Best Arrangement for Parallel Backstay Antenna Used Also For Lifting?

[Dockhead]

I have a spare mainsail halyard which comes out of the aft part of the masthead truck over a block. I am planning to use this halyard for two purposes:

1. To hoist a length of stainless lifeline wire to use as a HF/SSB antenna

2. To take some load off my davits, one of which cracked last year.

And I want to do both at the same time.


Here's what I have in mind:

I will have a length of stainless lifeline or rigging wire made up with swaged loops at both ends. The top look I will simply shackle to the halyard.

I will have four more pieces of rigging wire made up which I can shackle to the four lifting points in my dinghy, making a kind of cradle. Say 150cm each, terminating in a ring or a big shackle. If I lift on this with my halyard, I will take load off the davits and at the same time, I gain a safety -- redundant lifting system, in case something happens to a davit or davit fall or davit motor.

Here's the rub -- I can't quite conceive the best way to attach the lifting cradle to the antenna wire which will insulate the lifting cradle from the antenna. I guess I could have a short piece of Dyneema made up with shackles spliced in both ends, but that will be fairly expensive. I guess I could just tie the piece of Dyneema, but that's slippery stuff -- what would be the right knot? Or would it be better to tie a loop, and loop it through the lifting cradle and shackle the other end to the antenna? Or maybe tie a loop, cow hitch it to the lifting cradle, and shackle the other end to the antenna?

Any tips? I think my knot expertise is overtaxed here.

[StuM]

Soft shackle?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by StuM

Soft shackle?

Maybe, but it would need to be long enough to prevent contact between antenna and lifting cradle. The soft shackles I've seen are too short for that.

[nigel1]

Agree, soft shackle seems like a good option.

[conachair]

I did slightly similar to pick a tinker off the spinnaker pole and just spliced up some 6mm 3 strand polyester for the bridle onto the dinghy, much nicer to deal with than steel wire rope for that sort of thing which just gets kinked and develops meathooks which make you swear a lot plus it's easy to make up soft shackles whatever lenght you like.

Sent from my SGP312 using Tapatalk

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Maybe, but it would need to be long enough to prevent contact between antenna and lifting cradle. The soft shackles I've seen are too short for that.

You can make a soft shackle any length you like.

Here is how to

Soft Shackles

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by nigel1

You can make a soft shackle any length you like.

Here is how to

Soft Shackles

Thanks, Nigel! As usual, you are a wealth of useful knowledge. The double-ended soft shackle in there is just the ticket!