cleaning ropes

Ian_Edwards

Ian_Edwards

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Hi,

All the halyards are out of the mast at the moment, so it seemed a good opportunity to wash them.

I've run this asymmetric halyard through the washing machine 3 times:

1) 25 degree pre-wash, no detergent
2) 30 degree long hand wash Ecover detergent
3) 40 degree wash with Dazz.

The exposed section of the halyard is still really dirty.

There's an added complication, there was a spill of carbon dust at Inverness Marina last spring, which covered the whole marina in black carbon powder, cause when loading a coaster with spent carbon anodes from an aluminium smelter. The dust covered the marina and my boat was unfortunately close the the coaster when it happened.

I guess that at least part of the problem is the carbon dust trapped in the outer braid of the halyard.

Any ideas on the best way to clean the rope?

I'm reluctant to run the halyard through the washing machine at a higher temperature, the next program runs at 60 degrees.

The rope on the left was external, the rope on the right internal, i.e. protected by the mast.
 
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Difficult stains usually come out by rubbing liquid detergent into the fabric rather than putting it into the detergent drawer. Lidl's is good, and cheap.
 
Not trying to be a smarta*** but I would consider end-for-ending the line, thus having the clean part on the outside while the 'grubby' part would be safely hidden within the mast.
 
If the carbon was graphite, powder it is probably not a problem. If it's gritty then washing isn't going to do any good. Replace it while you have the opportunity.

I wash my lines in non-bio detergent with a small amount of fabric conditioner. I NEVER use Bio or "Hot" washes.
 
I'll try rubbing detergent, never used it before, I'll look for it in the local supermarket, the nearest Lidl is a 50 mile round trip away. There's about 20m of 12mm rope to clean, rubbing the detergent in might be a bit laborious.

I'll probably end for end the Halyard anyway, to even out the wear, but that is hiding the problem, not solving it, something I prefer not to do.

Thanks for the ideas.
 
Ian_Edwards said:
Hi,

All the halyards are out of the mast at the moment, so it seemed a good opportunity to wash them.

I've run this asymmetric halyard through the washing machine 3 times:

1) 25 degree pre-wash, no detergent
2) 30 degree long hand wash Ecover detergent
3) 40 degree wash with Dazz.

The exposed section of the halyard is still really dirty.

There's an added complication, there was a spill of carbon dust at Inverness Marina last spring, which covered the whole marina in black carbon powder, cause when loading a coaster with spent carbon anodes from an aluminium smelter. The dust covered the marina and my boat was unfortunately close the the coaster when it happened.

I guess that at least part of the problem is the carbon dust trapped in the outer braid of the halyard.

Any ideas on the best way to clean the rope?

I'm reluctant to run the halyard through the washing machine at a higher temperature, the next program runs at 60 degrees.

The rope on the left was external, the rope on the right internal, i.e. protected by the mast.
Click to expand...
I have seen somewhere, dont ask me where! that UV damage manifests itself as a greyness.
Stu
 
prv said:
Rubbing detergent is an action, not a substance :)

Pete
Click to expand...

Yes, thanks for pointing that out, silly mistake.

There are 4 halyards effected, plus the topping lift. I plan to replace the topping lift with an 8mm Braid covered Dyneema this winter, the original has been damaged.

The 4 halyards are 12mm Braid covered Dyneema, 2 @ 60m and 2 @ 50m, so the cost of replacing these would be significant.

The carbon deposits aren't graphite, they are small grains of carbon dust, generated when the carbon anodes were dropped 5m into the hold of the coaster.

I can see the grains of carbon "wedged into" the fibres of the braid. These are unlikely to weaken the rope significantly, almost all the strength is in the dyneema core, which is well protected.

I'm looking for something that will shift the ingrained carbon dust.
 
The particles are visible, caught up in the lay of the sheath, you have tried the washing machine twice, they must be very irregular shaped if that did not move them? I can not see how increasing the temperature will make a difference as they are probably inert and power washing, as advised, is likely to drive them in toward the core.
Sounds like you may be stuck with them, but you boat has been damaged as a result of negligence in loading a ship, you have the evidence and have made reasonable efforts to rectify, what about the Small Claims Court after asking the harbour authority to pay for replacement. Probably a bit of hassle but Dyneema is pricy stuff. Neighbouring boats must have suffered too, so perhaps worth getting together. The Harbour could be open to all sorts of H&S claims, they might give you something to go away quietly.

It is a symptom of the grip that the legal profession still has on Scotland that the Small Claims Court limit is still only £5000 but enough for some dyneema.
 
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Quandary said:
The Harbour could be open to all sorts of H&S claims, they might give you something to go away quietly.
Click to expand...
There is a good chance that the docks part will require a Pollution Prevention and Control Permit and it will be a standard condition that there shall be no fugitive emissions of dust etc. Breach of that condition will be an offence under the PPC Regs [I am 'translating' English law into Scots rather than actually looking it up :cool:] Big fines !
 
I don't know the answer to carbon dust.
With ropes, I put them in a bath of Borocol for a good while (days as I forget) then into washing machine then back to clean borocol. They not only come clean but remain clean much longer.
 
Do we actually believe the dust will shorten the useful life significantly? This seems unlikely, since they will fail from chafe near the ends. The value of the lost life only cannot be very material.

If is primarily appearance... I personally would give that very little weight. It sucks, but wouldn't be worth more than a single hand wash to me. It's not a wedding dress.
 
Re: cleaning ropes - update

Hi,
I decided to try using Vanish, stain remover, so I put the rope in the kitchen sink, covered it in hot water and added two and a half scoops of Vanish Platinum, much less than the recommended concentration, and left it overnight to soak. This morning I rewashed the rope with a 30 degree long wash, and it has come out clean, not like new, but good enough. All the carbon particles seem to have disappeared.

It'll be interesting to see how the halyard performs in the long run, but I figure that polyester and dyneema are fairly immune to attack by relatively weak chemicals, so I'm not anticipating any problems, I was more concerned about getting rid of the potentially abrasive carbon particles.

I did think about taking legal action against the harbour authority, and talked to a few other owners who where also affected, however, the general feeling was that it was not something we wanted to do. The marina is 50% owned by the harbour authority, and they did make a valiant, if not very effective, attempt to clean up the boats by jet washing them down. Legal action would have only caused bad feeling in the long run.

I know SEPA was involved in the incident, but haven't followed up to see if the harbour authority were fined, but they did acknowledge the incident and undertook to change their operating procedures.
 
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