Avoiding knots on an outhaul car

[cymeyer]

Originally Posted by Swift Drift

Any recommendations for attaching an outhaul line to the outhaul car without tying a knot?

A splice would be nice but disconnecting would not be possible (sail removal, etc)

A soft shackle crossed my mind but I think it would add too much bulk/length.

Am I stuck with the tried and true halyard hitch?

Attachment 205958

I use a bowline knot. Easy to tie and easy to take off.

[stormalong]

That clew fitting is a block. It is intended to give you a two to one mechanical advantage. Position the track mounted block farther aft and make use of the clew fitting as intended.

[chrisr]

i have just been doing exactly what you describe. went for an eye splice in the double braid which planned to directly attach to the shackle / hoop on the lewmar slide

HOWEVER bit of a problem in that i made the tight eye splice before i realised that i cannot dismantle the slide...heads on allen screws start to strip without even looking like moving

pic is my temporary and unsatisfactory solution.

at moment i'm tossing up (a) major dismantle n re-build of slide (b) soft shackle to connect (c) remove outhaul n run back by looping through the eye (d) leave as-is and add a plastic bumper to keep shackle etc out of sheeve

all have issues but gives me something to mull over while watching the world go by

by the way, i'm confident that the splice will have no problems running into the clew sleeve...

cheers,

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by NahanniV

I think this would work.

I used that for thousands of miles on my mainsail halyard.

The red ball was just a stopper knot in my case.

There is some chance of it coming undone if you really let the outhaul line get loose, but unlikley even then.

That won't work in this application, because the outhaul is not indeed attached to the clew.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Breaking Waves

DockHeads solution is a good one.

A direct splice (rather than cow hitched) to the shackle is probably very slightly technically preferred, for 2 reasons - the textile portion is slightly stronger than a cowhitch, and that shackle and bolt should really be inspected once a year or so in any case so withdrawing the bolt to remove the outhaul would give you that opportunity.

But that is dancing on the head of a pin, and either is perfectly fine. The cow hitch strength loss is probably irrelevant and I understand the reluctance to drop bits of hardware in the water . . . . but I would repeat that you really should occasionally inspect that shackle and bolt - it is a decently highly loaded part and they have been known to fail and with the inspection, you might well catch it before it did.

The splice technique would be another matter for discussion. A typically bury splice will have a pretty long fat bury section - you would have to decide whether that would run into the clew sheave well or not. Stripping the cover eases these issues but does raise UV replacement life questions because core is typically not UV coated at all. A tuck splice or an unburied (double or triple) Brummel, but they may work better with some sheaves arrangements. The tuck is full strength but requires just a touch more skill - the unburied Brummel is significantly weaker but easier and shorter still (not much longer than a halyard knot). I'd start with the simple bury and if it works well thru sheave you are all good.

There are additional possibilities (like with dogbones) but they all add some complication and the cow hitch or direct splice nice and simple.

The long bury I used does create a long fat section behind the eye, but the core of the line is slender enough compared to the full diameter of the 12mm double braid that this is ok. Bare dyneema is slippery and flexible and runs really well through blocks. This was one of the goals of my setup.


This year I became concerned about UV on the uncoated dyneema and I cut off the end of the core up to the stripped cover, and did an end to end splice to a piece of coated Acera single braid, which now serves that purpose. This is a slight complication but maybe worthwhile. In my case I also wanted to make the outhaul a bit longer. Alternatively I think there are coatings you could apply to the exposed core. On my boat I have quite large loads on the outhaul so others may not need to worry so much about this.



Previous to all of this I had had a knot like the OP. Done not by me but by Spencer Rigging in Cowes when they did my complete re-rig a few years ago. This is the same outfit who does all the rigging on new Discovery yachts and a lot of the Vendee Globe boats, but they did not do a particularly good job on my boat, and this was one of the poor details.



One thing I do not like about the Selden boom car is that at the very end of the travel of it, for some reason the double purchase goes away and you are dragging the car, just when the tension is highest and you need the purchase the most. I have a powerful electric winch for this line but I don't like putting so much force on it. I have taken it apart and polished and lubricated it, but it still works this way -- I guess it was designed like that.

[Tillsbury]

Also remember that with both the outhaul and the vang the amount of line you're actually using is tiny. I ran both of these entirely in Dyneema single braid (spliced to the control points), and then spliced about three metres of polyester cover just where they enter under the sprayhood and go into the stoppers/winches. As I'm known in the chandlers they are happy to give me an end of reel in poly/poly that I can use for this. I can also pick the strange colours so that every line in the cockpit is a different colour.

