Hypocacculus
New member
What is the advantage of a more or less undoable knot to fasten the halyard to the sail over a spliced eye?
We have a shackle on a spliced eye. The advantage of the shackle to me is we can readily remove the halyard from the sail and fasten it away from the mast when not in use to avoid noise. Obviously the shackle could be joined to the halyard by a knot rather than a spliced eye, but what are the relative merits?
I've always been led to believe that splices are stronger than knots; a line that is going to break will invariably break at the knot as they create a weak point which splices don't. Having said that, our inherited genoa halyard is knotted; I guess the advantage of a knot is that you can quickly tie one with no extra equipment needed whereas fewer people know how to splice modern cored, braided line.