Stealth mode - New Generation Ropes

[fxykty]

Progressing on our JSD lines:

- Leader is 42m by 12mm Acera Amundsen with 400mm loop to join the Middle and 600mm loop with chafe guard to join to the bridles. This is slightly longer than the length specified by Ocean Brake.

- Middle is 31m by 10mm Acera Amundsen with 400mm loops both ends to join to Leader and Tail.

- Tail is 40m by 8mm Acera Amundsen with 400mm loop to join to middle and a galvanised thimble to hard shackle to 18kg of 10mm chain.

I’ve made all the splices with 72x buries but not lock stitched them yet. Since the outer braid is quite loose after burying and tapering the tail at each splice I decided to preset the splices before lock stitching. If that’s not optimal, oops.

I’ve also cow hitched the three sections together before tensioning. Undressed looks just fine with the widened turning radius and the loss of strength is within the parameters for the overall line strength for each segment.

My driveway has two power poles about 60m apart and they’re just far enough apart to moderately tension the lines. After a few minutes under tension the first 30cm of outer braid is tightening up, while the rest of the outer braid over the buried tail is still relatively open. Looks like shorter buries are just fine. I guess I need to get the grass mud off the connections.

Here’s what it looks like.



I’ve rigged a climbing rescue pulley at the top end and the 10mm Middle goes around it.

The Tail to Middle connection.



The Middle to Leader connection.



The bottom end with the Tail thimble and the Leader to Bridles loop soft shackled to a come along.



The soft shackles at either end are the ones we’ll use to attach the Bridles to the u-bolt chain plates.

The white chafe guard is in place for shackles (over both legs) and the Leader - Bridle loop, but not yet attached. I’m having difficulty getting a good secure finish on the loops despite SWL’s instructions but will hopefully figure it out. The securing of the chafe guards to the soft shackles is a conundrum as well, as the end at the loop needs to slide back and forth for opening/closing the loop.

Once all the splices are done it will be time to install the 156 cones. Sigh.

[Tillsbury]

Nice job fxykty. When you’re done, if you’re not satisfied and want to make yourself a better one, feel free to send the old one down to Christchurch...

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Progressing on our JSD lines:
........

Looks like a thorough job! That is also a steep driveway .

Thanks for reporting the technique. There is very little detailed information available on the construction using UHMWPE, so I think this is helpful for all of us making one of these.

Seeing actual photos also means that others may be able to report what they have done differently or spot things that could be improved, and the method will evolve.

Originally Posted by fxykty

I’ve made all the splices with 72x buries but not lock stitched them yet. Since the outer braid is quite loose after burying and tapering the tail at each splice I decided to preset the splices before lock stitching. If that’s not optimal, oops.

I’ve also cow hitched the three sections together before tensioning. Undressed looks just fine with the widened turning radius and the loss of strength is within the parameters for the overall line strength for each segment.

I used 72 x buries as well and also pretensioned the eye splices before lock stitching, but I didn’t bother with the strop hitches during the tensioning (I learned earlier in this thread that this is what these hitches are called when they are not dressed like cow hitches). I did this by simply using a soft shackle to secure the eye to a cockpit winch and then I slowly applied tension by winding on the diagonal winch. I did them one by one, lock stitching each immediately after it had been tensioned.

In the end I didn’t bother with chafe guard or loops at any of the joins, as I am guessing the risk of chafe here is minimal when using strop hitches as the means of connection.

I had my eyes shorter as well (250 mm long) as if strop hitches are used rather than cow hitches, the loop just needs to be big enough to comfortably pass cones through.

Originally Posted by fxykty

The securing of the chafe guards to the soft shackles is a conundrum as well, as the end at the loop needs to slide back and forth for opening/closing the loop.

Now this is only guesswork, but I think that at the chainplate end the soft shackle would not be rotating around and so the area prone to chafe would depend on how you secured the soft shackle. I would just rotate it around to make sure there was chafe guard on the contact points.

We have TyeTec blocks that use dyneema for attachment. The medium and smaller ones have a dyneema chafe sleeve. This is not secured to the underlying line in any way - one edge is “hemmed” by simply tucking it under (no stitching) and other is raw (that offended my sensibilities so I tucked that end under as well ). The chafe guard does not slip in this application. I have used TyeTec’s technique on my Bullseye soft shackles with LF rings that are used on our snubber and that is working well too.

