Plastic tube or fire hose for 20mm mooring strop

ctb

ctb

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We have a Sadler 25 on a swinging mooring on the Clyde. The mooring is rented and the mooring man supplies the mooring strop. It is 24 mm Liros (I think) and is sheathed in hard(ish) plastic tubing to prevent chaffing. The plastic sheath goes all the way from the hippo buoy to just past the the bow roller. The rope & sheath just fit under the drop nose pin. In quiet weather the boat lies against the buoy and the sheath has a tendency to split under the drop nose pin, around the circumference of the sheath. This leaves a (rather worrying) sharp edge from the sheath. Clearly the sheath and line are too big for the boat.

We think that 20mm Liros is more than enough (The boat weighs 2 tonnes). However we are struggling to find a plastic sheath for 20mm rope. An alternative would be to use fire hose on the 24mm line but I can only find fire hose in 19mm (too small) and 51mm (too large).

So....does anyone know of a supplier for either 20mm plastic sheathing or 20mm or 24mm fire hose or similar.

Cheers

Geoff
 
The PVC stuff does go hard and then cracks. Lakesailor has some photos of mooring lines that have been subsequently cut through by the sharp edges, not so good.

I recently recommended bike inner tube for 8mm chain, I have found it lasts and works well. I have no idea how it would resist chafe on rope but it could be worth a try.

I use the larger fire hose and just cram it in under the pin.
 
You are right to be concerned. On Windermere it is very common for sheaths to crack and split.
This boat has lost it's strop due to a crack in the plastic pipe


Mitsybrokenmooring3.jpg






This boat has since gone walkabaout. Awaiting an £8K repair


RoseAnnbrokenmooring3.jpg
 
Last edited:
ctb said:
We have a Sadler 25 on a swinging mooring on the Clyde. The mooring is rented and the mooring man supplies the mooring strop. It is 24 mm Liros (I think) and is sheathed in hard(ish) plastic tubing to prevent chaffing. The plastic sheath goes all the way from the hippo buoy to just past the the bow roller. The rope & sheath just fit under the drop nose pin. In quiet weather the boat lies against the buoy and the sheath has a tendency to split under the drop nose pin, around the circumference of the sheath. This leaves a (rather worrying) sharp edge from the sheath. Clearly the sheath and line are too big for the boat.

We think that 20mm Liros is more than enough (The boat weighs 2 tonnes). However we are struggling to find a plastic sheath for 20mm rope. An alternative would be to use fire hose on the 24mm line but I can only find fire hose in 19mm (too small) and 51mm (too large).

So....does anyone know of a supplier for either 20mm plastic sheathing or 20mm or 24mm fire hose or similar.

Cheers

Geoff
Click to expand...

I use two 22mm nylon strops to moor our 7 tonne boat in the Conwy River, each protected by 25mm id reinforced clear pvc hose. I change the hose every 2 years or so; the hose has never been damaged beyond some distortion when the strops used to twist together (I have installed an extra swivel to combat that). Does the pin need to be there? Couldn't you lash the strop down onto the roller instead?
 


This is my neighbours yacht. Clear plastic hose has hardened and sliced through the rope.

Use polyprop flat fire hose wrapped around the rope and secured with electrical ties. Handles the Australian sun and abrasion and is the recommended product for this use by the US coast guard. There is a comparison test on the web somewhere!
 
I have used fire hose for chafe protection and in general it works well (over gunwales and through fairleads). However, it failed to protect the mooring lines in heavy weather (alongside a pontoon). It looks like the higher friction caused the fire hose lining to melt, or at least wear away rapidly such that the canvas outer skin shredded. If relying on a mooring strop and considering that we do get summer gales passing through from time to time, I think Piers link to Chafe-Pro would be a better choice than fire hose.

I have used common reinforced waste water hose, the green with white spiral reinforcing stripe to good effect on a Rival 41 (10 tonnes, windage on bow) that was moored. This worked well but it was difficult to handle due to its stiffness and it was lashed in place as the pin could not be inserted. I think we got about half a season out of it before it showed signs of wall thinning and required repairing; never had any issues which the edge cutting the strop.
 
Make your own?

You can make your own anti-chafe tube from robust cloth (an industrial tarp of Japanese origin as far as I can tell in my case: it was supplied specifically for the purpose of chafe protection by a mooring equipment distributor).

1. Make a rectangle, as long as you want (a bit over length is no bad thing imho) and about 50mm wider than the circumference of the rope to be protected.
2. Hem each short end if you like (or just cut and seal with a hot knife).
3. Double it over along the long axis and sew up a line about 5mm in and again about 15mm in from the edge.
4. Turn inside-out to make a tube.

Fit's perfectly and it's easy to make several while you're about it so you've little excuse not to change it should it get worn. It should be possible, although I've not tried, to make it after the rope has been spliced, either to fit on the length or around a spliced loop. No reason not to sew it loosely to the rope to stop it 'riding' along.
 
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