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Old 24-05-2013, 13:12   #31
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I do not like dyneema spectra lifelines. I find dyneema spectra too likely to be cut by a sharp object. But then again, every boat is different, and I would probably go dyneema spectra way in a racing boat.

b.
What possible scenario would cause this?
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Old 24-05-2013, 13:21   #32
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

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Originally Posted by s/v Jedi View Post
Okay, here it is: I invite Barnie to come along Jedi and find the sharpest thing on deck apart from the emergency knife and then try to cut my lifelines with it. I'll be nice and give him three slashes instead of just one. If he manages to cut it, I buy drinks and new lifelines; if he doesn't manage to cut it, he will buy everone in this thread a drink! How about it?!

Hint: you're gonna end up with a winch handle or a shackle... and a 10mm Spectra lifeline...
Free drinks in paradise, SAWEET. I am all for it.
Barnie, that sheet is hard to cut even with a knife. A winch handle or shackle would not even make enough friction to burn through Dyneema/Specta. Can't wait for this one.
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Old 24-05-2013, 13:27   #33
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

I replaced our lifelines with Amsteel and had a hard time cutting the stuff with a serrated knife. I like it, because of the low stretch, the strength, the ease of putting it on and splicing, and the feel on the hands. Beats the typical wire any day in my book.
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Old 24-05-2013, 13:41   #34
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

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Originally Posted by s/v Jedi View Post
Okay, here it is: I invite Barnie to come along Jedi and find the sharpest thing on deck apart from the emergency knife and then try to cut my lifelines with it. I'll be nice and give him three slashes instead of just one. If he manages to cut it, I buy drinks and new lifelines; if he doesn't manage to cut it, he will buy everone in this thread a drink! How about it?!

Hint: you're gonna end up with a winch handle or a shackle... and a 10mm Spectra lifeline...
I invite you onboard my little shooter where lifelines are 5mm SS wire. You can bring the sharpest emergency knife along.

I say here we have 5 mm SS (!!! with Spectra loops, not shackles, at the cockpit end...). And the Spectra loops (and a sharp knife) are there for a reason.

Now go to Vincent Riou's blog, read, and sin no more! ;-)

Spectra they are good lifelines, much as I do not like them.

And I am willing to buy you a beer anyways when we run into each other. No contests here. Opinions, not facts. Make love, grow flowers, not WAR.

I am not enemy to any material; just my sailing style, imagination and budget might dictate solutions that may be seen as old-fashioned by those who sail other boats, in other circumstances.

b.
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Old 24-05-2013, 13:48   #35
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

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Originally Posted by barnakiel View Post
I invite you onboard my little shooter where lifelines are 5mm SS wire. You can bring the sharpest emergency knife along.

I say here we have 5 mm SS (!!! with Spectra loops, not shackles, at the cockpit end...). And the Spectra loops (and a sharp knife) are there for a reason.

Now go to Vincent Riou's blog, read, and sin no more! ;-)

Spectra they are good lifelines, much as I do not like them.

And I am willing to buy you a beer anyways when we run into each other. No contests here. Opinions, not facts. Make love, grow flowers, not WAR.

I am not enemy to any material; just my sailing style, imagination and budget might dictate solutions that may be seen as old-fashioned by those who sail other boats, in other circumstances.

b.
At the end of the day, I just really like working with that dyneema stuff. Fun to mess with.

I sir will buy you a beer when/if I see you on the open water some day! As of right this second. Wife just called. Stated my new sails are in. I was making soft shackles last night. Sink is in. Stove (force 10 2 burner) is on its way to the house right now. Rub rail will be in this coming friday. Sorry for tangent rant, I'm leaving work right now to go play with my new toys.

At this moment, I could care less if anyone cut my one (only 1) of my lines because I feel like I'm on cloud 9 with that call from the wife!

Catch you guys and gals later.
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Old 24-05-2013, 13:54   #36
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

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Originally Posted by rebel heart View Post
What possible scenario would cause this?
The scenarios I have seen on the water were half split between the possible and the impossible. Why do you think the possible will happen?

Are you certain all your stanchions have nice smooth finish. I mean INSIDE the lifeline passages. Etcetc.

It is to say I am not in the 'scenario' band. I just look for ways of doing things so that they do not give, no matter what, unless giving is what I believe the desired effect (see my re-post vis. Jedi - I too have Spectra fuses in our otherwise SS lifelines).

b.
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Old 24-05-2013, 14:00   #37
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

http://www.sail-world.com/photos_201...6239947981.jpg

You are on the top though - looks carbon to me.

I still upkeep my argument on stanchions chafe though.

Errr ... half a beer anybody?

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Old 24-05-2013, 16:42   #38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by barnakiel View Post

The scenarios I have seen on the water were half split between the possible and the impossible. Why do you think the possible will happen?

Are you certain all your stanchions have nice smooth finish. I mean INSIDE the lifeline passages. Etcetc.

It is to say I am not in the 'scenario' band. I just look for ways of doing things so that they do not give, no matter what, unless giving is what I believe the desired effect (see my re-post vis. Jedi - I too have Spectra fuses in our otherwise SS lifelines).

b.
It's a bit akin to the point that stainless life lines could be cut if someone dropped a cutting torch on it.

No one's walking around my boat and bracing their falls with cutting torches or knives. It just seems like a merit-less concern.
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Old 24-05-2013, 16:58   #39
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

Doesn't anyone else here ever have to come alongside (say to refuel) at fishing or workboat docks decorated with broken steel ladders, jagged, rusted, protruding, snapped-off derelict bolts, and the like?

