Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Be wary of using the phrase "slam dunk"...

Orlov with the old foolish or dead question, something anyone with half a brain should be watching, and on the subject of crazy people taking children cruising...

You can't take anything for granted.

Yesterday my task for the day was to measure some line, cut it into four pieces, and do eight eye splices. Something of slam dunk...

I'm not sure about how things work on your boat but whenever I have the thought that a job is a slam dunk or no problem it tends to get hinky to the max.

So, what happened was the new 600-foot spool of of Samson Tenex seemed a little different than all of the other Tenex we've spliced before and, to cut to the chase, I simply could not manage to do a single splice.

One of the things I love about Tenex is that it is so easy to splice using a Brummel and you hardly even had to bother using a fid as it just seemed to go together so easily.

I, of course, consulted the tomes of Brion Toss and even resorted to calling Samson and asked for advice (soak in water and soap). Tried it and despite the aftermath of looking like I had just washed a reluctant Great Pyrenees, still no joy.

The fact of the matter is, there's a definite difference between the Tenex I'm trying to splice and the Tenex I've spliced in the past. I suspect it's the Samthane coating being clear rather than a color and it's going to take a completely different approach and some out of the box thinking to do a successful splice.

So much for yesterday's easy work day...

Listening to 10cc

So it goes...