Cajun ropes

[Minnewaska]

Time for new jib sheets, maybe main sheet too. Has anyone used Cajun Ropes XLE? The price is tempting. Durability, hand feel and kink resistance are more important, however.

I only need solid cruising lines, not racing, but quality is important.

Open to any suggestions and/or fav suppliers.

[Lake Superior Sailor]

I like New England Cord, it lasts well, fair price & works well both for climbing & sailing!...Dale

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by Minnewaska

Time for new jib sheets, maybe main sheet too. Has anyone used Cajun Ropes XLE? The price is tempting. Durability, hand feel and kink resistance are more important, however.

I only need solid cruising lines, not racing, but quality is important.

Open to any suggestions and/or fav suppliers.

Excellent product and quite comparable to NER. It's made by Nova Braid of Canada... Cajun Ropes is excellent to deal with and very reasonable. I use the Nova Gold anchor rode and it is the best rode I've ever used...

[g0twind]

Bought all of my running rigging from Gary last year. He is great to work with. The kit for my boat was exactly the size needed.

Top quality rigging if you ask me.

[zz4gta]

I'm using VPC for jib sheets on my 25' racer, been very happy with their performance.
I've used Samson XLS before and it works well, but wouldn't recommend it for halyards or guys. I'm assuming the Cajun brand would work fine. Pretty stretchy though.

Might want to look into a single braid for the main sheet. Salsa, Apex, Bzzz line, are all good choices. Run easily, and very easy on the hands.

[CLucas]

+1 for Cajun Ropes. Great product, great customer service.

[jgeissinger]

Cajun has an absolutely great product at a great price. I have used them exclusively for over a decade. The last item I bought was line to replace a spin halyard I wrecked. It was delivered to my front door in SoCal from Nova Scotia for less than I could have bought it at WM, and in my opinion it's a better product.

[Sanduskysailor]

Whatever you do, don't buy Novabraids Syntec for sheets. It sucks. Specs look good and supposed to be comparable to NE's VPC. It's not. Syntec is about the kinkiest line I have ever used. I tried everything to keep it from getting hockles. Pre-stetching, trailing the line behind the boat, washing with some mild detergent and fabric softener. Nothing works. It still has tension in it and fouls in the turning blocks on just about every tack. Line was very slippery at first and still pretty slippery. My guess is the tension in the core is not balanced with the cover. On the other hand I've heard good things about XLE for general use. Unfortunately with my Kevlar #1 XLE has too much stretch. 7/16" XLE stretches 4-8 inches in the puffs which is not acceptable in racing conditions.

[Liquorice]

Cajun XLE is sort of like Sta-Set (not Sta-SetX) and is OK for cruising boats.

If you want very little streach you should consider Yale PhD (spectra/polyester) or FSE Robline (Dyneema/nylon).
Both are single braid, easy to splice, don't absorb water, cost a small fortune, nice hand!

[tap]

Yale PhD is makes great sheets, but it's expensive. The weave starts out very loose but the heavily loaded part of the line between the sail and cars will shrink to about half diameter. The line past the winches doesn't shrink so much. The looseness can a be a problem as it can catch on things like cleats and spin pole lock levers.