Ripon SC Splicing Night
by Fiona Spence 26 Nov 2018 18:59 GMT
23 November 2018
Ripon SC Splicing Night © Jennie Clark
Fifteen Ripon Sailing Club members enjoyed another "Splicing" lesson from Ian Turnbull at rope4boats.co.uk on Friday 23 November.
Ian visited in January and everyone had a great night with a lot of laughter, jokes and learning so he came back to repeat some of his previous session and build on it with rope shackles too. Some attendees were at the January session, some members had heard and decided they didn't want to miss out this time. Before we started the practical session, Ian provided a simple summary of the benefits of splicing opposed to using knots and also talked through the advances in modern ropes and what this means to the regular dinghy sailor. His explanation of the different ropes strengths, benefits and technology was easy for us mere mortals to grasp.
Ian then launched us into making our own uncovered eye splices. These lovely eyes in a length of rope are surprisingly tricky to make look perfect and we all struggled with one aspect or another of this simple splice, just learning to use the fid (are they called fids because it's short for fiddly?) correctly caused many jokes and giggles. The hilarity level increased as Ian moved on to talk us through making a taper splice and explained the benefits of using this on halyards, sheets and running lines. Everyone who attended the January session managed a better second attempt but the newcomers showed the returners up by producing smart taper splices in a variety of rope colours!
Southern Ropes Ltd had kindly supplied the rope for Ian's demo and several attendees were observed looking at the rack of rope Ian had brought and surreptitiously working out a new rigging colour scheme for their pride & joy in 2019! Ian then moved the practical up several gears and challenged us all to make a rope shackle. I assure you, this is a lot harder than it looks but with much patience on Ian's part and a lot of undoing & redoing amidst much laughter on ours - we all achieved a working shackle and some were seen in use during Sunday racing! As a finale, Ian made us get out the needles and make some calibration marks which are a delightfully simple way of permanently marking rope to aid tuning and sail setting.
Another great social event at Ripon SC, with thanks to Southern Ropes for the rope to help us tie ourselves in knots but mostly thanks to Ian and ropes4boats.co.uk for another great night.