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Old 30-10-2005, 12:06   #16
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Rope technology is changing in leaps and bounds. It changes as fast as sail technology. In fact, the two really work hand in hand. I can go into this a little more if anyone is interested, but I don't think the exotics is the question here.
Kieth, there are some good ropes out there and there is some absolute crap. Most all Chandlery sold stuff is going to be OK. It is the stuff that comes from the guys that don't specialize in Marine that you may end up with a rope that will not last. You are also going to find that the prices of "marine" ropes are close to the same as each other. The diffences in cost come from what they are made from. You will find the biggest price ranges in the high strength, low stretch materials for halyards. There are three different material souces used here and one is veeery expensive. The source material is made by three seperate companies (two being related) but it is the way the the final rope manufacturer puts the products together, that make the difference in the ropes ultimate performance. The issues are only seen in very high loading high performance racing boats though, or the hugemungouse vessels like Mirrbella.
As a side story, a spinniker halyard was "smoked" of the drum on Mari Cha recently and it actually melted. That's how hot they can get.
Anyways, Keith, the main thing to look for.
A known brand
A rope size that will make each job easy to handle.
The rope size has to be weighed against the tackle it has to run through.
In most all the situations of crusiing, your rope size will be larger than the strain it is going to be placed under. So worrying about breaking loads is not so much the issue here.
Buy in quantity, as in a reel if you can. It is common for a huge mark up to be placed on line prices to cover the cost of measuring and cutting and wastage. A drum price can be much cheaper.
Oh and for those that don't know, a rope is the stuff on a drum. A line is something a chandlerer "makes" by measuring and cutting it to length for you.
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Old 30-10-2005, 23:00   #17
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It appers to be someone harping on but they are only trying to open some eyes to better and or cheaper options that are avaliable but not being considered.

A known brand is fine but there are 'unknown brands' that are perfectly fine.

A known brand e.g. Nike - chinese/mexican made goods 'marketed' under a known brand name. Priceing - usually at the top end. Quality - not much differant from Walmart.

A unknown brand e.g Seabreeze - made by and marketed by a Australaisian company. Priceing - Average. Quality - up there with the best.

This thread mentioned rope brands - New England, Yale, Samson, Marlow. 3 US and 1 English. Cajan - don't know.

Very limited list and all (Cajan excluded) top end price wise. Quality - all are good.

Some (possibly) unknown brands, as examples, who quality is equal to the ones above - Southern Ocean (used on many top race yachts including at least 2 of the 100ft super maxis).
Nautilas Braids (used on at least 1 of the other 100ft super maxis) and the list could go on and on.

Hmmmm..... at least 3 out of the 5 100ft Super Maxis DON'T use 'brand name' ropes.

Do you (to no-one in particular) think the owners of these super maxi's did not consider performance when chooseing their ropes or they would be happy with ropes that did not work somewhat harder than your average cruiser would ever do.

I don't work for any of the companies mentioned here but, on a daily basis, use ropes made by: Samson, Nautilus, Fineline, Marlow, Lanex, Yale, Gleistein and some cheaper nasties as well.

2 US made, 1 English, 1 NZ, 1 Australian/NZ, 1 Cech Republic, 1 German and some Asian. All do the job they are required to do very well.

The Global village is there, make the most of it.

With tounge firmly in cheek :-)

Oh and for those that don't know, a rope is the stuff on a drum. A line is something a chandlerer "makes" by measuring and cutting it to length for you.

Quote:
YaleLight Competition: Zero-absorption Olefin line with Fuzzy polypropylene for superior grip.
Quote:
Vectrus: Ultra-low creep, high-strength 12-strand Vectran line with integral Maxijacket coating.
both from Yalecordage.com
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Old 31-10-2005, 14:18   #18
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A quick trip to the cajun cordage web site quickly shows it's not all it adds up to. 5/16 Sat Set at $0.79 /ft is if you don't know where to buy it and get taken. I think you can find Sta Set 5/16 for almost half the quoted price that Cajun claims. I also think Sat Set is not a good value Sta Set X or Plus is maybe a better choice for a higher performance cord. Old Sta Set I think is easily beaten by many other vendors when using a similar match.

