Replaced my lifelines (coating cracked every inch or so, lots of rust coming through) with dyneema today. Thought I'd share the experience with others considering the same change.
I used 3/16-inch amsteel-blue, which is single-braid dyneema. I put a Brummel splice in each end. The end that attaches to the pulpit has a nylon thimble and will be lashed to a SS eye on the pulpit; this lashing was supposed to provide 6:1 purchase to get adequate tension in the lifeline. The eye at the other end of the line was left thimble-less; the holes in my stanchions are big enough to fit a thimble-less eye through, so my thinking was that I would take the lifelines out (at the end of the season? after every sail) to prolong their life. The "soft" end was to be connected to the stern rail with a soft shackle of the same dyneema. The lashings are 1/8-inch double braid with a dyneema core. All of the components together were about $70 at WM.
And the results are in!
And here are my thoughts.
First, I realized partway thought that I would not be able to release the lifelines by the soft shackles once tensioned. Oops. This is not a really big deal for me, since the finger dock in my slip doesn't reach the cockpit anyway :P
Second, I mis-measured one of the lifelines and had to run it to a more distant eye on the pulpit, and the lashings weren't long enough. I want the lashings to give at least a threefold purchase to tension the lines.
Third, the lines are brand new and yet already look "hairy". This is a bit disconcerting since I understand that hairiness is a sign that the lines are wearing out. They got this way during splicing. I'd love to see photos of other people's single-braid dyneema to see how it looks after some period of time.
Fourth, splicing this stuff is very very easy compared to double-braid. I did one eye splice following the Colligo Marine video and the procedure is now memorized. Ditto for the soft shackle, though I used the measurements from the calculator on l-36.com. On the other hand I have done about half a dozen splices in double-braid so far and I still need to follow instructions. The hardest thing has definitely turned out to be the measurements and planning (especially as I'm totally ignorant of proper rigging techniques). This was a sort of trial run to see what I'd be getting into if I decide to replace the standing rigging with dyneema, and now I have a much better idea.
Anyway if anybody else has done a similar project, I'd love to hear about it; if you're thinking of it, I'd say go for it!
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