So I am guessing at the chainplate end something simple like this may also be adequate if the unprotected portions are not rotated around to the area prone to chafe after securing the shackle. I hope this makes sense.

Originally Posted by fxykty

- Tail is 40m by 8mm Acera Amundsen with 400mm loop to join to middle and a galvanised thimble to hard shackle to 18kg of 10mm chain.

I was going to use a Crosby shackle to attach the chain (22kg of 12 mm), but I am thinking a soft shackle may be better here. The chain will only be attached on deployment so the Crosby would need to be moused at the time, complicating attachment. A soft shackle here would be easier and would eliminate the need for a thimble. A bit of velcro would just add extra security.
What do others think?

Originally Posted by fxykty

Once all the splices are done it will be time to install the 156 cones. Sigh.

I would love to be encouraging and tell you this is fun, but it is mind numbing drudgery. Each tie needs to be inserted twice (around 2000 times in total) and the number of knots is around 1000.

The length of the ties takes some time to work out initially, as care needs to be taken to ensure the cones can open fully and centred well. My ties are black, which means marks don’t show on them, making it hard.

I have tied 94 x 6 knots now (24 at the end of the leader and 70 on the mid section) and I am about to start on the tail. The end is truly in sight .

SWL

[conachair]

Quite a bit of discussion over on Morgans Cloud about jsd, behind a paywall though...

https://www.morganscloud.com/2019/07...andall-reeves/

Been a few wind vanes trashed.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by conachair

Quite a bit of discussion over on Morgans Cloud about jsd, behind a paywall though...

https://www.morganscloud.com/2019/07...andall-reeves/

Been a few wind vanes trashed.

Trashed on deployment of the drogue, or in usage?

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

...
I was going to use a Crosby shackle to attach the chain (22kg of 12 mm), but I am thinking a soft shackle may be better here. The chain will only be attached on deployment so the Crosby would need to be moused at the time, complicating attachment. A soft shackle here would be easier and would eliminate the need for a thimble. A bit of velcro would just add extra security.
What do others think?
...

Thanks for your kind words.

Regarding attaching to the chain, the plan is to have the chain attached to the Tail then arranged in the deployment bag (which we will make) in such a way that opening the deployment bag will release the chain, which will then pull the rest of the JSD out. We intend that the deployment bag will fold in half then half again and have a single Velcro strap or nylon buckle strap to keep it closed.

As we have a cat and an inflatable dinghy that we deflate and pack away on passages, so we can mount the JSD deployment bag on one of our davits. It will be easily reached from the back of the cockpit and can fall straight down between the hulls. We will use really small cable ties to secure the two bridle legs so they don’t move around and those should break open with relatively low force.

We also plan to tie a 30m 8mm double braid line from the Leader-Bridle connection, cable tie along one of the bridle legs, then led to the cockpit and available to winch for retrieval.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Trashed on deployment of the drogue, or in usage?

In use.

Randall Reeves lost his, Jeanne Socrates, this guy..

https://youtu.be/wc0-dzIXRy0?t=261

There's a video on Morgans Cloud showing similar from Randell, lots of slack often in the bridle legs.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by fxykty

We also plan to tie a 30m 8mm double braid line from the Leader-Bridle connection, cable tie along one of the bridle legs, then led to the cockpit and available to winch for retrieval.

Same here .

Originally Posted by fxykty

Regarding attaching to the chain, the plan is to have the chain attached to the Tail then arranged in the deployment bag (which we will make) in such a way that opening the deployment bag will release the chain, which will then pull the rest of the JSD out. We intend that the deployment bag will fold in half then half again and have a single Velcro strap or nylon buckle strap to keep it closed.

I am still mulling this over, but I plan to have the bridle legs loosely secured somewhere at the edge of the bag so they can be accessed and secured without opening the whole bag. Same goes with the tail so that the chain can be secured just before deploying the drogue.

Using UHMWPE makes the bundle light and relatively small so it can be moved around and stored easily without the chain. Most of the time we are coastal cruising in short hops when the weather is good so the drogue will not be needed on deck and the chain is best stored somewhere low and central, which may not be the ideal spot for the whole bag. It also means the chain can be easily accessed for other purposes, such as the second anchor, or for looping around a rock for med mooring etc, so I think it may be useful stored separately.

