The Bitter End ??

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Here's the duct tape treatment of the bitter end. The way the line is laid to the cleat is another sign of the checkbook sailor


It can go much worse than that, just look at this one and how the splice was done:

Look how the blue line is cleated... backwards!
ciao!
Nick.

I have seen a lot of power boaters do that, as if the cleat is supposed to contain all the extra line. I tell newer sailors on my boat that quick release is one goal of many notes, and especially that one.

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

It can go much worse than that, just look at this one and how the splice was done:

ciao!
Nick.

What makes me laugh about the splice is someone thought it prudent NOT to use it on the cleat, smart person that one....

[justwaiting]

First place i learnt to use whipping was boating related, second was many years later was in making bow strings (archery). There are a few things out of the archery learning that may be useful. Archery uses Dacron, Kevlar and spectra (fastflight) materials and provides useful information on these materials. Archery suppliers carry serving (whipping) thread that come in both Dacron and spectra (many colors available for those into pretty). There are serving tools that make whipping both neater and tighter than can be done with lose cotton. If you are looking for a way of whipping that is very restraint to coming undone "back serving" a whip is a good idea.

[msponer]

Do you guys push a needle through the rope when you start and end the whipping? That's the most annoying part of the whole process for me, maybe I am doing it wrong, but at the end the rope is compressed by the wraps of the whipping, so I need to use a sail palm to push the needle through the body of the rope. I've broken a few needles doing this.

I know there's a way to whip without using a needle and threading the twine through the body of the rope, where you tuck the ends of the whipping twine underneath the wraps, but .. at least how I do that style, the whipping shakes off the bitter end after a few months. It's not as 'forever' as the needle method. I'm not sure if it's because I tend to use dacron/sail thread to do whippings (which is slippery and doesn't hold a knot, or grip the rope, but is strong enough that I don't have to worry about breaking it), or if that's just a given with the needle-less method.

Unless there's a better way?

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by msponer

Unless there's a better way?

There's only one way and that is with the needle. You will never ever see anything else coming from a sailmaker. No rubber dips, heatshrink, knots, duct tape etc... a sailmakers whipping, just like the seasoned sailors do.

And it has nothing to do with being unwelcome... think of it as a form of initiation, a test. Once you surrender yourself and actually do a couple, you will step over the line and show it to the next one too.

I took this further (like so many before me) and put a Flemish splice on the bitter end of every halyard, multiple whippings on reefing lines for identifying reef 1, 2 and 3, whippings at certain positions on halyards to indicate position for the different reefs, chafing guards on halyards or running backstays where they touch spreaders, rope clutches, self-tailers etc. etc. I even use the pretty colors now and then to show which country I was born and so on. I do everything aboard myself and this is part of that. There is time for everything after retirement.

After the horrible pics I posted before, here's some of the good stuff:





All that came from my hands... I do the talk and walk the walk

ciao!
Nick.

[delmarrey]

May the force be with you!

[Blue Stocking]

My splice is bigger than your splice.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

There's only one way and that is with the needle. You will never ever see anything else coming from a sailmaker. No rubber dips, heatshrink, knots, duct tape etc... a sailmakers whipping, just like the seasoned sailors do.

And it has nothing to do with being unwelcome... think of it as a form of initiation, a test. Once you surrender yourself and actually do a couple, you will step over the line and show it to the next one too.

I took this further (like so many before me) and put a Flemish splice on the bitter end of every halyard, multiple whippings on reefing lines for identifying reef 1, 2 and 3, whippings at certain positions on halyards to indicate position for the different reefs, chafing guards on halyards or running backstays where they touch spreaders, rope clutches, self-tailers etc. etc. I even use the pretty colors now and then to show which country I was born and so on. I do everything aboard myself and this is part of that. There is time for everything after retirement.

After the horrible pics I posted before, here's some of the good stuff:





All that came from my hands... I do the talk and walk the walk

ciao!
Nick.

I agree with you. I think no matter how much money you have to buy new ropes, it's just not right for a sailor not to take care of his ropes himself, and not to understand how to wash them, how to coil and store them nicely, how to whip them properly, how to tie them properly. It's a really fundamental part of seamanship, in my opinion. Your ropes are some of your most important tools -- your life may even depend on them. You should understand and pay attention to them, in my opinion.

One thing, however, Nick -- you misuse the term "bitter end". There is discussion about it earlier in the thread. Use your ropes properly -- indeed, very important. And use the terms properly, too!

