The Rope Doctor

Hi!

My name is Peter Papageorgiou and I am a Boatman. I'm also an RYA Yachtmaster and lover of all things boaty and nautical. I have set up this blog to share some of my knowledge and also try and drum up some business to help get through the difficult winter ahead. This first post is on tidying up frayed and chafed lines.

Often overlooked, ropes are an integral part of a boat, and a key component to succesful sailing.

Ropes have two main uses onboard. Sail control and mooring. And each use has its own types of rope suitable for it. We shall go into that subject in another post, for now I would like to look at the subject of simple rope care.

The vast majority of ropes today are synthetic and when these are sold, in the best case, the chandlery will cut them for you using a hot knife which has the added benefit of sealing the ends. 

Some fancy ropes like Kevlar cored ones are not suited to this method as Kevlar does not burn or melt. These require a different method of sealing. But most ropes can be sealed well by heat.

However over time and with use the rope end can fray or the core can become "unstuck" from the sheath resulting in messy ends and in some cases strands becoming unraveled (most often the case with 3 strand ropes used for mooring)

Following you can see some pictures of such cases:

A frayed mooring line where an attempt has been made to seal the end with duct tape.

A frayed 3 strand mooring line which has unravelled.

There are as mentioned above more than one ways to seal the ends. These are a) with a hot knife b) by whipping and c) with an end splice

For this first post on ropes and frayed ends we will see the results of sealing with a hot knife which is the simplest solution.

And following a few "before and after" photos of various ropes around the boat. 

First a couple of simple braid on braid general purpose ropes.

 

Genoa sheet ends

Halyards

Above is the result of a few hours spent on board two boats, tidying up the frayed nd chafed ends of mooring lines and sail control ropes. For as little as 30 euros depending on the size of the boat and amount of ropes on board, I can offer you the service of tidying up the ends. 

I can also do splicing of fender lines and mooring lines or whipping at an extra cost depending on how "shipshape" you like your pride and joy to look.

I can be contacted on 6976113191 or by email at papapete67@gmail.com