Below are a couple of photos of bags other cruisers are using.
The first image is from here:
https://sailrite.wordpress.com/tag/j...series-drogue/

And the second from here:
https://tourdumondealavoile.com/2018...series-drogue/

I will make our bag a bit wider so that the strips at the edges can be folded over the tucked in portion to help secure it. The bag can then be rolled up and secured with a few straps:

[thinwater]

Morgan's Cloud (pay wall https://www.morganscloud.com/) just posted a lengthy discussion of real-world difficulties of recovering a Dyneema JSD due to slipperiness. I've never done this (only polyester JSD), so I'm not commenting.


Also some interesting insights about handling and chafe.


Well worth the read. If you are using a JSD it's worth the fee just for the articles on JSDs. Really. We should not expect hard one information to always be free, and this is good information.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Drogue making has been put aside for now. I still have the tail with 70 cones to finish, but it feels satisfying having the rest completed and packed away. The drogue is at least vaguely usable, even if the number of cones is a bit on the light side .

With the lengthy discussion that we had here regarding what was the best technique to use at the Y junction of the bridle, I though I would attach a few photos of what I ended up doing.

The connection is a modified strop bend for want of a better name. It is essentially an “undressed” cow hitch, which is known as a strop bend, but modified to treat the two bridle eyes as one unit.
I used 72 x bury for the eye splices, lock stitched using one strand of 8mm Acera on the 12mm bridle. The lock stitching technique was Samson’s.

Unlike the current method of cow hitching the bridle eyes to the eye of the leader, there is no throat created anywhere using this means of attachment so the eye length is not critical. It just needs to be big enough to fit the cones through if you want to work on attaching the cones in seperate sections before connecting it all up.

I did not both about chafe protection at this junction, but the bridle eyes at the boat end are covered by UHMWPE chafe guard which will provide protection where they contact the boat at the panama leads and double bollards (see earlier photos).

These images show the top and side views of the bridle’s Y junction.
The angle of the bridle legs will end up being shallower than shown. I just threw them over a convenient spot to take the photo :

[Fi2010]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Morgan's Cloud (pay wall https://www.morganscloud.com/) just posted a lengthy discussion of real-world difficulties of recovering a Dyneema JSD due to slipperiness. I've never done this (only polyester JSD), so I'm not commenting.


Also some interesting insights about handling and chafe.


Well worth the read. If you are using a JSD it's worth the fee just for the articles on JSDs. Really. We should not expect hard one information to always be free, and this is good information.

Try mixing Polyester with Dyneema (also Spectra, UHMWPE) to reduce the slipperiness. The Polyester (Dacron) also protects the Dyneema from UV avoiding the need to coat (paint) the Dyneema. This information is available for free on the internet.

[Fi2010]

Originally Posted by conachair

In use.

Randall Reeves lost his, Jeanne Socrates, this guy..

https://youtu.be/wc0-dzIXRy0?t=261

There's a video on Morgans Cloud showing similar from Randell, lots of slack often in the bridle legs.

Didn't Jeanne Socrates JSD accidentally self deploy from its deployment bag?

[Seaworthy Lass]

Back to uses for UHMWPE .

Loops and strops with eye splices on each end are super easy to make and are handy to have on board.

This loop is used to clip a line on the front of the dinghy to haul it up under the solar arch. I had expected to use a soft shackle, but subsequently decided a quicker system was needed here. The soft loop was a handy way to attach the clip.

It was made using 5 mm Stealth Super 12 with a 50x line diameter bury length of 250 mm, lock stitched at the bury junction.

What uses do others have for loops?

SWL

[s/v Jedi]

I use loops and dog bones for lifting harness on the dinghy, two loops to attach sheet block to boom and soft shackles everywhere 👍

[fxykty]

We are using high strength soft shackles to attach our bridle to our anchor chain and to attach our JSD bridles to their chain plates. We’re using a bulls eye weave soft shackle to attach a LFR to our third reef clew. Assorted sizes of soft shackles are gradually replacing hard shackles all over our boat. Thanks for the instructions and support in this thread.