Smartest options for securing weather cloths?

[bluewater]

Hi all,
We will be putting our weather cloths back on this spring after years of not using them. I'd like to secure them in an of course lasting way--but also an attractive sailory way.

I would like to see yours and/or hear your suggestions. We have sunbrella cloths with grommets, and (below the gap) a steel toerail with periodic 1" holes plus (above the gap) a 1" steel stern rail. In the past we've just woven a light line around and around and through. I imagine simple knotted loops would not be secure and immovable enough (e.g. they'd slide more than yards of wound line). Is there an in-between option?

Pictures, links, ideas, all welcome!

[forsailbyowner]

On the t tops I do instead of lacing in a zig zag fashion I go out from the inside, around the bar, back into the hole and jump to the next hole. Its kinda the standard way to do it for t tops at least. Makes a nice finished look on the outside..

[bluewater]

Thanks… we do not have T tops, grommets only!

[forsailbyowner]

On t tops its grommets on fabric laced to usually an aluminum bar.
would think it would be simiiliar.

[boatman61]

Cable ties.. there's more important things to be wasting your time on...

[StuM]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Cable ties.. there's more important things to be wasting your time on...

But do spend the time to cut the tails off

[S/V Alchemy]

With cable ties, you can get the tensioning right, I suppose. You can also get them close to the same colour as the cloth (usually), which might make them look less like cable ties, if you care about that sort of thing.

[robert sailor]

the best option is to use bungee cord and lace them to the toe rail and life lines. If they take a wave, there is going to be far less stress on your stanchions/life lines.

[goboatingnow]

Cable ties are common but the worst thing , you get really nasty cuts from the cut ends

Dave

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

the best option is to use bungee cord and lace them to the toe rail and life lines. If they take a wave, there is going to be far less stress on your stanchions/life lines.

That's actually a good idea, except that the light bungee cord you would use (under 1/4"?) will degrade pretty rapidly in sun and sea.

I don't know of a UV-resistant bungee, but on the other hand, I can't say I've looked for one.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

...will degrade pretty rapidly in sun and sea.

I don't know of a UV-resistant bungee, but on the other hand, I can't say I've looked for one.

Slather sun screen on the bungee cord. It really does work.

[glenn.225]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Slather sun screen on the bungee cord. It really does work.

Do you have to apply it twice a day and after each swim.:-)

[Celestialsailor]

On my Ingrid 38, my crew and I were caught on the edge of a tropical depression. Big seas and big winds. The weather cloths were ty-wrapped on. They literally ripped apart. Just so ya know.

[Andrew Troup]

I was on a delivery of a RTW maxi a long time ago.

The (hugely experienced) skipper instructed a young crewman to use bungee at the bottom of the weather cloths for the reasons given above (ie to simulate "freeing ports" on a ship with solid bulwarks)

He was in the habit of trusting his race crew.
He didn't look over their shoulders, or micromanage, and generally this policy paid off, because he was a superb judge of people, and he generally got first pick of any talent.

We ended up hove to under storm trysail on two separate occasions in the Southern Ocean, very rare on a boat like this.

And we had a row of bent stanchions, despite them being 1.25" with extra tall bracing stirrups.

The skipper was ... disappointed to discover standard cordage at the bottom of the weather cloths. Still, he reasoned (privately) that the lesson was more thoroughly learned than if he had discovered it earlier, told the guy off, and made him change it.
In that case, the guy would only have had his word for it that it could have been a problem.

Lessons learned on a delivery do not have to be learned during a highly competitive race, when the consequences of the smallest lapse are mission-critical.
Not that the yacht would wear weather cloths in the race proper, but such lessons are not task-specific.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Cable ties.. there's more important things to be wasting your time on...

Ain't it the forking truff!

Originally Posted by StuM

But do spend the time to cut the tails off

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

With cable ties, you can get the tensioning right, I suppose. You can also get them close to the same colour as the cloth (usually), which might make them look less like cable ties, if you care about that sort of thing.

I gave a SailNet guy some snark about this very issue.

However, I was wrong to do so and I feel bad about it. Who gives a crap really? Besides me, that is.

My own marlinspike seamanship is nothing to brag about. And the fact that I wouldn't use cable ties just marks me as a mossback.

Messing about was a life changing thing for many of us geezers. The younger crowd seems to see it as something to do for awhile while seeking the next best thing. And why not?

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach,
fearing not I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach.
My pathway led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
R. Dylan