It's hard enough keeping the rig and hull and stanchions away from them, without having the entire intervening airspace intersected with stuff which has to be replaced* if it gets nicked.

That alone puts me off synthetic rigging, (yes, I do realise the thread is about lifelines) even though I'm sorely tempted, especially for the lower panels (in view of the concentration of corrosion issues at the bottom end of SS rigging)

*Particularly if replacement presupposes hooking up with a supply chain which doesn't reach as far as where I'm going.

PS: Many thanks to Evans for posting that excellent piece
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Old 24-05-2013, 17:48   #40
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

You will have an equally hard time finding good lifeline wire, "out there" If you were to snag your SS lifelines on the fishing boat, probably the whole lifeline syatem, stanchions and all would be ruined.
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Old 24-05-2013, 18:36   #41
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

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You will have an equally hard time finding good lifeline wire, "out there" If you were to snag your SS lifelines on the fishing boat, probably the whole lifeline syatem, stanchions and all would be ruined.
Agree with your first proposition.

Your second proposition embodies a minor misunderstanding of the scenario I proposed: encounters with docks are approximately half as prone to vertical or lateral movement as encounters with other boats, ie a question of degree.

Certainly a "snag" involving (say) a major vertical component, or hooking up then pulling sideways, could be fatal to the entire system, but that's a situation I have so far been able to avoid, and hope to continue to avoid.

What I (and people I've sailed with) haven't been able to avoid is the occasional tangential encounter with one of the items listed, sticking out of a dock. This has (touch wood) posed no problem to SS wire lifelines. (Or rigging wires)

In many cases I'm confident the same encounter would have caused damage to synthetic fibre.

Partly because it's never going to be as hard and slidy when forcibly in contact with jagged metal, so there is a ripping tendency.

How long would a UHPE lifeline survive in a stanchion simply cross-drilled, with no tubing liner?

While no person who understood the implications would knowingly do this, SS wire can lasts several seasons.



I'm concerned about situation "A", which for me is infrequent but does occasionally happen.

Contrast that with the much more severe situation "B" you raise, which might be unavoidable once, for ten or twenty of my "A" encounters.

I don't know any solution for situation "B", if the boat must approach that location on that dock, other than anchoring off and waiting for conditions to improve.

It seems to me such an encounter would quite likely ruin the "whole system", regardless of the nature of the lifeline.
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Old 24-05-2013, 21:04   #42
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You guys just like to argue for the heck of it. Many accidents have happened with stainless wire lifelines. No accidents have happened with spectra lifelines.


A friend of us was saved mid Atlantic because his 7 year old kid said to mom he heard something on deck: they go up and nobody is there. They turn around and back track on their plotter (good reason to plot your track) and they find him! He survived. He has Spectra lifelines now. I hope others don't need that level of convincing.

P.s. for him one of those J-shackles for a gate opened while he was holding on to it and overboard he went. Others went with failed swage fittings. Stainless steel does not show a problem untill complete failure occurs. Dyneema clearly shows problems ling before they become serious.
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Old 15-07-2016, 15:00   #43
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

Old thread, but I am interested because I was told by my surveyer to replace my perfectly good wire lifelines. Yes it may be expensive, so why not use Dyneema?

I tried Spectra for running backstays a few years ago. Great for low weight and low stretch but not good at all unless you plan to replace it very often. It wears poorly. After a couple years the surface of it became very fuzzy and the whole line actually wore through in one place where it came into contact with my plastic covered lifeline when not being used (hence, not under tension). I can't see anyone trusting any kind of thin rope for lifelines.

Another point: You definitely want your lifelines to be bright white so they are easy to see at night. If you could find a bright white rope it would soon turn to gray.
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Old 15-07-2016, 15:54   #44
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

I have for the last several years, and continue to be, pleased with the double-braid Teufelberger WR2

::Â*Teufelberger:Â*WR²
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Old 15-07-2016, 16:52   #45
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Re: dyneema/specta lifelines

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Originally Posted by waterman46 View Post
Old thread, but I am interested because I was told by my surveyer to replace my perfectly good wire lifelines. Yes it may be expensive, so why not use Dyneema?

I tried Spectra for running backstays a few years ago. Great for low weight and low stretch but not good at all unless you plan to replace it very often. It wears poorly. After a couple years the surface of it became very fuzzy and the whole line actually wore through in one place where it came into contact with my plastic covered lifeline when not being used (hence, not under tension). I can't see anyone trusting any kind of thin rope for lifelines.

Another point: You definitely want your lifelines to be bright white so they are easy to see at night. If you could find a bright white rope it would soon turn to gray.
Your experience with the runners is so very different from mine! We used 8 mm Dyneema 75, and after ~5 years had no chafe but a little fuzz all along the length. At that time, some of the advice was to replace after 5 years and we did so. Careful visual inspection showed no obvious defects, so we used it for the top lifelines. Even with 50% loss of strength, it was far stronger than new 3/16" wire, and I feel quite happy with it. We see no chafe at the stanchions, BTW. It is hard to imagine how you chafed through your runner whille not under load... Dyneema is incredibly chafe resistant IME.

It should be noted that with our fractional rig, the runners are in use nearly all the time, and we average around 4000 miles per year. I'm not game to use even Dux for the shrouds, or obviously the forestay with roller furling, but will soon replace the topmast backstay with Dyneema.

Cheers,

Jim
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