Stealth mode - New Generation Ropes

[Seaworthy Lass]

I have been exploring fishing chandleries again. After a year with little access to stores of any kind, is like letting a kid loose in a toy store .

UHMWPE is being used more and more in the fishing industry and all sorts of ropes that are not usually seen in “marine” chandleries are making an appearance. The huge bonus is that the price is a fraction of that of Dyneema.

I discovered Acera Amundsen the year before last and I am constructing our series drogue from this. I’ve also used it for numerous soft shackles and the portion of our snubber that runs over the bow roller.

The latest rope I have been trying is Southern Ropes Stealth Super 12. It is heat set to minimise creep and improve strength. It has a polyurethane coating for extra abrasion resistance. Breaking strength is superior to Acera (up to 27% greater depending on line diameter!).

As with Acera, it is significantly stiffer than standard Dyneema, with an almost waxy feel to the strands. The huge bonus is that neither of these ropes fluff up during construction, eliminating snagging of fibres. I have used the Acera soft shackles for a year now and this property is retained, which has been brilliant. Handling it, I suspect the same will apply to Stealth 12.

The only drawback is that its stiffness makes tying stopper knots more awkward in both these ropes. This is instantly overcome though if you dip the rope into warm water. It instantly softens dramatically into a floppy state, which reverts to its original condition when it dries.

The stiffness took a little while to adapt to, but it is a sheer pleasure working with it now. I vastly prefer it to the softer types of UHMWPE rope.

I can’t find a lot of technical information regarding Stealth 12 online (figures for creep etc), but this is the breaking strength table:

GP-12 - Stealth Fibre - Fibres

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I discovered Acera Amundsen the year before last and I am constructing our series drogue from this. I’ve also used it for numerous soft shackles and the portion of our snubber that runs over the bow roller.

Nothing to do with UHMWPE, but did you read Kim Klaka's article in the March edition of Cruising Helmsman?

Klaka suggests that storm tactics might need rethinking. He argues - although admitting that the scientific/evidence-basis is thin, we ought think of a storm and corresponding tactics in at least two phases:

* in the first phase, a drogue should prove useful to slow a boat down and avoid surf-riding; while
* in the second phase, higher boat speed should prove useful to deal with the long fast waves at a time when the risk of surf-riding a breaker is lower.

I've attached a copy of Klaka's article. I shan't leave it on the website for long.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Nothing to do with UHMWPE, but did you read Kim Klaka's article in the March edition of Cruising Helmsman?

Klaka suggests that storm tactics might need rethinking. He argues - although admitting that the scientific/evidence-basis is thin, we ought think of a storm and corresponding tactics in at least two phases:

* in the first phase, a drogue should prove useful to slow a boat down and avoid surf-riding; while
* in the second phase, higher boat speed should prove useful to deal with the long fast waves at a time when the risk of surf-riding a breaker is lower.

I've attached a copy of Klaka's article. I shan't leave it on the website for long.

Hi Alan
Thanks for the info. No, I have not read the article. Could you please email it to me? I missed seeing your attachment.

SWL

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Hi Alan
Thanks for the info. No, I have not read the article. Could you please email it to me? I missed seeing your attachment.

Done. Should be in your mailbox.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Done. Should be in your mailbox.

Hi Alan
Many thanks. I will have a careful read tonight.

We have not yet experienced waves that would require tactics such as this, so I have no practical experience in this regard (although we did have fun surfing down a few waves almost bare poled in the Force 9 gale crossing the North Sea a couple of weeks ago ).

A little like an insurance policy, I hope we never need to use the drogue.

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

The first project was a “high strength” soft shackle made with a button stopper. Using 5 mm Stealth 12 gives an estimated break load of 7800 kg. As usual SWL should be taken as 1/5 of this.

The dramatic difference in price compared to Dyneema was the initial drawcard,
but apart from their chafe resistance and “non fluffing” with use, the super smooth strands of the latest UHMWPE ropes such as Stealth 12 and Acera make beautiful looking items:

Edited to add: actually called Stealth Super-12

[GRIT]

Very nice job, SWL.

