[Rhodes22-list] Cable Tie Stay Fasteners

[Bill Effros]

I'm the only one I know of who uses the plastic stay fasteners. 

Forked cotter pins can hurt you when you walk by.  The cotter rings 
jiggle out.  Taping turnbuckles traps water, which rusts rigging where 
you can't see it.

All of these things have happened to people on this list.

I am using little cable ties.  I put the lead through the hole in the 
turnbuckle, and then around one arm of the turnbuckle, through the head 
of the cable tie, and then I cut off the excess right after the head.  I 
wedge the cable tie head between the turnbuckle thread and one arm of 
the turnbuckle so the turnbuckle can't turn even if the loop of the 
cable tie is sheared.

If a cable tie fails, the rig doesn't come down.  The turnbuckle is 
holding up the rig, not the cable tie.  All the cable tie must do is 
prevent the turnbuckle from turning.  The wedged head, by itself, will 
do this.  The loop is a safety.  Any time you see a sheared loop you 
replace it.  This can be done in a matter of seconds.

Very few of my cable ties have sheared during the 2 or 3 years I have 
been doing this.  More than 0.  Less than 5.  The turnbuckle has never 
turned from where I set it.  I have never had both the upper and lower 
cable tie shear at the same time.

I find I am much more willing to retune my rig as the summer progresses 
and things stretch out because it is so simple to cut the existing ties, 
(with wire cutters) tune the rig -- I always do this by feel and sound 
-- and reinsert new cable ties.  I don't use rigging tape any more 
because it damaged my turnbuckles.  I plan to replace all my 
turnbuckles, and never wrap them.  The new ones should last a lifetime.

Bill Effros

ed kroposki wrote:

>	Hank said:  "If Stan gets a boat in for recycle with a bilge pump,
>he always removes it."  Then how did my recycled boat come with a working
>bilge pump?  Is there a bilge pump fairy?
>	Dan, 
>	    I DID NOT RECOMMEND PLASTIC STAY FASTENERS!  I use stainless
>steel cotter rings and occasionally rigging tape on those.  Our liberal
>northeast journalist has a tendency to write so that he makes it appear that
>others say something that they have not, in the fashion of the New York
>Times and CBS.  I follow the traditional proven safe method, which I
>recommend to you.
>	    I have a problem of being attributed to unsafe practices.
>Furthermore, I learned the importance of protecting sails from chafing from
>none other than Stan Spitzer so make sure when you talk to him you correctly
>state my method.  I do not want to incur the wrath of Sir Stanley.
>
>Ed K
>Greenville, SC, USA
>
>
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