Thread: Setting up the snotter on the OzRacer or PDRacer sail boat.

Then cleat like this. - do two full rounds around the base then a couple of figure eights. Don't use fancy half hitches or anything like a knot - they are correct for flags but nowhere else on the boat.



Best wishes

MIK[/QUOTE]

The reason? I once got rapped on the knuckles by a skipper delivering a Volvo Round the World yacht to Stockholm that I got to crew on, after I had neatly finished cleating with a couple of half hitches and coiled the end and tucked it under the taut line. He said that if you need to undo the line quickly the coiling and hitches slow you down, or the line totally jams according to Murphy's Law. He said just let the line fall naturally onto the deck or put it into a special bag for lines attached nearby. Ids that right MIK?

Peter

Howdy Peter,

On any boat there are two basic problems with cleats.

One is the time taken to release - it should be enough that it doesn't release by accident but quick enough to undo for the purpose.

Second is that a cleat should never jam with a highly loaded line.

I was told off by a waterfront character called "Farmer Bob" at the cruising yacht club. A very experienced boat worker and waterfront worker.

I was tying off a boat temporarily at the wharf and used a couple of half hitches and he said you want to damage that boat ... and he then walked off.

I chased him up later and he told me that when you put the half hitches into the line on the cleat they are easy because the line is not loaded. But when you come back, even with the greatest care you might not have allowed enough slackness for the tide and the line has become very tight holding the whole weight of the boat - so might feel more like an iron bar than a rope - and the half hitches will be immovable.

So you will have to cut the line and drop the boat. No chance of paying it out. And stand back because the line can whip someone's head off if the boat has any size.

Same with halyards on the humble boats we use. If you put the half hitches in they can be too tight to undo.

PROPER USE OF A HORN CLEAT

Normally the cleat is sized so the vee the horns make with the base mean that by the time you have gone around the base in a circular action once then 95% of the load is taken care of because the cleat acts like a wedge jamming the two pieces of rope against each other. Then two figures of eight. maximum. Finally if you want to finish off go around the cleat in a circular action again and pull the rope tight. You will feel the lot compress together.

Nothing to catch or jam whatever the load on the other side and you can gradually ease out by gradually undoing the rope from around the cleat until it slips.

On a yacht the only place Farmer Bob and others have said I can put half hitches on a horn cleat are with the flag or burgee pennant. Roller blinds at home might be fair game too.

MIK

Thanks MIK,
You never forget those incidents, old sailor, or tough teacher. Another rope error is to use a clove hitch around a bollard when docking. Should be a round turn and two half hitches, as I learned in the Boy Scouts. Again so it holds fast and can be easily untied. Peter