Sails, Rigging & Deck Gear

Its been almost 10 years since Practical Sailor weighed in specifically on mainsail track hardware. (See Practical Sailor, Feb. 1, 2005 online) At the time, we offered a summary of the products designed to manage what we termed the three Ss of mainsail handling-setting, shortening, and striking. In that article, we focused on the gear used with full-battened mainsails, which were becoming increasingly popular among a broad spectrum of sailboat owners then.

In your recent review of shackles (PS, September 2014), you tossed in a statement about recoating the soft shackles bimonthly with a UV protectant. Why? And what part of the shackle needs treatment? If Dyneema loses its UV resistance that readily, its news to me. Do my Dyneema lifelines need similar treatment?

The term whipping twine is somewhat misleading, suggesting a single purpose for a product with seemingly endless uses. These are the thin-woven strands that all hand-sewing projects depend upon, and in the process of exploring various stitching projects, weve gone through spools and spools of it.

Rope clutches are a great innovation that can help sailors better control the lines that lead aft to the cockpit and those that cluster around the mast base. But as with many good things, there is the risk of over-doing the benefit.

All lines were broken once to determine approximate breaking strength without a stitched eye. A simple chain fall and load cell provided a means of pulling test samples up to 5,000-pound loads. The samples were then sewn or knotted into dog bones 6 to 8 inches long with an eye on each end, and the load was again applied until failure. This allowed the testers to compare breaking strengths with and without a stitched eye or knot. The test was broken into two parts, laboratory and field testing.

We principally looked at three means of seizing an eye without splicing-basting, round-stitching, and seizing-used alone and in combination. Round stitching is described in the accompanying main article. Here are some of the other stitching patterns we tested.

There are times when getting to the top of a mast is a far easier solo proposition than hunting for help. The first time I saw a middle-aged man go it alone, he hoisted a 3:1 block and tackle, rigged with 5/8-inch line, up a jib halyard. At the bottom end of the rig, he attached a bosuns chair. He simply pulled on the haul line, hand over hand, to the elevation he needed, then doubled the haul line through a convenient part of the chair and tied it off. With the 3:1 purchase, he was muscling one-third of his weight.

The typical production sailboat comes with a molded fiberglass tub for a cockpit well, complete with an uncleanable nonskid sole. It looks dirty an hour after cleaning and debris grates under foot. Some boat owners install Dri-Deck or something similar, which can be torture to barefeet and makes the cockpit look like a shower stall. A more attractive option is beautiful owner-built teak grating; unfortunately, fabricating one of these requires considerable effort and skill. We found a more practical solution for us non-carpenters: do-it-yourself decking that costs about $7 per square foot and takes about an hour to install. The DIY Patio Deck company sells pre-assembled, snap-together tiles that resemble traditional grating. For our test boat, we chose eight-slat acacia plantation hardwood exterior tiles; many wood types and styles are available.

A mainsail halyard shackle needs to be as reliable as an on/off switch on a table saw. Its a one-act pony thats counted on to perform perfectly each and every time. These essential shackles fly under the radar and have become so much a part of every sailors routine that they are simply taken for granted. They terminate mainsail, mizzen, and foresail halyards aboard sailboats ranging from dinghies to mega yachts. We become so familiar with the hardware, that idiosyncrasies like a slightly bent clevis pins, damaged threads, or a misshapen stamped fork opening are tolerated.

Brass is a pretty poor marine metal. An amalgam of copper and the much less costly and corrosion-prone zinc, brass reign afloat, at least in load bearing hardware, was short lived. But when copper is alloyed with less corrosion-prone metals, the result can be quite different. And although brass and bronze sound confusingly similar, their attributes tell very different stories.