[captain58sailin]

There are only 2 ropes on a boat, all the rest are lines. Ashely's Book of knots is a fairly comprehensive how to on all the various things one can do with lines.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

There are only 2 ropes on a boat, all the rest are lines.

I think there is room for disagreement there. Probably American and UK usage is different. When you're dealing with the cordage itself when not at work -- that is, not being used as a sheet, etc. -- it's certainly acceptable, and in some places obligatory, to call it rope, as long as it is not so small as to be thread or twine or something.

Once a rope is being used for something, that is, you finished whipping it, and now it's controlling your boom, for example, then you can call it a mainsheet, or a furling line, if it's controlling your jib furler.

But cordage itself -- would you walk into your chandler, point at a drum, and ask for 100 feet of that 12mm double braid line? I don't know; maybe in the U.S. some people might say that, but in the UK, you would definitely say rope.

I found this on the subject on answers.com:

Knowing the ropes

Self-styled boating experts will inform you that rope mysteriously turns into line the moment you get it aboard your boat and is never again referred to as rope. But perhaps that is an affectation born of a desire to be more nautical than one’s knowledge or experience permits, because there has always been rope on boats. The Encyclopedia of Nautical Knowledge defines rope this way: “In marine use, general term for cordage composed of strands, and, as a rule, larger than 1 inch in circumference.”It’s true that for practical purposes ropes are given other names on boats, and may turn into sheets, halyards, warps, rodes, pendants, painters, hawsers, strops, cables, mooring lines, docklines, leech lines, heaving lines, downhauls, uphauls, out-hauls, guys, reef points, lashings, lanyards, preventers, and vangs, among others. But there are still also many “ropes” on a vessel, including the bolt rope, the tiller rope, the foot rope, the check rope, the dip rope, and others, including wire rope. Most telling of all, a sailor’s own phrase for professional competence was “to know the ropes.” Not the lines, you observe

Read more: Rope Versus Line: Information from Answers.com

[captain58sailin]

I stand corrected.

[captain58sailin]

There are only 2 ropes on my boat, a bolt rope and a bell rope, and the only time you'll see a foot rope is if you are working on a square rigger.

[Dockhead]

I like this definition of ropes versus lines:

Before some old curmudgeon pipes up, let's first address the oft made statement that there is no rope on a boat. People who say this (chuckleheads and seat-sniffers nearly one and all) mean that on a boat, you refer to "lines" and not "ropes." Actually, "rope" is the material, and "line" is a designation of the use of that material. You go to the chandler to buy rope, and when you employ it aboard, it usually becomes a line. Two obvious exceptions being a "bolt-rope" and a "rode," neither of which is ever referred to as a "line." Confused? Well, let's not get needlessly technical here - suffice it to say that if the skipper shouts something like: "I don't want to hear the word 'rope' again!" You almost certainly will not be enjoying your day on the water.

Boating Above the Fray - How to Whip a Rope | YachtPals.com

So the cordage itself is rope -- when you buy it, when you work on it, when you wash it, when you whip it, when it is lying in a locker. When it is put to work for something specific then it sometimes becomes a line -- or it's a line when you're talking about how it is actually used, rather than its quality as cordage -- "line" is the concept of a rope being used for something, as opposed to the rope itself, the material.

So you would say, for example: "I'll just pop down to the chandlers and buy some more 20mm rope to make a new dock line." Or: "Please call the marina on Channel 80 and ask them if they could send someone to take our dock lines." Or: "You'd better whip that rope before you take it up on deck to replace the furling line." Or: "Untie that line and take it down before it gets tangled in the whisker pole." Or: "What is that line there attached to your third spreader?"

To my ear, using the word "line" as a nautical synonym for rope is a faux-nautical pretentiousness -- and, to my ear, wrong. Line is the rope being regarded in connection to some function -- it's a generic term for halyards, sheets, furling lines, etc., etc. Rope, on the other hand, is the thing itself, the material, the cordage. To my ear; probably opinions differ on this.

Just like "bitter end" is a faux-nautical pretentious way to call what is simply an end of a piece of rope, if we are talking about a rope not being used for something. A rope doesn't have any bitter end if it's not being used for something. And don't forget that only one end of a line being used for something will be the bitter end.

[captain58sailin]

While I may be a chucklehead, I not altogether sure of what a seat sniffer is and faux-nautical pretentious; wow what a pretentious term. You are right opinions differ, and everyone has opinions.

[justwaiting]

so what is a bitt?