A world with options...

Very much worth reading (and acting upon), a little good news, and the word of the day is S-T-E-A-M-P-U-N-K...

Some time ago a rigger of note came up with a very cool clutch system for sailboats that worked great, did little or no damage to the line, and from the looks of it should be cheaper than existing systems due to its overall simplicity of materials and labor.

This one in fact...



Yeah, the Chinese handcuffs clutch... A small block of alloy with a few holes drilled in it, some Kernmantle cover, and a bit of string. Something an inspired DIYer could throw together for $10- $20 bucks a pop with a little sweat equity and a bit of cunning. No rocket science involved but brilliant all the same.

That said, once the idea became a product of the yachting sort not all that affordable anymore.

Of course, the choice of paths is up to you but it's nice to know you have options...

Listening to Kitty, Daisy, & Lewis

So it goes...

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An alternative to whippings that makes sense

Something of a universal story these days, rewriting history, and some worrisome reading...

Ino-Rope with a simple how-to.



Listening to a plethora of Van Morrison "Moondance" covers

So it goes...

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Running back stays...

A very interesting lecture, some important reading, and the best concise riff I've read on the Indiana stupidity yet (though BadTux comes close)...

The other day someone mentioned to me that they'd never have a boat with running back stays. The reason given was that they were an accident waiting to happen and it got me thinking. Mostly about how so many attitudes regarding the practice of sailing have changed and not all for the better.

Running back stays make a lot of sense. They're really quite simple to use and add a big safety factor to a rig. That said, folks who don't like running backs think just the opposite and suggest they add a lot of difficulty to the sailing workload (apparently akin to doing calculus in your head while juggling a mixed fruit bowl) and, more importantly, that they are inherently unsafe and the cause of many lost rigs.

Admittedly running back stays do add a couple of lines to deal with but, difficult? Done right it is less work than a jib sheet and set up with a modicum of intelligence hardly worth talking about. So, I just don't see the difficulty.

As for running backs being responsible for lost rigs and suchlike. I've yet to hear of a single case of a running back stay being the cause of a lost rig. Point of fact the cause of every instance I've come across is someone doing something stupid. Case in point an uncontrolled gybe is not caused by a running back stay but by someone not paying attention. So, hardly fair to blame a stay (or the boom for that matter).

I still think something like the publication "Accidents in North American Mountaineering"
geared to sailing would be no bad thing in sorting out the nuts and bolts of why things go bad on boats and people get hurt. If we did, I suspect, running back stays would have a much better reputation and we'd all be a lot safer...

Listening to Mr Elevator & the Brains Hotel (and getting my Farfisa/Iron Butterfly groove on)

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The power of negative input...

A little worthwhile reading, some stuff you need to know about, and something worth a listen to from Jay FitzGerald...

Way back when I was building our first Loose Moose (a Phil Bolger 'Jessie Cooper" design), I expected a certain amount of hassle of the negative input variety... Hey, it was an "Odd" boat and not what most people think a boat's supposed to be like.

The thing is what I did not expect is how easily seeds of doubts planted by others tend to take root and grow like Kudzu if you're not paying attention.

A good example of bad seeds growing out of control was the mainmast... The Jessie Cooper design has a free standing mainmast with a balanced lug rig and this seemed to bother a lot of the folks who visited the build site because...

1. The mast did not have standing rigging
2. The mast did not have a track
3. The main halyard had a simple sheave at the masthead which was considered insufficient
4.  It was wood

The seed of doubt that took hold and kept me up nights was the issue people had with the simple sheave ... People thought that since the sail had both a yard, a boom, and a chunk of sail area that I'd never be able to raise the sail without significant added mechanical advantage in the form of more blocks and a winch.

So as the seed grew into a bush of doubt, I found myself looking at winches and other various schemes to add a six-part purchase to the top of the mast. This, of course, slowed down the work effort and distracted me from stuff I should have been doing...

Worse, now that I had decided there just might be a problem with the halyard sheave all of a sudden anytime someone pointed out a possible problem/issue, which anyone who's ever built a boat knows happens daily, I found I was much more receptive to allowing it to take root.

One morning I woke up to find I thought the whole boat sucked... Not exactly the sort of mindset you want in the home stretch three weeks before you launch your boat.

