bottle screws and shroud covers

Burnham Bob

Burnham Bob

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My boat did have nice plastic tubes about three feet long covering the shrouds and bottle screws so the sheets didn't catch. They are now brittle and breaking up. Is there something I don't know about that I can put on without undoing botttles srews and then retightening the rigging? Current plan is plastic waste pipe from B&Q, slit open to allow me to slip the rigging wire in but is there a better solution?
 
The plastic plumbing pipe that can be welded with glue would be a good idea. Split it as suggested, fit it, prise the joint open, apply the glue, snap together and you will get a strong bond. Splitting it carefully with a sharp Stanley knife blade may give you a thinner cut compared to say a jig saw blade. The joint may have to be squeezed until the glue is set. Perhaps a blind end cap could give you a neat closing at the top suitably modified? Food for thought.
 
I stopped using them quite a few years ago when I realised that salt water running down the shrouds was never drying inside the covers. Partly evaporated seawater has a high salt concentration that can lead to severe pitting and crevice corrosion in stainless steel. Now I can inspect them occasionally, which never happened when they were covered.
 
I've seen covers going up the shrouds some distance and I've often thought that they're potentially dangerous. If the boat tries to throw me over the side and my last chance is a grab at a shroud, the last thing I want is something that can rotate under my hand. My lowers pass very close to the guard wires, so I have short lengths, from the swages to just above the guard wires to prevent chafe, but I wouldn't have 'em any higher.

Yes I know I should be clipped on when I'm out of the cockpit, but experience suggests that most serious accidents are caused by a series of minor mistakes/incidents that you usually get away with until one day they gang up on you - late getting to the boat, skip the checklist, lifejacket's below, the main snags on it's way up, stinkpot comes past at the wrong moment...
 
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2 metres of plastic plumbing pipe from Wickes cost me £1.78. Easy enough to cut in half and then cut a slit all the way down I used the saw on my swiss army knife because it was short enough to saw and not come out the other side of the tube. Only took a few minutes. Easy to snap onto the shrouds and no need to glue the joint. Can't see any problem with water - it will just run out the bottom. And as for grabbing them, lots of shroud above the tubes but the tube itself can be gripped in your hand easily enough and your fist closed around it.
 
Burnham Bob said:
2 metres of plastic plumbing pipe from Wickes cost me £1.78. Easy enough to cut in half and then cut a slit all the way down I used the saw on my swiss army knife because it was short enough to saw and not come out the other side of the tube. Only took a few minutes. Easy to snap onto the shrouds and no need to glue the joint. Can't see any problem with water - it will just run out the bottom. And as for grabbing them, lots of shroud above the tubes but the tube itself can be gripped in your hand easily enough and your fist closed around it.
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I can not understand your question as most chandlers sell shroud covers in 2m lengths that are already split so they can be easily applied and they do them in differant diameters depending on the shroud wire dia size. Typical http://marinestore.co.uk/PBED-SC253.html
 
DO as we did on our Colvic Watson 32. I went to a garden centre and bough some green tubes about 10mm dia split them and they have been on our shrouds for the past 7 years and haven;t changed a bit if I remember they cost me about £3 for the lot.
 
Maybe I didn't explain wel enough Caer Urfa. I already have some simple split shroud covers that cover the stainless wire. What I had that crumbled and needed replaciing was a plastic tube that covered not only the shroud but the bottle screw and chain plate attachment and worked like a roller when the genoa sheets ran up against them The link you sent is for simple shroud covers. The 'fix' I adopted was using 1.5 inch piping. Worked a treat and looks smart as I was abpoe to scrape the black Wickes lettering off.
 
I used the reinforced clear plastic tubing with the upper end cut into 4 'wings' and the tied to the shroud just above the bottle screw with whipping twine. Works well, cheap and easily lifted to inspect the bottle screw. From memory used the 1½" & 1¼" for my boat.
 
vyv_cox said:
I stopped using them quite a few years ago when I realised that salt water running down the shrouds was never drying inside the covers. Partly evaporated seawater has a high salt concentration that can lead to severe pitting and crevice corrosion in stainless steel. Now I can inspect them occasionally, which never happened when they were covered.
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I recently bought a poorly maintained boat which had shroud and bottle screw covers. The nuts (and I assume they were stainless) on the bottle screws were up to 75% wasted and they shrouds had surface rust. They were not the split cover variety so I had to dismantle the rigging and then got rid.

Ditto the guardwires where the plastic covers had fused to the stainless wire through UV degradation. Took a couple of days slicing away with a stanley knife to bin them.

Apart from them being pretty, I just don't see the point.
 
the old 'tubes' just disintegrated but i didn't have any trouble at all with rust, corrosion, water retention or anyting at all. the new 'tubes' simply stop the genoa sheet chafing on the shroud as it goes across
 
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