In the good old days life was much easier. Anyone who is not a teenager remembers lines like the famous Samson double braid, (which had, especially in Europe, a twin sister made by German manufacturer Gleistein) or the Yale Yacht Braid, all of them featuring both core and cover made from polyester, which matched in a marvellous way with the deck hardware.

This was due to several factors:

This was due to several factors:

i)    Rigging loads were far smaller than actual ones.  The smaller the load, the lesser the strain.  The lesser the strain, and less need, or no need at all, to put in use exotic fibre lines which with their small diameters, and hence reduced bearing surface, have a critical point of wearing. Moreover, being dynamic has a greater effect – due to peak loads - on a low elongation rope such as Spectra/Dyneema¹  than on a high elongation rope such as polyester, and on a short rope than a long one (i.e. jib sheet of 100% jib being in-hauled hard inboard…like on the Swan 45’). These days the interface  zone between lines and hardware has become more critical than ever.

ii)    Deck lay-out used to give every single manoeuvre its own winch, purchase, or cleat. Nowadays the fully understandable demand for easy sailing has led lines to be used with very few winches on deck. This means that lines are, under severe loads, by necessity put around winch base sheaves, (eg for a cross-sheeting, not forgetting self tailing jaws); fed into captive winches; swung around cross-over on deck sheaves, and/or deflected by organizers; stopped in jammers; cleated in cam-cleats on smaller boats; chafed against the rig during the tacks; worn out quite often exiting offset from sheaves both on blocks and on the mast; or led into Code 0 furlers’ jaws.

iii)    Less demanding ways of sailing. Nowadays racing around the cans in very short races has transformed the sailing scenario into a very hectic one where times of gybing and tacking are hugely increased, almost like dinghy regattas, while time allowed to finish the manoeuvre is dramatically decreased. For example, on a high-tech 100ft racer the mainsail is typically hoisted all the way up within one minute, despite the main halyard being only on a 2:1 tackle! The need for bigger wide drum winches and huge RPM figures increases the chance for braided rope to develop a twist when constantly used under these conditions. Extensive use of purchase for halyards, even 3:1 on Open 60s  or multi-hulls, and asymmetrical sails with extremely long sheets, ends up having almost one reel of 300ft to retrieve (or to ease!) on a winch….!

Needless to say, winches, captive drums, stoppers, snubbers, chocks, bitts and other surfaces must be kept in perfect condition and free of burrs and rust, and pulleys must be free to rotate and should be well sized to avoid excessive wear, particular care should be used to match line size and type of line cover in respect of where it is going to be used, at a certain given load.

Stay tuned for part 2...

Danilo

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¹Spectra and Dyneema are all registered trademark of American Allied, Japan based Toyobo and Holland  based DSM.