Mooring Line Questions

[BillyBudd]

Pulled the mooring line and it is now a sepia-muddy-rusty-brown colored line, even though it was once nylon white -- NERope stuff -- 1/2" with splices and rusting thimbles. Have it in a bucket with dishwashing soap, chugging it up and down now and then. Hope to get it nearly white again. Hopes to be dashed or am I sensibly hopeful? And, when does one retire a mooring line and buy new? One season of tugging and surging enough or can I rightly expect several seasons in freshwater? How to test, to know?

[J. Dillon]

If it was my problem,I'd get a whole new line and thimble. I'd sleep better. Who knows what chemistry woud do ?" The chemist" and he hasn't been here for a while.

[Lew Barrett]

You can likely run it through a wash cycle and clean it up, but if you have any questions, move on to new. No bleach if you go the Maytag route.

[Ian McColgin]

This is the problem with galvi thimbles - they don't last as long as the line. If you plan ahead, make the eye large enough to ease the thimble in after, sieze it at the throat and up the legs a little.

It can be about impossible to splice an old rode. If your rusty thimbles are tightly spliced in, perhaps you can break the old thimble out without damaging the eye. If all looks well, then think about gently filing the ends of a new shackle to allow it to get in the eye, and sieze it in place.

I personally have never seen a reason for the rode to remain white.

When nylon gets old, the threads visibly degrade. Looks a bit difference from the minor chafe that's perfectly acceptable. It looks brittle. Replaced then for sure.

A cable laid rode that's been over-stressed will hockle - strands hump out and the thread lay has been yanked out. Replace - but you can cut the line a bit away from each hockle and make up some nice useful docking lines.

G'luck

[paladin]

BUT...if you do retire it, dunno throw it away....use it to make nice fenders......

[Figment]

Am I the only one who thinks it just a bit nutty to obsess over the whiteness of a mooring pendant?

To me, it seems like a losing battle, and any way you fight it you're weakening the line.

[Lew Barrett]

Am I the only one who thinks it just a bit nutty to obsess over the whiteness of a mooring pendant?

To me, it seems like a losing battle, and any way you fight it you're weakening the line.

Yeah. But I do like to wash my dock lines once in awhile. when they begin to show wear, it's time to move on.

[George Roberts]

"But I do like to wash my dock lines once in awhile."

The best part of hand washing a line is that one tends to inspect the line.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

What Ian said - but, with three strand nylon, the rope stretches round the thimble under heavy load - it may be quite easy to pop the old thimble out and fit a new one in its place. If you do this, or if you follow Ian's excellent advice and make the eye a little large, to allow for replacing the thimble, do be sure to seize the thimble into the eye with a flat seizing on each "leg" of the thimble as well as the round seizing at the throat. I you do this, the thimble won't rotate out under load.

Our local mooring suppliers now stock stainless thimbles and I've gone over to these.

[Ken Hutchins]

Hugh did an excellent demo about making a mooring pendant at the wooden boat show a few years ago, IMO it is by far the best pendant I have ever seen. Perhaps he can be convinced to do a thing about for the WB mag, and or the forum.:) I think there is a need for a demo part.:D

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I'd be interested.

One problem that I find with mine is that the reinforced hose that I side on before making the second eye splice as chafe protection cracks into short lengths where it goes over the fairlead - I use 24mm nylon (overkill, I know!) for the strop itself and this does seem very durable.

[Pericles]

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/attachments/cruises-events/17321-2007-palm-beach-boat-show-check-here-img_8155.jpg?d=1174615291

Black lines?

[BillyBudd]

On "why white?," ans.: just to clean it up some for storage.
On galvanized thimbles, ans.: next time will be stainless steel time.
On seizing, ans.: YES, good suggestion!, even if tightness isn't an issue. I just seem to think seizing is small insurance for just about anything.

Will check the line carefully for anything looking ontoward. And, of course fenders and such would be in the winter must-do corner if it looks not up to next season.

Many thanks. The boat looks forlorn in the driveway. What can I do to cheer it up? Ehhhh. I'll tell it stories about new rodes and such.

[Mark Giegel]

Just a thought on not using thimbles. For over 25 years the moorings at my boat club( Nyack NY) have used no thimbles. We went to using two separate pendants with an eye splice in each. They were secured to a forged large ring or pear shaped forged link by passing the line through itself over the ring. The load of the boat on the lines seized up the pendants to the ring so tight you could not move them ...you had to cut them off.

We are in an exposed mooring field and with the tidal changes and wind velocities over many Noreasters we never lost a boat due to failure of the pendant to forged ring. Use a forged mooring ring as a welded ring will not hold up. We have noted that the welds tend to deteriorate.

The failure problems we had prior to this method were due to thimble either pulling out or deteriorating in the brackish water leaving the pendants to fray on the mooring ring. Use of the stainless thimbles will eliminate this problem as well but at some point you need to replace the pendants and with the self seized pendants you need only to cut off the old pendants and replace with a new eye spliced pair.
Sincerely,
Mark Giegel

[Joe Lambert]

Has anyone else out there had the experience of pulling a boat off the rocks? I'd say the peace of mind is well worth the cost of new mooring gear on a regular basis. Besides, who out there doesn't need a few extra lines?

[Ken Hutchins]

Has anyone else out there had the experience of pulling a boat off the rocks? I'd say the peace of mind is well worth the cost of new mooring gear on a regular basis. Besides, who out there doesn't need a few extra lines?

Not a good topic for a few Forumites.:eek: