My dad (not R's) was always very careful with his lines, and still is. Chafing gear has always been in place, although what type has changed from time to time. He's switched back and forth between 3-strand twist or Braid-on-Braid (BOB) from time to time, but every few years he gets his new docklines diligently. He's always careful about having fenders out, and the fenders are always attached with thoughtful spliced lines.
When I was little, Dad worked a lot (actually, nothing's changed there either). I only saw him on weekends (every other weekend he was on call) and Wednesday evenings, if we were lucky. He's a doctor, but doesn't fit into the general American stereotype for doctors. Sure, he drives a nice car, but it's a nice 12 year old car. Sure, he lives in a nice house, but it's a house he plans on keeping the rest of his life. There aren't ritzy vacations to Europe, and Mom still cuts coupons and watches for sales like everyone else's Mom. They save money up for big purchases, pay things off as quickly as possible, and believe in insurance.
Anyhow--his late hours sometimes made him cranky, but I liked to watch him, quietly, when he was puttering around on the boat, or in the garage. He had a copy of Harvey Garrett Smith's "Marlinspike Seamanship". It was a hardback with a goldenrod yellow dust jacket. The jacket didn't hold it's color well, and it looked slightly battered then. It looks more battered now. I liked looking through it and used it to learn to make a Monkey's Fist and a Turk's Head. His use of it was more immediately practical--he learned to splice and whip ends from it.
I do remember Dad working with us at night, teaching us how to make ropes off to a cleat. He had a chunk of 2 x 8 board, with a large cleat and a big eyelet to look similar to a chock, and there was a rope that went with this setup. And to Mom's chagrin, it seemed to stay in the living room a lot of the time. We could each belay a line properly as rugrats. When you're taught that young, it is as second nature as breathing--even if you haven't had to do it for a decade.
I also remember Dad splicing. It wasn't something he tried to teach us, but it was something he would take care of, religiously. Rope didn't get put into use without the ends being melted and whipped. Docklines were always neatly spliced if 3-strand twist. He'd buy the BOB's pre-spliced.
I could remember him sitting in his big lawyer office chair in the home office, with one of the funny old cut-glass tumblers half-full of scotch on the rocks on the desk, electrical tape and spools of whipping thread set out, and chunks of new dock-lines, or fender-lines, sorted out for him to splice.
I learned both whipping and splicing from watching him. I still like to pull out a copy of "Marlinspike Seamanship" to get me started on a splice, but those who are familiar with the task know that once you have the first set of tucks, the rest of the work is rather predictable. It turns into a bit of a meditation.
R is not a big splicer or whipper. I have rarely seen him do either. In fact, maybe only once have I seen him splice. I've never seen him whip anything. I think it looks shoddy to just run around with electrical tape, and for a long time I never did anything about his running rigging or docklines. It's his boat, it's his job, even if it irks me to see some taped ends and some fraying ends (and some fraying taped ends). But this last year his docklines for the Hans were looking extremely dubious. To the point that I ordered a massive amount of rope for Christmas for him and his father, along with whipping thread. They were both disturbingly slow to get going on making docklines, and it's getting on towards winter, and all of the weather that brings. FIL even attempted a whipping at one point. He simply wrapped the thread around in a jumble about 20 times, tied it off, and called it good. My mouth twitched and I decided I shouldn't really say anything. So I am now immersed in splicing, and whipping.
To warm up on the whole splicing thing, I got some 3/8" 3-strand twist and made a few practice splices. At one point I took my practice line to the Hans, where it was high-jacked permanently for use as the dinghy painter. The dinghy was towed many miles during our Labor Day weekend run, and the splice held. Uh... not that I was worried or anything.
Then it was time to start on the docklines in earnest. I had researched about rope failures and thought back to what we learned from Hurricane Katrina. 3-strand twist and BOB each have their pro's and con's. I hated how after not-so-long in use 3-strand twist became unpliable. I hated how BOB lost strength quickly as it suffered from abrasion. Chafe gear is obviously important, but it's impossible to guarantee everything is protected at all times. Hurricane Katrina taught us that under cyclical loading, as is seen during storms, BOB failed when the inner and outer layers of strands stretching created friction, heated up, and fused together.
So I had looked at Samson and New England Ropes single braid lines. New England Ropes offers a 12-strand single braid, and Samson offers a 6-strand single braid. Both looked great. I decided these had qualities I wanted, and it was worth a try. A somewhat expensive try, but a try. I spilled the beans on what the big Christmas present would be to my FIL and got his estimate on how much rope would be needed to do the docklines for both boats, and called our favorite chandleries for prices, then placed an order. (We are frequent customers of Englund Marine and Fisheries Supply.)
After obtaining my ASA101, I got a certificate to West Marine for a marlinspike. Seemed like a good thing to have. R had given me a knife for a graduation gift, a beautiful S&W 3" serrated folder. I carry it every day, especially if I'm going to be near the water. But for bandying about on boats, a marlinspike is quite useful. I don't particularly love the WM brand marlinspike I got--it doesn't seem to settle well in my pockets for regular use without making holes in my jeans, and the knife doesn't lock back or stay sharp. But, a marlinspike you have but don't love is better than one you don't even have, so...
I rounded up all of the rope to start my epic splicing adventure, dragging out my other accoutrements. Lighter for melting ends. Water in case I set something on fire with the dang lighter. My good S&W knife for cutting things. The WM marlinspike. A cutting board. Electrical tape--my preferred tape for splicing. The whipping thread. And while I don't have any cut-glass tumblers (just plain ones), or any Glenlivet, I did pour myself a glass of wine and put on a DVD, and put out a pillow for the dog to come nap nearby while I worked.
The instructions for splicing this stuff is fairly straightforward. But the tucks were difficult to actually accomplish for the first part of the splice. Even with the marlinspike. I moved forward at the rate of one splice per movie. Part of the problem was that it was hard to raise an entire strand, nothing more, nothing less, with the marlinspike, in order to pass the strand-to-be-tucked through. Bits of other unwanted strands would get pulled in, or bits of strands that were wanted would get left out. While I think this might have some to do the shape of the marlinspike, I've never used another to be able to say this with certainty. I got to wondering if a pair of hemostats might help, but I didn't have any.
I trudged on with my project in spite and got the first few docklines made. Then took a break from the project while I vacationed with my parents. While I was packing to for the vacation, I happened to be sorting through bags to pick which ones to take, when a crochet needle fell out of one of my totes I frequently use for craft projects. I bent to pick it up and move it to my craft cabinet, when I stopped. It wasn't like a lightbulb went on, so much as a 2x4 whacked me in the head.
Now... what's so different about crochet work than this whole splicing business? Obviously, stitches are not like tucks. But stitches sort of involve tucks. The head of the crochet needle had a pleasing round nose to it. I wonder what would happen if you try to use it to pick up entire strands...?
I passed by the craft cabinet, pulled out my entire collection of needles, big and small, and went over to my splicing project, which was semi-permanently erected at the coffee table in front of the TV. I picked up the rope, and tried passing my largest metal needle under a strand. With far less anguish, the entire strand raised up and slid over the needle. I wiggled the needle to make a bit more room, as though I was making one of my initial tucks with two-strands of my 12-strand rope. Then I slid the marlinspike through to hold the strand, and shoved two strands I had recently trimmed off a finished splice through. The crochet needle had made it easier to pick the entire strands, and not part of others I didn't want. And it had helped widen the area.
"HA! That was easy... DING!" I said to the dog, imitating the office supply store commercials. He cocked his head momentarily, then flicked his ears in annoyance, and went back to staring out the patio windows, on alert for the local tea-cup yorkie, Bear, or the local pug, Dapper Dan, to pass by, so he could hail them noisily and send them packing. I added my size "K" crochet needle to the bundle of tools and supplies I was using for the dockline project, and was actually looking forward to working on the docklines again when I got home.
I returned to my splicing the other night, and sure enough, the eye splice went a fair amount faster with the crochet needle. Despite repeated nosings from the dog, suggesting it was taking too long, it took a fair amount less time and frustration.
I still have a few last docklines to do, and a bunch of lines to whip. The first docklines I had brought back to R, unwhipped. He had taken a rare moment to sit down and do nothing other than watch TV when I settled into a chair nearby, spool of whipping thread in hand. I surreptitiously also brought "Marlinspike Seamanship" with me, and laid it open to the appropriate page, although, once you've whipped maybe one line, you don't need to see the illustrations ever again. I could play home movies in my mind of my Dad whipping line after line in the cockpit of our boat, after all. I was hoping R might learn by watching or viewing the illustration, and maybe he'd pick up the tidy habit. The boat has enough aesthetic issues, being a hurricane damaged restoration-in-progress; the least we could do is smarten up her lines.
He was watching my progress out of the corner of his eye. Originally I suspect he never thought the whipping would stay put. "You need a needle to stick that THROUGH the rope a few times..." he commented. No, not necessary, not if you're whipping tight enough. I start off with a slip knot with a very large loop in it, so that the free end of the starting end of the thread can be pulled to tighten the loop at the end of the whipping, once you've slipped the finish end of the whip through the loop. When I'm ready to stop the whipping and I've slipped the finish end of the thread through my loop, I yank on the start end some, then the finish end some, and the start end again, and so forth, till it's as tight as it will ever be, and the slip knot is a vague hint of a bulge midway down the whipping. Then I trim both tails.
He poked at the finished whipping, quietly inspecting. I was really hoping my little whipping intervention would result in a big breakthrough. I was ready to hand the spool of thread over, with the next dockline, so that he could take a turn, discover how easy it was, and decide he should fix all of the rope ends on his boat.
Instead he looked up and said: "You should really go ahead and do all the rest of the docklines, then whip all the sheets and halyards on the Hans too."
Sigh. Thwarted again. "Okay..."