Since I really had to finish the boat I put the doubts on hold with the resignation that "I'll just finish the sucker and then redo the mast after" .

Once on the water with the boat floating right side up I felt a lot better. So I stepped the mast, rigged up the sail, and, fully expecting disaster, proceeded to raise it. No problem at all and the sail, and yard zipped up the mast faster than the proverbial greased pig..

All that worry for an issue that never really existed.

That said, some of my friends who had issues with the weight of the sails, yard, and boom all had boats with masts that had tracks and even with big winches they had to huff, puff, and strain to get their mainsails up. In most cases, sail track adds an amazing amount of friction to the equation and that's why everyone thought my simple sheave arrangement would not work. They were used to all of that friction that the balanced lug simply does not have and I was stupid enough to listen...

Listening to the Rolling Stones

So it goes...

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Some seriously good thinking in action...

Not the most uplifting read to start your day, how doing the right thing can pay off in a big way, and in the "this video will destroy your faith in humanity" department...

Colligo has a great idea...



More info at Colligo.

Listening to Ray Wylie Hubbard

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A pretty good idea...

You might need a strong drink after reading this, now this, on the other hand, should scare some politicians shitless, and over here, some sense being made...

Here's a good idea and Kickstarter campaign that you might want to support...



Nuff said.

Listening to the Texas Tornados

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Something you really should know...

A good point being made, G&T on quasi-fascist sucking up, and sometimes you really should be worried...

There's a guy selling Amsteel on a forum and it got me thinking about what stuff costs.

Now, I don't know about you but when someone is selling something used or surplus to requirements I normally expect them to sell it at a substantial discount... Don't you?

Now in this case the guy is selling some 1/4" Amsteel for 90 cents a foot. which is pretty much full retail but just to be sure I checked the store (LFS Marine) I buy Amsteel from and their normal price per foot was 90 cents a foot.

So not exactly a deal...

Then again, it got me curious about what the more consumerist marine stores were selling Amsteel for and I find West sells 1/4" Amsteel for $1.68 a foot, Defender (who everyone is always telling me is the cheapest around) is selling it for $1.44 a foot, and APS (who everyone tells me is the most expensive) at $1.65 a foot.

I'm pretty sure you can do the math...

Listening to Old Crow Medicine Show

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This is handy...

John Oliver making some sense, SeaWorld collecting on its karma account, and if you'd like to read about something seriously nuts...

Something tasty from Antal.

They call it "the Hook".

Listening to Trampled by Turtles

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A quick thought on the whole "marine" thang...

On pervasive market values, musing on a messy business, and Lefsetz with a great post on Jesse Winchester (who, sadly, just passed away)...

The other day I mentioned that I was having issues splicing a rope made by Samson called Tenex and, like a lot of posts, it got some people writing. Some to ask me about the rope, others to advise me how to deal with the splice, and several to tell me I was an idiot because Tenex is not a "MARINE" product.

So, to answer some questions...

There are two sorts of Tenex. Tenex Tec which I have been using for a couple of years and Tenex which is new to me and is a bit different hence the issues splicing the other day as it behaves quite differently than the Tenex Tec.

Both ropes seem to be aimed at the arborist and commercial rigging markets. I also see a lot of Tenex/Tenex Tec being sold in venues who deal with commercial fisheries.

I was attracted to it because it's a polyester, doesn't stretch much at all, has excellent UV resistance, tough, is comfortable in the hand, and is cheap in comparison to other ropes with the same strength/characteristics. Point of fact, I first started using it as a tail material for high tech halyards using small diameter Amsteel (Dyneema) but then discovered the Tenex Tec had a lot of properties that made it extremely useful for a lot of stuff on the boat...

And, I did mention it was cheap, didn't I?

What you need to keep in mind when deciding what products to use on your boat is not whether it's a marine/non-marine thing but will the product or products do the job. If you take a look at the specs of either of the Tenex ropes you'll see that it is actually a very impressive line. My advice is to always figure out what your needs are first and then find a rope that's a good match.

Oh yeah. as far as the problematic nature of splicing the Tenex... It was not a problem at all once I realized I was simply using the wrong splice. The Tenex Tec works great with a Brummel splice but the Tenex not so much in the way I like to work. The easy answer was to simply look at the Samson site and see which splice they recommended.

Listening to Jesse Winchester

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