Jacklines: Materials, Fabrication and Installation
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Hi John,
A really nice piece of work!
I find it incredibly sad that Hathaway, Reiser & Raymond has closed their doors. They were impressively innovative over their years of providing rigging/sailing advice and expertise to East Coast sailors and always willing to help figure out great solutions to the kinds of problems we all bump into regularly.
One of their products/designs (recently well reviewed in Practical Sailor) is the Galerider Drogue, an alternative to the AAC preferred Jordan Series Drogue. Those looking for the Galerider can still find it being made by Seafarer Canvas and Interiors who has bought/taken over some of HRR’s business.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Hi Dick,
Yes, sad indeed. I suspect that strain of competing with the large sailmaking conglomerates that get the actual work done in low cost jurisdictions got too much.
I gather from John that Lands End will be selling the Galerider, although not sure who will make it.
(I’m a big Galerider fan for emergency steering and stopping forereaching when heaved-to. That said, while interesting, I don’t think the recent PS testing tells us much about using a drogue in true survival conditions running off and for that we do recommend the JSD over the Galerider.)
The Galerider is perhaps the best choice for emergency steering–very smooth, not too much drag. I jammed a rudder by hitting a submerged log two years ago, which prompted researching drogues. I encourage even coastal sailor to read-up on emergency steering with a drogue. We tend to think of it in terms of blue water sailing, but there are a lot more logs to hit near the coast!
The PS heavy weather testing was trimmed for space. Within that, a topic that I would like to see more people try is two drogues in series. I did considerable testing with Seabrake/Galerider combo, and a Delta Drogue/Galerider combo, though other combinations could work just as well. It seems to have many of the advantages of a JSD (higher drag, and the drogues are stabilized against pulling out of steep waves, the Achilles heel of all single drogues), with greater flexibility (single drogue can be used for steering and more moderate conditions) and easier recovery. The rode between the two will typically be 100-150 feet, so that they are not in the same wave. Very stable–I tested them up to 12 knots.
Hi John,
Since the devil is certainly in the details, I have wondered what degree of strength deterioration occurs when a webbing loop is forced around a tight corner such as happens when a loop is lashed. The forces are across the width of the webbing and when this connection comes under load, would make for differential loading of the individual yarns (and may differentially load the stitching as well). The picture you include (with the tape measure) is under little load and clearly shows the outer edges taking the brunt of the little load shown: when load increases, the outer yarns look like they will take the full load while the middle portion just goes along for the ride. For a while and for this reason, I dead ended webbing (stitched loop) to a D shackle where the webbing loop went against the straight part of the D shackle rather than the curved. This did not last long as I disliked adding D shackles to the overall system.
My solution was to run small diameter high modulus line down the interior of my tubular webbing and to dead end it with 2 round turns and a long series of half hitches. This worked on a number of levels: no real worry about rolling underfoot as the line is in webbing and further, mine is a centerline system (center mast to the pointy end, quasi centerline mast to dodger), interior HM line is protected from UV, and no worry about stitching. There are still question marks and I will be reviewing things when I return to Alchemy in the light of your thoughts and suggestions.
Thanks for your thoughts, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Hi Dick,
Just to clarify the webbing in the pick with the tape measure is under well over a ton of load. (#65 three speed winch.)
That said, it’s an interesting point, although I’m not sure that the it’s true to say that the outer strands are taking the whole load. That might be true with a very high modulus material like Spectra, but Dacron stretches and the weave of the webbing will set and distort, so my guess is that the load is pretty well spread.
I guess the only way to know for sure would be to destruction test, but given that we have a pretty huge safety margin I don’t think that really required.
Further with at least 10 turns of Spectra, as we advise above, I think the load will be even further spread. Those who are worried about this could take that up to 20 or even more turns to further spread the load on the webbing.
Nor would I use D rings, because one that would match the strength of the rest of the system is going to be pretty large and therefore probably won’t stay put in the correct orientation, and even if it did, I don’t like adding more hardware than I must.
As to using a mix of HM line and webbing, I’m not at keen on that for the reasons I list above.
Hi John,
Agree about the load sharing and your other points. It just makes me a little nervous to see things that I depend on scrunched together as happens when the radius is small. Something to keep an eye on and add more lashing as you suggest. Dick
Hi Dick,
I agree, more lashings indicated, I will change it. Your comment also brings up another important point: the reduction of strength from terminations, however they are done, is just another reason to build these systems with a good big safety factor.
I need to make that even more clear in a future revision, thanks.
Great article and really important research I don’t see anywhere being done anywhere else and why you guys are the only subscription service I continue to pay for. We sure get our monies worth.
Hi Noel,
Thanks for the kind words. Makes it all worth while.
Hi All,
Based on the conversation between Dick and I above, I have, this morning, made a couple of changes to this chapter:
Added the following under safety margin:
And upped the number of recommended turns of Amsteel to 20 from 10.
Thanks Dick!