New Lifelines for Blackdragon

[waterdog]

I've begun the process of replacing the lifelines on Blackdragon.  I've taken a few pictures and will document it here as I go.    The new lifelines will be Amsteel with specialized fittings from Johnson.  It seems like pioneering work as most everybody here still has stainless steel.   Hopefully it goes better than my pioneering work with cheap generators...       

First some notes on the old ones that came off yesterday.   The lock nuts on the turnbuckles did some impressive creaking and groaning.  I thought I would snap the studs off in removing them.  (Why wait for penetrating oil when excessive force will get you there sooner?)  If you have old lifelines, give your turnbuckles a spin every now and then and make sure they're not seized - use penetrating oil of course. 

There's an old myth that if you can see any rust through the cracks in the plastic coating of your lifelines, you should replace them because they will fail.  Surely this is fearmongering propogated by riggers looking for business?   Actually no.   I cut off the coating at a bad spot to reveal reasonably shiny wire with a touch of surface rust.  It certainly didn't look too bad.  Then I flexed the cable in tighter radius and I could hear and see the strands snapping.  Rust in lifelines is bad.  Myth confirmed. 

Also if you still have the ancient coated wire on your topping lift, replace it now before the boom falls on somebody's head.   Don't ask me why I know this.

Splicing the new high tech stuff is dead easy.  If you can tie your shoes, you can splice 12 strand hollow core line.  It makes working with 3 strand seem like the work of genuises.   It makes splicing double braid seem like some lost art of the Aztecs.   

Anyway my pictures and words will make this seem dead easy.   And you need never know that Foster was wondering last night if I was having "a mid-life swearing crisis".  Trust me, it's a piece of cake once you figure it all out...   

[waterdog]

Some pictures to illustrate:


1) Everything you need to create your own lifelines - 150 of 1/4" Amsteel or equivalent, 4 pelican hooks, 4 eye to eye fittings, 4 thimbles, old upper and lower lifeline for length, custom coffee table with embedded dog jaw.
2) Mark your old turnbuckles with a bit of tape so you can recreate the precise dimensions for measurement before you realize it really doesn't matter because you have to go back to the boat and thread it throught the stanchions before you splice on your thimbles any way
3) Old lifelines with rust leaking through cracks
4) The metal is coming from somewhere and the the old wire is seriously weakened and breaks easily on flexing

Next up: making the new lifelines...

[waterdog]

And here's the new lifeline assembly ready to go back to the boat.   The first picture shows the expensive hardware.   The eye-to-eye fitting gives you eyes on either side of a stanchion to clip your pelican hooks or splice to.   Since I'm redoing the lifelines I decided to run my gates from aft forward allowing me to reach the pelican hook from the dock without spilling my drink.     

The second photo shows a completed lifeline assembly ready to go back to the boat.   From lower left we start with an unfinished end ready to feed through the stanchions and have a thimble spliced on.   The thimble will be lashed to the pullpit.  The lashing serves as the tensioning for the lifeline and we do away with turnbuckles.   (If you like turnbuckles, Johnson can sell you some really nice expensive ones with extra extension.)   At the other end of the forward portion of the lifeline is an eye splice which goes trough the eye-to-eye fitting with a ring hitch.   You can also splice directly to the fittings without the bulk of the ring hitch if prefered.   The gate portion of the lifeline is simply two eye splices connected to the pelican hooks and stern pullpit with ring hitches.   This assembly is the most critical from a length standpoint.  The pelican hooks have a fair amount of adjustment, but you want to be close.   

If you don't mind slack lifelines when the gate is open and pelican hooks at the stern, you can cut the number of splices in half and eliminate the eye-to-eye fitting, by running a line straight through.   

There are two kinds of splices you need to make lifelines (three if you consider insertion of a thimble a different kind of splice).   I'll get another glass of wine and detail them as we go...

[Ray & Sandy Erps]

I recollect a fellow on the SSCA website that used Amsteel for lifelines.  I'm not sure I've ever seen that line.  Is it pretty resistant against chafe?  My lifelines are due.  I've been debating on whether to go this route, or use bare stainless wire.

[waterdog]

Ray, to be honest I'm not sure how it holds up to chafe.   You'll have people swear up and down that they've used it in fisheries in the Bering Sea and it stands up to anything except heat from a dry stack exhaust.   Others will rant on that the only thing that offshore racing rules will allow is bare stainless and if you are using synthetic you better be prepared to inspect it hourly.   

Manufacturers are recomending it for this application and making hardware bits to complement the line.  That's enough for me to consider it.  For me to choose it, I had to take it a step further.   I'm going to be doing a bit (OK a lot) of sailing coming up and the safety of my family is paramount.   

There were some things I really didn't like about the old lifelines.  They have multiple failure points per lifeline including  2 toggles, a couple of clevis pins, wire rings, a pelican hook, & 4 swages per line.   I was pulling up to the slip one night and a guest opened the gate and dropped it in the water.  A ring had worked it's way out and a clevis pin went splash.  Another time a turnbuckle came apart.  Rust was working its way into the system making them vulnerable to failure at the most inopportune time.   

What I like about the new stuff is that I can monitor chafe and overall condition without any hidden or surprise defects.  I do the splices, its all within my control.   The line is rated at 7400 lbs breaking strength.   As a system, I'm reasonably confident that I'll be able to break every stanchion and tear off the pullpit before I'll die from lifeline failure.     

But it isn't steel.  I don't expect it to last as long as stainless wire.  Chafe and UV won't be as kind.   However, the rope is only a little more than $200 for complete replacement.  It only takes me a few hours to do all the splices.   I'll never be stuck in some far flung port looking for a rigger to help me with my lifelines.  And I will never be looking at the toggle with the missing clevis pin hoping that my kid remembers to turn on his strobe because darkness is coming and we haven't got to him yet.

I think it might be a great choice for some people some time.   If you are going to pay a rigger to do it all, I doubt if it is any cheaper than stainless.   If you are not prepared to inspect it regularly and replace it sooner, stainless is probably a better choice. 

For me it works conceptually.  I let you know how it works in practice (My accelerated aging program is going to give it ten years of normal abuse in one year).  I'm not at the point where I would recommend it for anyone, but I thought it was worth talking about.

[waterdog]

Ah yes the splice.   

The steps are stitch it through itself twice and stuff it down the middle. 

That's it.   Pictures below show how it's done.   The first two pictures show the formation of the eye.  You just push the rope together, open up the weave, and stick the end right through.  I'm using a fid.  Sophisticated riggers will use the cap of a pen.  The second stitch is shown in photos three and four.   In this case you can actually stitch the far end of the rope through.   This creates a locked splice that can't open up.   If you can't access the long end of the rope you stitch the short end through twice - then you need to put some stitches of whipping twine through the splice to lock it up.   To finish the splice, you stuff the free end in the core - photo 5.   Taper it if you don't like the snake swallowed a cucumber look.

I'm leaving one of the splices on my gate unlocked.    I'll adjust the length if required and then stitch it with whipping twine at the boat.   Likewise the thimbled eyes will be an unlocked splice that I'll stitch at the boat.

The trick of all this is that the core stuffing actually shortens your finished line a couple of inches.   That and you need to stretch the line before you know the finished length. 

Go to one of the major rope manufacturers websites for really detailed instructions on splicing 12 braid.   I'm just showing here to indicate that it is not some super specialized skill that you need a lot of experience to undertake.   It's way easier than double braid or even three strand.   

[waterdog]

The splice continued... Photos 4&5, plus the finished splice.

[waterdog]

Here's the new lifelines installed. 

One of the gates was a bit loose on install.  It was really easy to tighten the splice and trim the tail a bit before a final few stitches with a whip over top.    There are still almost 2 inches of a adjustment left on the pelican hooks.

The splices at the pelican hooks and eye fittings are "locked" and don't require any stitches or whipping.

The lashings forward do a great job of tensioning the lifelines.   These will probably need tightening once the lines stretch to their final length. 

I ran the top line through some heat shrink for chafe protection near the stanchions where I like clip fenders on.     

I bought 150 feet of Amsteel - I had 20 feet left over.    Total project was about $500 with the new pelican hooks and eye-to-eye fittings.

[waterdog]

More photos.

[Ray & Sandy Erps]

Looks good Steve.  Thanks for sharing.  How 'bout a picture from a little further back to see how the new lifelines look from a distance?

[waterdog]

I thought they looked stunning, but on a grey day at 75 kB, they are almost invisible...   

[DaveM]

Waterdog
Thanks for all the excellent detail.  You have showed me that I can use more of my existing components than I thought.  I appreciate the encouragement.
Goodwinds
DaveM

[waterdog]

Dave, I bought new pelican hooks.  The old ones can be re-used.  Yours probably have a swaged stud that screws into them.  If it is replaced by an eye bolt (not a cheap one, but something rated for a load), you can splice to it for a fraction of the cost of a new pelican hook.   I just hated my old ones - hard to undo with a load - don't necessarily stay done up when I wanted them to.   That was $200 of the budget.