[Swift Drift]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

Also remember that with both the outhaul and the vang the amount of line you're actually using is tiny. I ran both of these entirely in Dyneema single braid (spliced to the control points), and then spliced about three metres of polyester cover just where they enter under the sprayhood and go into the stoppers/winches. As I'm known in the chandlers they are happy to give me an end of reel in poly/poly that I can use for this. I can also pick the strange colours so that every line in the cockpit is a different colour.

I like this idea....did you have any issues drawing the dyneema through several meters of poly cover to make the cover splice? Simple when you only have to cover a short section, but methinks a long run could be a challenge.


I still plan to use a cow hitch with bare dyneema to make the attachment to the car. I’ll likely go with a locking splice rather than simply a long bury. Will post pics when I’m able.

[Swift Drift]

Rigged it up Dockhead style. Seems to be a clever solution. Stripped the cover from the dyneema a few feet behind the car.

[NahanniV]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That won't work in this application, because the outhaul is not indeed attached to the clew.

I wasn’t suggesting connecting it to the clew.
That was the only illustration I could find.

What I was suggesting is to use that sort of soft shackle to connect to the outhaul car.

The benefit is that it can be easily tied, connected, disconnected, untied, it’s shorter than the halyard hitch, and there is no fat splice to get jammed in the clew block.

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by Swift Drift

I like this idea....did you have any issues drawing the dyneema through several meters of poly cover to make the cover splice? Simple when you only have to cover a short section, but methinks a long run could be a challenge.


I still plan to use a cow hitch with bare dyneema to make the attachment to the car. I’ll likely go with a locking splice rather than simply a long bury. Will post pics when I’m able.

Not at all. It’s hardly “several metres”. It’s enough to come from the sprayhood through the clutch and around the winch four times, plus the actual travel from loose to tight of the vang or outhaul. Perhaps three metres max. I taped the dyneema to the fid (the fid was 6mm and line 8mm) and milked it through, which only took a couple of minutes.

A locking splice and/or cow hitch isn’t going to make the connection better (it will likely only decrease the strength). Just use a very long simple bury, with some locking stitches if you really want but they are never going to be necessary in that application as it will never be flogging unloaded. A simple long bury like this means you can freshen the splice easily from one end should you ever need to in the future.

I do the same with my reefing lines, but in those instances the poly cover is only three metres where the line is hauled tight around the winch and clutch. Instead of huge bags of reefing line cluttering the place up there is now just a tiny coil of dyneema weighing almost nothing, and all the lines run free and easily out when shaking out reefs.

[Swift Drift]

Ok so now I have another issue. The dyneema line is so smooth and small that the car and clew block are coming together when I have the outhaul tensioned. It’s bearing up my brand new clew block. I may use the same solution, but only strip the cover from the loop to allow the bulk of the cover to soften things between the outhaul car block and the clew block.
Any other ideas?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Swift Drift

Ok so now I have another issue. The dyneema line is so smooth and small that the car and clew block are coming together when I have the outhaul tensioned. It’s bearing up my brand new clew block. I may use the same solution, but only strip the cover from the loop to allow the bulk of the cover to soften things between the outhaul car block and the clew block.
Any other ideas?
Attachment 206436
Attachment 206437

My Selden setup has a large cupped Delrin washer between the car and the clew block, to prevent this very thing.


It's called the "Selden Doughnut Buffer":


https://shop.hallberg-rassy.com/cont...-us/p1599.html

[Tillsbury]

That sounds like a good solution to the problem. Any old delrin washer would do the job, I guess.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

That sounds like a good solution to the problem. Any old delrin washer would do the job, I guess.

It works well on my boat. You would want it to be decently thick and large in diameter. The Selden one only costs £20 or so, so probably worth getting one of those.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by NahanniV

I wasn’t suggesting connecting it to the clew.
That was the only illustration I could find.

What I was suggesting is to use that sort of soft shackle to connect to the outhaul car.

The benefit is that it can be easily tied, connected, disconnected, untied, it’s shorter than the halyard hitch, and there is no fat splice to get jammed in the clew block.

OK, I understand now. But that's a knot, not a "soft shackle". Dyneema doesn't knot well -- not enough friction. And there will be quite a bit of that sticking out to jam in the clew block.