The snubber saga continues…
Three weeks ago I mentioned that Rebecca and I were interviewed for The Sailing Rode. I am happy to report that the podcast is now live, and if I do say so myself, it turned out pretty good. Please check it out and let us know your thoughts. And be sure to subscribe to The Sailing Rode too!
In the seemingly never-ending snubber saga…
This twist occurred between the hours of 5:00 PM and 7:00 AM
You can imagine how quickly the line could chafe through if left like this.
Although not a solution to prevent the twist, I rigged some tubular webbing over the line as chafe guard, tie wrapped at each end to hold it stationary.
Unfortunately, the point where the chain crossed was not stationary. You can see here that it is now twisted right at the chain hook. Although this wouldn’t chafe the line, there was no telling what would happen if I left it like this.
By the way, given the short amount of time that the previous snubber lasted, I wasn’t interested in spending the time to splice another eye on the line. You can see that I simply used an enhanced bowline to secure the snubber to the shackle/hook.
Looking for a solution, we dug into our rope locker and found this piece of double braid with a nice eye in the middle. We decided to rig it as a bridle and see how it worked.
While we didn’t see any twist, I wasn’t super happy about how the line would rub on the chain as the boat swung to the side.
Additionally, you can see the damage to the rub rail in this photo. My guess is that this was caused by the boat being secured to a mooring, or rigged with this type of bridle, in strong winds. As the wind gusted, and the boat swung to the side, the line would come in contact with the area that you see damaged.
Unsatisfied with the bridle, we once again dug into the rope locker (we have a lot of misc. lines on the boat) and found a piece of double braid with an eye spliced on one end. We attached the chain hook to it and rigged it as a single-line snubber. I intentionally left the snubber a bit short so that I could monitor the twist, if any (I’m not suspecting any), and the status of that splice.
UPDATE: Twenty four hours later, the new snubber looks fine. The only thing that would make it better is to have it made out of some nice stretchy climbing rope. For the moment though, I’m satisfied.
UPDATE December 18, 2016: Now, one year later, the same snubber is holding fast, and has yet to have any of the twisting issues that the initial snubbers did.