In case the splice doesn’t play nice . . .
Issue 76 : Jan/Feb 2011
I have eye-spliced my new anchor rode to the nylon thimble, seized the splice with small nylon twine to help keep things in place, and everything looks good. A nagging doubt nevertheless remains. As I do with all such splices, I wonder whether it will hold when put under the strain of anchoring my boat in 20 knots of wind and 3-foot seas.
Just to be sure, I always add a “safety line” to the setup for initial testing. My safety line is a length of nylon line tucked into the rode, looped through the shackle that connects the rode to the chain, and tucked back into the rode. I leave this line a little slack, since I know that the splice will tighten somewhat with use and thus lengthen a bit.
The idea is that if the splice is going to fail, it will do so during the first couple of uses. If it doesn’t, now that it has “set,” I can trust the splice and remove the safety line.
Once I have completed the eye-splice and added the safety line, I have two choices for testing my work. One is to secure it to the trailer hitch on a vehicle and idle slowly forward. The other is to go out in fairly shallow water (Northill folding anchors are very hard to come by these days), set the anchor, and back down on it with the boat. After a couple of hefty tugs, I will pull the anchor and see how things look. Then I’ll reset the anchor and tug again. If the safety line is still slack, I know the splice is going to hold.
Of these two choices, the vehicle test takes less time, I stay dry, and I can better regulate the strain on the splice. What’s more, I’m not risking an anchor. The safety line, of course, is my first line of defense against losing my prized anchor if I do test in the water . . . as well as the indicator of the quality of the eye-splice with either testing method.
C. Henry Depew learned to sail on an Optimist Pram and advanced to Flying Juniors in his college years. Later, he bought and rebuilt a blizzard of sailboats (nine in six years). He is active in the United States Power Squadron and sailboat racing activities with the Apalachee Bay Yacht Club.
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