Marlinspike Seamanship Strength

[patrickrea]

I am going to be running a new traveller line on Eclipse. Currently it is 2 1/4" lines, one per side. The lines are just throat seized to the beckets. My plan is to replace it with just 1 line.

I was thinking that splicing onto the little tiny beckets would be a whole lot of grief due to the space involved and my stubby fingers. Tying a bowline on the line reduces the line strength by 50%. Do you think that the seizing is strong enough? I realize that in the old days, this is the way everything was done, but in the old days, ships went out to see with a much larger crew than just me and also ships went down an awful lot.



PS this is also how the thimble is attached to the main halyard. Seems to have held up well over time as the halyard is at least 5 years old. That is being replace by a little trick from the Farr 40s using a stopper ball.

[patrickrea]

No one has a comment?

[knothead]

Originally Posted by patrickrea

No one has a comment?

Just saw it.

There is nothing in the world wrong with a seizing for certain jobs.
I've used seizings for lazyjacks systems and lots of other things for years.

Edit: I've seized plastic cleats to the shrouds for flag halyards. Held fine and much kinder to the wire.

[paulk]

You probably want a line that doesn't stretch in this application- such as dyneema. Quarter inch dyneema has a breaking strength of more than 5000 pounds. Even if a knot reduces the strength of the line by 50%, your traveller will be ripped out of the deck before a well-tied knot in the line gives. On our spinnaker halyards we tied a knot (instead of paying for $70 splices) and seized and sewed the ends to make sure they don't come out. No problems in the last five years, and having knots means we can reverse the halyards when they eventually become worn in some places, and have them last twice as long. K.I.S.S.

[patrickrea]

Originally Posted by knothead

I've seized plastic cleats to the shrouds for flag halyards. Held fine and much kinder to the wire.

Okay, I really need to go back to basics on my rigging technique. It's been too long since I was a boyscout.

The seizing in the image above is pretty simple to accomplish but how did you seize a nylon cleat to the wire? I have a digitized version of "The Manual of Seamanship" from 1891 and I haven't seen anything in it yet.

[knothead]

Originally Posted by patrickrea

Okay, I really need to go back to basics on my rigging technique. It's been too long since I was a boyscout.

The seizing in the image above is pretty simple to accomplish but how did you seize a nylon cleat to the wire? I have a digitized version of "The Manual of Seamanship" from 1891 and I haven't seen anything in it yet.

A seizing is a seizing. First I grooved the cleat where it goes against the wire and then a bunch of turns and then some frapping turns.
It can be seized in the middle if it has a hole or on each end if it doesn't.
A good strong needle and a palm help.

[patrickrea]

Originally Posted by knothead

A seizing is a seizing. First I grooved the cleat where it goes against the wire and then a bunch of turns and then some frapping turns.
It can be seized in the middle if it has a hole or on each end if it doesn't.
A good strong needle and a palm help.

Okay, I'll have to try it out. A little practise in my chandlery (aka the basement mess my wife wats cleaned up) while all the white stuff is still on the ground.

[KeelHaulin]

Is that a small (low load rating) eye shackle on the attachment between the traveler and the mainsheet blocks? Wow that looks like it would easily fail in a strong blow or if you had an accidental gybe. I would splice any halyard; just no need to worry about losing your main halyard and possibly getting a torn sail. Take the time to learn to make good eye splices; it's not that difficult once you have practiced a bit.

[patrickrea]

That shackle is what was originally there when I bought the boat last year. There was alot of undersized, oversized and just plain wrong things on the boat. All easily and inexpensively fixed. The mooring lines were old halyards, the anchor rode is pile of c**p, I have commented on the electrical in other threads, genoa sheets are way oversized which mean it's nicer on the hands but thay had hardened so they were actually worse on the hands.

That shackle above was replaced with a larger shackle and actually put through the slot where it belongs. As you can see, the shackle plate to the traveller car above was literally bent by the loads on it due to putting the shackle in the place and then a hard gybe. I am having a friend cut me a new plate this winter.

My new lifelines will be Amsteel and will require 16 eyesplices that my life (and my wife's) will literally be depending on. I think that everyone should know how to splice a line. As Robert Heinlein said in one his books (paraphrasing slightly), "Every man should know how to use hand tools, plot a course, do math, cook a tasty meal and write a poem - specialization is for insects". I believe in simple systems, that is why I like the way the Farr 40 guys are doing their main halyards. Even the Wayfarer guys have been doing it for a while. I am not so much worried about weight aloft, as I am primarily a cruiser, but I love the simplicity of the system.

[arf145]

Whoa--I have questions.

For Patrickrea: What is a stopper ball?

For Knothead: So is seizing OK then in a traveller application like that? I'm replacing my traveler lines and was considering splices but the old was bowlines. Same with inside the boom for the reefing. Seizing does look neat. What are the guidelines for number of turns, overlap?