As far as the XLE-Z-Feel "Cajun Preminum" price I paid the same price for the Marlow 1/2 inch I bought as they want for their 1/2 inch. Very similar numbers too. Off hand it does appear to be a good value price performance wise but it's no way the amazing deal they claim it to be. The comparison performance numbers claimed are accurate as far as I could check them but the competion prices are sucker prices.

You don't want to buy rope at West Marine. Nobody sells it for more. Most all the bulk marine stores are the same too and you won't fnd any deals except perhaps on dock lines. You may get some spool prices that are better as well. Many rigger will sell rope checp as they also want the services too.
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Old 31-10-2005, 15:43   #19
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Please;

Give me a place/URL/Phone number. I'll go/Google/call.

Thanks,

Keith
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Old 13-11-2005, 15:39   #20
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I was in a West Marine this weekend. They had a sale on some line. 50% of on some selected lines. I got some Samson XLS extra T (Dyneema! Way to expensive for normal stuff, even at half price!) for my halyards, some New England duel braid nylon for my reefing and main sheet cars(strech shouldn't matter too much here).

Now to find line for the remaining! Still looking for any URL and such!


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Old 13-11-2005, 21:06   #21
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Yeah you probably don't need to worry about Dyneema. That's for the big boys toys. The big advantagge to them, is with such enormousely high masts, they may have 200ft or more halyard length. Even the fraction of a percentage that Dyneema stretches adds up to a lot at the end of the line. But for us normal guy's, Spectra/Vectran is a very good (and should be affordable) choice.
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Old 14-11-2005, 02:16   #22
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Even racing people used to manage perfectly well with pre-stretched polyester and this is a lot cheaper than these exotic ropes. If you are not racing, you can manage perfectly well with this.
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Old 14-11-2005, 21:38   #23
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Alan Wheeler once whispered in the wind:
Yeah you probably don't need to worry about Dyneema. That's for the big boys toys.
****
But for us normal guy's, Spectra/Vectran is a very good (and should be affordable) choice.

Spectra and Dyneema are 99.5% the same thing. They are both even made by the same company, DSM (raw product I'm talking here). Both are 'brand' names for a very very tweaked polyprop called a High Modulus Polyethylene or HMWPE.

The only differances, for 99% of us boaters, between Spectra/Dyneema and Vectran is the 'creep'. Very little in Spectra/Dynemma and none in Vectran.
Vectran is a tad heavier.
Oh.. and the colour (in a natural state).

If your planning to tie knots in any of these 3 don't use it buy polyester and save the $$'s.

G'day Wheels from up here on the sunny North Shore.
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Old 14-11-2005, 23:17   #24
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G'day mate. Arrr, another Kiwi.
Now don't take this the wrong way, I am not nit picking. But just to be clear to those that maybe reading (hey it maybe just you and me GMac )

DSM (Dutch State Mines) first developed and patented the HMWP which is High Molecular Weight Polyethylene by the way.

Honeywell became licenced to DSM to play with this stuff and in early 80's, produced the first high strength/low stretch material and was the first company to make these new generation fibres commercially viable. This first product was called UHMWPE or Ultra-high molecular weight extended-chain Polyethylene. Seeing as that was a bit of a mouth full, they made the trade name Spectra.

It was DSM themselves that actually followed by producing Dyneema. Although both products come from the same HMWP, the two do have slightly different molecular makeups. Dyneema has a slight advantage over spectra in strength and wear, but Dyneema has slightly more stretch where as Spectra has less stretch.
Both products have one of the highest strength to weight ratios of any man made fibre, has great UV resistance and chemical resistance. But the one problem with either of these products is under load, they slowly stretch or creep.
There is now a new generation of both these products from the original 80's brew. Spetra has S-900 and S-1000 and Dyneema has SK-60 and SK-75. The S1000 and the SK75 both have higher strengths than the other two.

