hemp lookalike

Porthandbuoy

Porthandbuoy

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www.backbearing.com
I'm looking for new halyards & topping lift in traditional hemp looking 8mm 3-strand. I've come across both polyester and polypropylene.
Anyone got any strong views on which I should go for? (Or something else entirely)
 
John at Traditional Boat Supplies sent me some samples of his Polyhemp rope which I liked the look of:
tradboats.com

and I've also had good service from Pete Flockhart at Tradline Ropes and Fenders:
tradline.co.uk
who stocks both polyester and polypropyene 'hemp effect' ropes, both 3 strand and also braided which is ideal for sheets etc.

Probably the best thing is to request some samples and compare prices. I do know that the original polypropylene 'hemp' ropes didn't always wear well, so my inclination would be towards polyester. But the price difference may well be an issue.

I'll be re-rigging my own boat this year, so I'm interested to see what other recommendations are made.
 
I replaced all of my lookalike polyester hemp rigging with Marlowbraid. I found that 3 strand twisted around itself and was very hard on the hands. The final straw was when the Throat Halyard parted---due to wear around a cleat and I'm sure that exposure to sunlight didnt help either.
My very traditional boat still looks nice with modern braided line and I cant imagine any of the lines letting me down.
 
Thanks for both these links; neither came up in my Google searches. Looks like you pays your money and get what you pay for. Polyester looks to be stronger, less stretchy, more durable, and hence more expensive than polypropylene.
 
Yes, I'm afraid that you're right. When I bought my old ketch the previous owner had rigged it with hemp-looking polyprop. Five years of Sydney sunshine had reduced it to powder whenever I tried to handle one of the ropes. I re-rigged with 3-strand polyester had had no further trouble.
Peter
 
It might take 50 years to get as much sunshine as Oz but polyprop will be falling apart anyway within the year. It can't take UV at all. It's purpose does not include rigging of any sort. It's a cheap floating line where degradation and performance is not important.
I've tried hardy hemp but it will also fall to UV much more quickly than poyester and I've tried 3 strand buff polyester but found it too soft to work all that well with longevity of splices and I'm now using buff coloured braided polyester which looks the part, performs and lasts well but of course is more fiddly to splice than 3 strand.
 
"Longevity of splices" ??? What goes wrong?
I know polyester is more "slippery" than traditional rope so an extra couple of tucks is recommended to prevent things from coming apart.

BTW. I'll be buying polyester. To hell with the cost, just don't tell SWMBO!
 
Badly phrased with "longevity" perhaps. What I really mean is that once spliced, and yes probably five tucks instead of the "old rope" three tucks, if you want or need to undo the splice and resplice the end it usually means chopping a bit off as the ends even if sealed have generally unravelled by then and it's not really satisfactory to re-lay them the way you once could. I think that the old ropes were much better to work with in terms of splices and knots but of course are not a patch performance wise on the modern equivalents.
One thing that I also meant to say before is that even with pre-stretched 3 strand it still seems to have more elasticity then braided so it depends on what use the particular bit of rope is for as to which may be best.
 
I'm curious now to find out what the old halyards are made from. I want to replace them because I snapped the jib halyard last summer when swigging it up. It snapped about 6 or 7 inches behind the eye-splice where it passed over the sheave.
When I run my thumb over the break it gives off clouds of dust, so perhaps it's polyprop. If I cut off a foot, and it floats, that should confirm it.
 
When I replaced the running rigging in Kala Sona six years ago I used braided line and, not being clever enough to splice it properly, whipped the ends over a hard eye to make a 'splice'. I put two whippings on each 'splice'. I never noticed any problems until this year when I found ALL of the main halyard at the foot of the mast. Both whippings had disappeared and the halyard had run through the sheave. Inspecting the other 'splices' I found that on two of them one whipping had disappeared but the others seemed sound. I used the standard whipping twine bought at any chandlery and used different colours or a mixture for each 'splice'.

I now wish I had seen manila rope advertised as I know how to splice that!
 
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Someone remind me - why have we abandoned traditional rope on our traditional boats?

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'cos it's not as strong as polyester, shrinks when wet, and rots to boot. Other than that it's great.
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and you can't melt the ends to stop it fraying /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
Thanks - I knew there must be a good reason!
Although the experiences recounted above suggest that polyester is fully capable of "rotting" too.

Actually I have just discovered that there is a world of difference between "hemp" which can mean just about anything as long as it is brown, and genuine manila. The quote I found was for the real stuff.
 
The brown stuff may be sisal, not as strong as manila and even more prone to rot. I remember when we cleared the ground this house is on the neighbour farmer came along with his tractor to help fell some trees away from his fences-- it wasn't really a problem but he felt happier that way, so I accepted the help. He brought a 20-yard length of 1 inch sisal-- looked perfect for the job.

It snapped repeatedly until we were down to about 25 feet and knots everywhere when I got fed up, told him to stop and just dropped the rest the usual way (without touching his fences.) He was applying practically no load, just enough to restrain the trees.

It was a very instructive experience. That rope looked absolutely perfect, neither of us could see anything at all wrong with it, and he swore it was only a couple of years old and had been dry stored. But it was totally shot all the same.

Not something I'd want to go to sea with.
 
Hemp should not mean anything other than hemp. It was the best quality of rope for handling i.e. much softer than manilla, but even years ago was expensive and now prohibitively so even if you could find it which is perhaps doubtful. Manilla was good for larger lines and was invariably used for ships mooring ropes however exposed to the elements it would only be good for a few years before needing replacing. When going deep sea one of the first jobs on a ship was to stow all the mooring lines below decks to protect them and of course to save losing them in the event of inclement elements. Between ports on a coast in bad weather they would be lashed down on deck to keep them in place but suffered from exposure. Even in the "good old days" they were expensive to replace. I don't know but I would think nylon warps have now taken over this function.
 
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