtex

Went back to single line docking.
In the photos you can see there was NO chafe on the 3 strand line and limited chafe on the shackle chafe guard.

Impressive, what material is the Chafe guard?

Thanks,

Kryg

[Pilgrimtex]

Picture shows chafe guard I used for securing the boat and use for my shackles.
I'm making some additional sized for dock cleats should things go south here and whoever on the dock needs some.

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Chafe is my biggest concern (the bollards on board are super strong). Our bulwarks are fairly high and the line will be rubbing the top of these. I mentioned in my earlier post that I was planning to make some dyneema loops for this application (and cow hitching this to an eye splice on the line). I had not considered adding chafe protection to the eye splice in the mooring line attached to it. Do you think this is required?

How about a long eye so the thick low stretch splice is over the bulwark?