Vectran is very different material. It is called LCP or Liquid Crystal Polymer. It is a later generation fibre, developed in 1990 by a Japanese company called Kuyraray Co.
LCP is quite a different chemical concept. It has a "rod" like molecule. This means the material has a very high strength, but it's major advantage is extremely low stretch and good at taking very tight bends, which Spectra and Dyneema don't like. Plus it doesn't creep under load.

Now earlier when I replied to strygaldwir, I made a big mistake. I was thinking of the next generation of rope and not Dyneema. PBO is what I was thinking of at the time. It is used by the big boys on their big boy toys.

Zylon. This Material, also called PBO was developed in the good ole US of A, by SRI International Chemists under license to Dow Chemicals. The Patent was sold to Japan to Toyobo Co. PBO is a real mouthful, poly p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole. Mate those guy's must be fun at parties And yep, I had to look that one up
This stuff is real cool. It has very very low stretch and NO CREEP. It is stronger than steel and is very resistant to cutting. In fact, if you want to cut it with a knife, forget it. You will still be cutting the stuff next week. It has a major advantage over any other line in halyard work and rigging, especially with the hugemungousely tall high loaded rigs like the Americas cup boats.
BUT!!! it has two enourmouse disadvantages. It does not like light. It degrades really fast and Americas cup boats change this stuff out very frequently. You even have to be careful how you store it. As soon as it's exposed to light, it degrades. And it is really poor at going around pulleys. Which brings me to the third bad point about. It is ultra expensive.
Hope this wasn't a bore.
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Old 15-11-2005, 01:05   #25
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Nope - wasn't a bore - very illuminating.
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Old 15-11-2005, 04:15   #26
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And I just wanted to use hemp!

Thanks for the info! It is usually better to be more informed than not.



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Old 15-11-2005, 07:44   #27
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I just wanted to use hemp!
You sure you should be admitting to that?
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Old 15-11-2005, 16:24   #28
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Admitting to hemp is okay?! I just never mention anything about Cuba! Now that can get you in trouble!

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Old 15-11-2005, 16:32   #29
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If you are buying a bunch of rope...

You can save a lot of money on buying rope if you buy a lot of it in one go, and buy directly from a manufacturer.

Typically, you will have to buy a whole reel, and that may be a whole lot of rope - maybe 1000'. But the savings can be significant. For example, I recently sourced some rope for a friend who had to replace halyards on a boat he had recently bought. He needed 2 new headsail halyards and a spinnaker halyard. This requred about 500' of 10mm Spectra. As you know, spectra is damn expensive. Our local chandlery quoted me $AUD10.80 / metre ($US2.40 / foot). I contacted a manufacturer who sold me a 1000' roll for $AUD4.90 / metre ($US1.08 / foot), and I sold the other 500', at cost, to a couple of guys at the marina who needed rope.
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Old 15-11-2005, 21:04   #30
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G'day,
A great run down there Wheels and I happily stand corrected.

In actual use Dyneema and Spectra can be regarded as the same thing.

Fully agree with the Vectran and still struggle to see why people use Spec/Dyn on main/headsail halyards. Vectran for me.

PBO, we did some work with one of the AC syndicates and watched some halyards being load tested. Such tiny rope for such massive loads, quite astounding. Mind you the $$$'s they spent on a couple of ropes would buy most of us a very nice complete yacht.

Weyalan - Most resonable rigging outfits would do deals on big quantities. The down side of buying A whole reel is all ya ropes are the same colour.
I'm guessing your in the land of the Roo (or as we call it "The Spring Loaded Rat", in that nice trans tazzie way we do :-) ), if you want some good rope deals give me a PM and I'll put you onto a bloke who makes very nice ropes up Brizzy way. Good prices without buying whole reels. He will mention Rugby though so be ready for that and he supports that team dressed in Black :-)

Sail safe all
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