Boating and Sailing.pdf - Moja ladja

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Part 2: The Basics of Operation
These days, there are better ways. If you buy nylon in a marine store, they’ll probably cut
it with an electric hot knife. The heat melts the nylon and instantly secures all strands. If
not, you can do it yourself. A soldering iron will do the
Look Out!
job neatly.
Be very careful when
melting nylon. It is extremely hot,
and if it drips on your skin, it will
burn you badly! Also, remember
that nylon ignites easily—the
drips can start a fire. It’s a job
best done out of doors, and not
aboard your boat.
Boat Bytes
When you have to cut a
line and don’t have other
means of securing the
ends, plain old duct tape
will do the job temporarily.
Just take three tight wraps around
the line and presto, it’s whipped.
Coiling Lines
This step is particularly important with lines that have a
separate core and cover; with these, you may need to
whip the ends with smaller line, and then cut them with
the hot knife to seal everything together and prevent
the core from creeping into or out of the cover.
No soldering iron? If you’re careful, you can use a cigarette
lighter or a candle to burn the ends slightly until
the nylon becomes liquid. As it cools, roll it between
two pieces of 2 × 4 to make a rounded end. This gives a
solid end on the line that will never unravel.
There are also commercial whipping compounds or
rope dips that act as a glue. You dip the ends of the rope
in them, let it dry, and it secures the strands. There’s
also a heat-sealing tape with which you wrap the end,
and then apply a flame; the tape shrinks and seals to
form a permanent whipping. This is quick, relatively
safe, and forms a dependable bond—carry some aboard.
Take care of your lines every trip, and they’ll take care of you when you need them.
The first rule is to never put a line away without coiling it. There’s a little trick to this
with laid line. Braided line has less of a tendency to kink than laid line, and there’s no
need to impart the twist as you coil it. It will lay in a fairly regular loop or sometimes in a
figure eight, but these run out without tangles.
You can’t simply pick up some line and make a bunch of loops over your hand. It won’t lie
“fair” or flush, one coil exactly like the next, and this will lead to tangles when you use it.
The trick to getting it flat is to give the line a little half-twist, to the right or clockwise,
each time you go over the hand holding the coil. Make the coils about 18 inches in diameter,
a comfortable handling size in most lines. To prevent kinks, make the coils in a
clockwise direction.
Once you’ve got it all laid in, secure the coils by taking a turn counterclockwise around
them with the bitter end (the end you hold while making a knot, or the tag or cut end of