Presenting a New Hitch : the EStar-XX (based on EStar Hitch)

[Seaworthy Lass]

Evans, another thought is the "Water Hunter".

I was playing with the Zepp and Alpine Butterfly and was all excited when I came up with what I thought was a lovely looking new version. It turned out to be the Hunter bend .

That could be tied with a clove hitch as well and given its tendency to jam in its normal state, it may work even better than the Water Zepp.

I will tie the Water Hunter for you in a moment too.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I will tie the Water Hunter for you in a moment too.

I need to work on that to see if there is an easy way of tying it. The Water Zepp is very easy. At first try the Water Hunter's isn't.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Evans, another thought is the "Water Hunter".

I was playing with the Zepp and Alpine Butterfly and was all excited when I came up with what I thought was a lovely looking new version. It turned out to be the Hunter bend .

That could be tied with a clove hitch as well and given its tendency to jam in its normal state, it may work even better than the Water Zepp.

I will tie the Water Hunter for you in a moment too.

Scrap that idea. I have had a play and it produces a very messy join. The reason it doesn't work is that unlike the Zepp bend, the initial loops twine together before the tails are pushed through. The Zepp is the only one in this family of four where the initial loops are separate and the clove hitch substitution is easily possible.

So back to the original suggestion .

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Combining the Zepp with a clove hitch may well produce a bend that does not slip in Dyneema.

Is your idea to have each of the two '69' loops be each clove hitches?

I don't have my 20,000lb hydraulic puller bench on the boat but I do have some quite powerful primary winches and if that's what you mean can probably give it a 5,000lb pull in some small dyneema to see if it slips.

[estarzinger]

so, I did just tie a zep using two clove hitches using 1/8" amsteel - put it between my primary winches and it started slipping - but from the pressure I put on the winch handle I am going to guess it was close to/just under the typical 50% 'dyneema knot breaking strength', so somewhat similar to a triple fisherman, much better than the normal zep. So, in my 4 categories of slipping (easy medium, hard and none) I put it in the 'hard slip' category. But the water bowlines I used at the ends did not slip at all (As usual), so the 'clove zep' is clearly not a 'no slip' knot. It's also a bit of an ugly knot, unlike the triple.

By the way, slip testing is something your could do yourself. You don't need a load cell for it. You just need some decent pulling power (say 1500lbs), which a decent set of primary winches or a powered windless will provide. I tie the knot and then mark the tails where they exit the knot with marker pen, and then slowly load it (it you load it too fast it will break rather than slip) and watch if the marks slip thru the knot.

[estarzinger]

while I was at it . . . . I tied an estar around one primary winch (5" drum diameter using 1/8" amsteel so a D/d of 40), and pulled . . . .it broke and did not slip.

I tied a second one but intentionally did not finish it carefully, particularly did not tighten the tail/second loop, and it slipped rather than tightened/broke. I tried this with 'your' version and it acted the same way. With a small D/d it self tightens, until the second loop is finished/tight and then holds; but with a big D/d it does not lock if not finished near correct at the start.

While doing it I did notice one other reason not to use the Estar on big pins (other than the throat angle issue) . . . the second loop around the big pin takes up a bunch of extra line.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Is your idea to have each of the two '69' loops be each clove hitches?

Yes, that's right. Easy to do if using the 6&9 method. The method shown in Grog's is more complicated.

Originally Posted by estarzinger

so, I did just tie a zep using two clove hitches using 1/8" amsteel - put it between my primary winches and it started slipping - but from the pressure I put on the winch handle I am going to guess it was close to/just under the typical 50% 'dyneema knot breaking strength', so somewhat similar to a triple fisherman, much better than the normal zep. So, in my 4 categories of slipping (easy medium, hard and none) I put it in the 'hard slip' category. But the water bowlines I used at the ends did not slip at all (As usual), so the 'clove zep' is clearly not a 'no slip' knot. It's also a bit of an ugly knot, unlike the triple.

Ah, pity.
Thanks for testing it out. Back to the drawing board.
By the way, did you try more turns than the triple for the Fishermans? This is easy and if overheating of the buried portions isn't an issue, it may help.

Originally Posted by estarzinger

By the way, slip testing is something your could do yourself. You don't need a load cell for it. You just need some decent pulling power (say 1500lbs), which a decent set of primary winches or a powered windless will provide. I tie the knot and then mark the tails where they exit the knot with marker pen, and then slowly load it (it you load it too fast it will break rather than slip) and watch if the marks slip thru the knot.

I have tried this already . Winch is a Lewmar 55.

The problem is that I have no thin Dyneema on board (only bought a small amount for making soft shackles for the snubber) so I can't apply even vaguely enough load.

Looking at different issues, I did start examining the slippage in some simple bends in braided Dacron using our winches. I monitored the relative force applied by looking at the amount of stretch in the line (distance between two fixed points on the line measured with digital calipers). The change in tail length was used for measuring slippage. I gave up testing though, as for those bends that performed badly I could not apply enough load to know if the slippage would continue or halt at some stage. Initial slippage may not necessarily indicate final performance.
I also lost enthusiasm, as once very familiar with the Zeppelin I found it easy to tie. It is super effective and ticks all the other boxes (eg easy to untie). If using lines of different diameter it works well with only a minor modification. I see no reason for me to personally tie any other bend when joining lines, so this was another reason for abandoning the trial.

