Rope to wire splice

[Setia]

Hi All,
Back to the fold, have been busy completing the refurbishment of a Farrier 680 & mourning the departure of "Setia Tempest" my 40' Tri which was sold. Have a minor problem need to do rope to wire splices to extend the tails on my halyards & dont know how.
Help please, Glen

[delmarrey]

That's something, I think!, I would leave up to an expert with experiance. I've tried it a time or two and it takes a lot of patience.............._/)

[jim lee]

You know, I just had my rig redone, 50' mast. I needed new halyards in a bad way. The rigger set me up with some all rope halyards. I think they were something like $75/halyard. From what the rigger told me, this new rope is the cats meow in halyards and all the high tech race guys are using it instead of wire-rope these days. The ony drawback was that it can't be spliced. Or its very very hard to splice. So all my shackels are held on with bowlines.

The point is that they seem to work great and I HATED that wire rope stuff. Yuch! So I'm all happy. If you are interested, I can look into whatever this new stuff is. Sure does save a lot of pain and nonsense over that old wire stuff. No more fish hooks too!

Is it spelled halyard?

-jim lee

[GordMay]

I don’t recall my source for this simple instruction:

WIRE TO ROPE (double braid) SPLICE:
Basically, this is splicing the rope core to the wire, then over and beyond that with the rope cover to the wire.

You will need a special fid, or marlinspike, to open the wire for tucking the strands, and plastic rigging tape to tape the rope and wire.
It would be most helpful if you know how to splice 3-strand rope, since the tucking technique is the same, and practicing on just rope will give you the experience you need to visualize the splice as you go up the wire.
When the splice is complete, you will have a spliced length that will have: approximately two (2) feet of double braid line with a tapered wire core inside. Approximately six to eight inches of rope core spliced into the wire, covered by intact rope cover.
A final length of wire with the rope cover spliced into it for another six to eight inches up the wire.

(1) TAPER the WIRE:
For one (1) foot, unlay strands exposing the core wire. CUT alternating strands:
- 1 strand off at one (1) foot
- 1 strand off four (4) inches higher
- 1 strand off at the next 4” higher
- 1 strand off at the next 4” higher
until all strands are cut - you will have only the center extending down alone for one (1) foot below rest of wire strands.
NOTE: you could make the strand cuts every three (3) inches, but the splice will be a bit tighter and lumpier along this length of tapered wire.

Starting two (2) inches up from the last cut wire strand, tape the wire tightly all the way down to the end. This taped, tapered portion of the wire will stay inside the splice like that forever.

(2) ROPE:
- Expose the core and cut off approximately eight (8) inches.
- Measure another eight (8) inches of core and put a piece of tape around. Unravel the eight (8) inches of exposed core below the tape. Thread the taped, tapered wire into the core.
- Count off core strands, divide by three (3), and tape each bundle neatly.

(3) SPLICING WITH THE LAY:
- Four (4) full tucks. Each bundle under two (2) strands of wire – the same bundle will tuck under the same wire strand up the line.
- After four (4) tucks, taper: cut off one strand bundle, tuck up the rest. Cut off next strand bundle, tuck up the rest, until taper done.
- When core splice is finished, milk the cover over the core/wire splice. You’ll have approximately eight (8) inch overlap. Tape the cover at the core/wire end, and splice the cover to the wire the same way the core was done (i.e., four (4) full tucks, then taper.)

Safety Notes:
- Halyard failure is most likely to occur within a few feet of the shackle, at the point where it rests against the masthead sheave while the sail is under load. Failure can also occur at the wire-to-rope splice or the shackle splice.
- You never want to have the wire-to-rope splice end up on the cleat or in a rope clutch, because it is the weakest part of the halyard, and having it sit under load in either area will only weaken it further. As your mainsail stretches over time (and the wire itself stretches somewhat) the splice will move closer to the cleat or the clutch.
- Check to ensure that the Masthead Sheave is suitable for a wire-rope combination.

[Talbot]

I Think the following message from Sailnet covers this adequately:

Other than their low stretch, wire-to-rope halyards have some disadvantages that make all-rope halyards more desirable. Wire-to-rope splicing is still a rigger's art, and is accordingly expensive. The wire and rope portions both need to be precisely the right length so that the wire has a few turns on the winch drum at full hoist—if the end of the wire frays, you can't just trim a few feet off and have a good halyard. Then the splice comes under full load when reefed, just when you want full strength. Wire also tears up winch drums, especially anodized aluminum. And when the wire begins to fail, it often forms "fishhooks," which are broken strands of wire that stick out to grab the unwary hand.
But don't rush out to change to all-rope halyards without checking your masthead sheaves first. If the sheaves have a deep score to hold the wire, this will chew up a new all-rope halyard in no time. New sheaves are inexpensive and usually easy to replace.

[Alan Wheeler]

I too hale the all rope halyard. I really think Rope/wire is a thing of the past. Those new rope materials like Vectran, Spectra and so on a wonderful products.
To Jim Lee, Splicing the shackles etc is actually very easy once you have done it a few times. The hard part is that the rope having very little stretch means you have to use a little muscle to get the sheath back over the splice. But it can be done with a bit of determination.

[jim lee]

Wheels,

It was the rigger that told me that you couldn't splice the stuff. He tied on the main halyard and I was kinda' "Hey, where's my eye splice?" He told me that this stuff could not be spliced, its only drawback. Something new I guess. I know he could splice 'cause I was watching him with some other lines. Wow! He could do an eyesplice about as fast as I could tie a bowline.

-jim lee

[Alan Wheeler]

I have a guy helping me with my new rigging. He is one of only a couple of guy's in the world that splice the cables on the chair lifts at skifeilds and such. Apparently they a a 40m splice. Thats 130ft splice in steel cable. I think I understand why their are only a couple of people that can do it. Who would want to.

[Jeff H]

A couple quick thoughts here,

First of all as folks have been saying, wire to rope splices take some skill to learn and perform reliably. I would suggest that you find a knowledgable rigger and get him to teach you how to splice wire to rope and then do a couple practice splices with the rigger watching before attempting to do a real one.

You need to get a new rigger. On most of the new low stretch line, tieing a knot in the line will cause the line to fatique and fail where the knot is tied. Any competitent rigger could have and would have given you the halyards with splices in them unless we are talking about a pretty small boat (say something under 25 feet).

You need to be careful when you convert from a wire to rope halyard to an all rope halyard as the sheaves in the mast may not be suitable for all rope. Sheaves with the old style half round wire groove in the half round rope groove are not suitable for any kind of line. Sheaves with a newer style vee groove are not suitable for the newer low stretch materials which require a flattened oval groove but will work okay on a half round groove.

All rope dacron halyards are suitable on boats up to perhaps a max length of 30 feet. After which they stretch to much to be safe in heavy air. Fortunately this is a point at which you can substitute smaller diameter high tech stuff which reduces the price gap considerably. The high tech stuff will have a longer service life than dacron if you can protect the shell. I typically put a sacrificial shell over the portions of the halyard that sit in the sheave, exit box and in the stoppers. This also improves the grip of the line in the stoppers rather dramatically.

Jeff

[BC Mike]

[i]I have a guy helping me with my new rigging. He is one of only a couple of guy's in the world that splice the cables on the chair lifts at skifeilds and such.

I have a client who is one of the other few guys that can splice the ski lift cable. The splices are now done at the factory in Europe. BC Mike C

[Setia]

Hi All,
Thanks to all for your prompt & helpfull replies. Probably the best solution is to change the sheaves & go rope. However I'm going to have a go with an old halyard & see if I can master a new skill thanks to Gord' excellent description.
Regards to all Glen