I'll be checking into this "stealth" stuff. It's nice to have an alternative to Dyneema.

Cheers.
Paul.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Very nice job, SWL.

Thanks .

Now that I have access to rope again I am getting stuck into a long list of projects. The first has been to replace our system of attaching the TyeTec blocks on our toe rail. Although they work well on the yankee and staysail tracks, the TyeTec blocks unfortunately don’t rotate sufficiently on the thick toe rail to allow the line to align itself centrally on the roller. Under high load the block can then distort (I learned this the hard way on our first offshore passage ).

Attaching a loop to the toe rail and then attaching the TyeTec block to that solves the problem. We have seven of these blocks attached to the toe rail, and in the last couple of days I have now modified the attachment point of all these in the manner shown below with Stealth loops, replacing all the temporary soft shackles I installed last summer.

SWL

[Dockhead]

Nice! I'll grab some of that if I see it.


I made a Jordan Series Drogue out of the Acera Amundsen (bought on SWL's recommendation and through her connection in Holland), and was very pleased with it. I'm using it for other things on board, as well.


One thing I've learned from working with UHMWP single braid over the years is that the coating is extremely important. Uncoated Dyneema frizzes and fluffs, which is very bad. I think the coating also helps the splices to stick together properly. The coating on the Acera Amundsen is excellent -- for me, just the right stiffness and stickiness, not too much, not too little.



I'll look forward to trying this new entrant.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I made a Jordan Series Drogue out of the Acera Amundsen (bought on SWL's recommendation and through her connection in Holland), and was very pleased with it. I'm using it for other things on board, as well.

I am still plodding along with cone attachment for our drogue. It is a mundane, mind numbing task, which will take about 40 hours to complete. I have put it aside for now while I do some fun stuff .

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

Next task was to replace the soft shackles on the old blocks used for outboard yankee sheets with ones of the correct length.

With such a thick attachment point, if the shackle does not swivel then crossing the legs allows a better degree of twist when under load:

[Pete7]

Is Super 12 the same thing?

http://www.southernropes.co.za/catal.../yachting.html

Seems they have a shop in Fareham, UK, just up the road from me which is interesting and handy.

United Kingdom - Contact Us

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Is Super 12 the same thing?

Yachting - Leisure Marine - Applications

Seems they have a shop in Fareham, UK, just up the road from me which is interesting and handy.

United Kingdom - Contact Us

Yes, that’s it . I see I have been naming it incorrectly. Super-12 (undyed version) and GP-12 (dyed) are both made with Stealth yarn. Southern Ropes seem to have both Commercial and Yachting divisions so their rope should be easier to find than Acera.

I have been super busy the last few days completing all sorts of jobs that have piled up while I was waiting to be able to access shops/internet again. The more I work with this Stealth rope, the more impressed I am. I will stock up big time before we leave the Netherlands.

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

We are finally starting to accumulate some old/spare rope so the next project was organising storage for the increasing pile.

Selecting UHMWPE for this was slightly overkill . Even simple polyester would work well in this application.

I used 5mm Super-12 to make several high strength soft shackles (cut 200 cm, tie stopper knot 65 cm from the noose at the end, bury tails 15 cm). I always pretension the knots using a winch, regardless of initial purpose. I never know what these may be used for later and it is nice to know some have not been constructed weaker than others.

An aluminum rod was fed through a couple of holes in the frames and I cow hitched the soft shackles onto this. I find using soft shackles for this purpose means I can stack almost twice the amount of line, compared to tying it on.

SWL

[Seaworthy Lass]

I forgot to add:

I am frequently reaching for spare line and finding it either too long or short for what I need. To avoid this I have marked each white whipped end of the line I stored today with the length of the piece using a permanent black marker.

No more pulling out 20 m when I only need 10 .