Anyway, I will try and get some thinner Dyneema over winter when I can organise a postal address.

(I would love to play with a load tester. Not practical on board and I am home rarely and only for short periods. I have loads of ideas ).

[estarzinger]

Get a spool of 3mm amsteel - that's the right size to break with sailing winches - yours are a bit smaller than mine but should still be powerful enough - you should be able to generate about 2000-2500lbs of force. Do remember to stand out of the way of the snap back of the piece when it breaks! That's something that is a bit better with hydraulics (where I have 'remote control) than with a manual winch, but the dyneema does in fact not recoil all that much (unlike say nylon).

Just as an FYI regarding Bends . . . . I in fact did not write about/document the technically 'best' dyneema bend I found/discovered.

I based it on the water bowline construction. Form a clove hitch about 10" back from the ends of each line. Then take each end thru, around, and back thru the opposite clove hitch (like a water bowline "rabbit down/around the hole"). That gives you a true no-slip bend that is relatively easy to tie and untie and which is quite strong. I think it is a 'new' knot with no name.

I did not document it however, because the way it is shaped (quite big with an open loop in it), it seems to me to have a bigger than normal bend chance to snag on something - only a little less that two back to back water bowlines and rather more than two back to back estars.

[estarzinger]

Probably moving on tomorrow . . . Not sure when I will have wifi again.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Probably moving on tomorrow . . . Not sure when I will have wifi again.

Have a safe journey.

Many thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

I will put some more thought into possible bends that may be suitable for Dyneema. I'm learning lots in the process and enjoying it.

One comment regarding testing lines to breaking point with a winch. Injury to any part of your body is not pleasant, but if the line hits your face even reasonably lightly, severe eye injuries can occur with permanent loss of vision. At a minimum wear safety specs and keep as far as possible from the line (long arms help ). Even if the specs break, much of the force of the impact is absorbed. Keeping your eyes closed does not help much. I am personally put off by the risk of injury testing lines this way, but will have a play with some thinner Dyneema over winter.

Cheers,
SWL

[estarzinger]

^^ agreed, but just fyi . . . . the 3mm dyneema does really have very little recoil, and what recoil there is is directly in line with the loading/winches rather than up toward my face.

The breaking has been less 'scary' than I originally thought it would be and part of the interesting learning has been getting used to the behavior, strains and creaks and recoil involved in higher than 'normal sailing loads'. Early on I just took my time slowly building the loads up so that I could identified any weak points or safety issues at the lower loads.

Unfortunately the dyneema fishing line exhibits different behavior and performance than the 'sailing' size/construction line (like amsteel or endura braid or dux), and the fishing line results can not generally be scaled up to the sailing line. This is too bad because otherwise we could do most of the testing with cheaper fishing line with lower loads.e.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

One comment regarding testing lines to breaking point with a winch. Injury to any part of your body is not pleasant, but if the line hits your face even reasonably lightly, severe eye injuries can occur with permanent loss of vision.

Don't have your head resting on the winch

I've just load tested some 6mm cored Yale vectran onsite, went at 21Kn (about 2.1tonnes) with a non tapered splice, bit of a bang but not much whiplash. 3mm I'd happily do just with a boats winch but if you want to be extra careful then it's quite easy to put a bit of rope on the winch handle so you can sit away from the winch. I was using a 3t lever hoist.

Evans, both knots you mentioned went at about 1.5 tonnes. Haven't tried a taper splice yet or seen a data sheet for this rope, it's a special cored vectran designed for high speed grooved winches. Think it's about 2.9 tonnes mbl.

Amazing stuff, simulated power loss at 6m/s with a 300kg load plummeting from the roof is quite something when both brakes on the winch engage

[estarzinger]

^^

Interesting. I have been quite focused on dyneema, but have been curious how my results would translate to vectran. It's not slippery (like dyneema) so would not have the knot slipping problems. I have never seen any data on whether it is more or less bend radius sensitive than dyneema - do you know? I am guessing even slightly more bend radius sensitive since it is slightly higher modulus.

[scape]

estarxx reminds me of taughtline and blakes hitch: Climbing Hitches and Termination Knots
though with the added benefit of the double loop around your object, which I guess divides the load up

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by scape

estarxx reminds me of taughtline and blakes hitch: Climbing Hitches and Termination Knots
though with the added benefit of the double loop around your object, which I guess divides the load up

Close, but not quite. The EStar-XX is based on a Buntline hitch. The EStar hitch was supposedly based on a Buntline, but isn't. To add to the confusion, the EStar stopper is .

The Tautline hitch (= Midshipman's hitch) incorporates a rolling hitch and Blake's hitch is a slide and grip hitch, which the EStar and EStar-XX are not.

Evans may like to chime in here, but my understanding of the purpose of the double loop in the EStar hitch is not so much to divide the load, but to allow the tail to pass through the clove hitch and help grip it to avoid slippage.