Friday, July 15, 2011

On getting creative on the marlinspike front...

Mass psychosis in the US of A, someone has their eye on the environment, and a magazine that readers may enjoy...

It's something of a hidden trend but there is a lot of exciting stuff happening on the rigging front these days...

New materials like Dynex Dux and Amsteel have brought marlinspike back into the creative loop so the answer to all problems is no longer buying expensive hardware. For instance, you need an odd sized shackle to hang a figure eight descender to use as a boom brake... Not a problem, you simply splice up a soft shackle.

Even better, now that we can splice shackles which are stronger/lighter than expensive stainless hardware at a fraction of the cost we can have exactly what we want and save money. Is that cool or what?

But, it gets better... I've noticed a real trend of riggers and DIY boat folk getting creative and getting past the soft shackle and doing stuff like this soft pigtail from West rigging...

Life, as they say, is good!

Listening to the Firesign Theatre

So it goes...