Talamex pelican hooks

Rum Run

Well-Known Member
Joined
7 Apr 2011
Messages
892
Location
Me: Midlands, Boats: East Coast
Visit site
So, wanting to replace the manky old plastic covered guard wires on the boat, I looked to upgrade to pelican hooks for the ends and found Talamex M6 threaded ones for a good price direct from their website. I added a couple of other bits and made the order online on 30th March, their site acknowledged the order by email.
Since then I have phoned them three times to find out where the f#%^ing parts are, to be told that they are still in their European warehouse but are due this week or tomorrow or whatever. They do answer the phone though, so presumably they are not total shysters!
Has anyone else had trouble with them? Should I get a recharge and go elsewhere?

Right, back to work now
 
I don't know about the Pelican hooks in question, but I tried this method, but could not get any tension in the guard wire afterwards, there always was play after hooking pelican on. What must I be doing wrong?
 
I don't know about the Pelican hooks in question, but I tried this method, but could not get any tension in the guard wire afterwards, there always was play after hooking pelican on. What must I be doing wrong?

I think your problem might be the length of wire you are trying to tension with the pelican hook. I have pelican hooks on both guardwires but they are only on short lengths of wire across gates within the guard rail and also a gap at the stern between two sides of the pushpit. In all three cases, the wire length is not more than 75cms or so. On the opposite end of the wire there is an adjustable screw that passes through the stanchion top. Initial tension is made on the guardwires in the conventional way so the pelican hook & wire only has to tension across the gap.
 
I used fork-end threaded terminals for the bow end, with the thread backed off so as to have tightening adjustment; I also bought threaded pelican hooks for the same reason and connected in the same way- this gave me two opportunities to take up slack which occurs as the wires 'settle in' and crew swing on them!
 
I have pelican hooks at the pushpit end of the guardrails; these are the Gibb ' over centre with a locking ring ' type.

I have found bottlescrews are not necessary to have tension on the wires, just have a large box of assorted small shackles and play about until the right length is achieved.

However I read on here recently of someone having trouble with the type of pelican hooks which have a piston with a pull ring to release, might be tricky getting tension with those so if all else fails maybe bottlescrews for them.

Last I heard Seateach at Emsworth had the type of pelican hooks I use, there are 2 types; shackle on the hard eye at end of the guardail, or swage on; obviously both require calculating the wire length and probably taking the stanchions to the chandlery to have the wires threaded through before the hard eyes or hooks are swaged on.

One thing to bear in mind, especially if fitting the ' shackle on ' type is that distance can probably be taken up by shackling the guardrails at the pulpit end.

Lashings are horrible insecure things vulnerable to UV etc to my mind, they were necessary to prevent quadrantal error with RDF in those days, but in the 21st century we can have stainless steel all round.
 
Would mind a sketch of the above, wilth shackle's and pelican arrangements with photo's, when I brought my boat Feb 2014, it occurred to me during the summer up to last November when I put her in the river that a shackle and pelican arrangement, would make it so much easier to gain access to my boat, looking around in the yard I couldn't see any other arrangement other than the tie up method, nearly got talked out of it twice, and me being a newbi, thought I had invented something. I have a swagged on D connector on the push pit, only one guard wire, will look at drilling out the last stanchion, and forming a gate. Thank you all with the idea's.
 
Interfering with radio signals, If the guardrail is connected with wire all around the boat ,you have one big steel loop, with push and pull pit, that can effect radio signals, that is the main reason for having cord bindings on the end of the guard rails, to break that circuit.
 
Jerrytug and Binman,

I am no radio ham, but in the days of RDF we were all told ' lashings on the guardrails as a continuous metal circuit around the boat would distort the received signal ' - it may be in an old Seafarer manual, anyway it was common knowledge.

I have had shackles at the front end and pelican hooks at the pushpit for over 10 years now, the boat happily gets VHF ( masthead aerial and handheld on deck ) and GPS from the usual antennae on the pushpit.

I suppose in a perfect world I'd have pelican hooks at both ends in case of wanting to get people or dinghies on and off the foredeck, but it would look a bit clunky and the things aren't cheap !

I think the idea of cutting lashings in an MOB emergency is daft in this day & age, as it means no guardrails in a situation which has already seen someone over the side, so quite probably lumpy enough the guardrails are needed.

Pelican hooks at the pushpit is the single best modification I ever made to my boat, and I've done a lot of mods and spent a lot of money over 37 years.

Not just super-useful for boarding to and from dinghies and MOB, at pontoons I can unclip the lines and clip them back to the centre stanchion, so the cockpit is easily stepped in and out of and the lines are still tensioned for the fenders to hang from.
 
Hi Seajet, I'm for the gates, hence my interest, but as Jerrytug asked the question I paused in my direction to try and explain an answer.
 
We've also modified our guard rails in a similar manner, with a break in the rail amidships on both sides, with a pelican shackle to secure it.

I think we have the type of pelican hooks which have a piston with a pull ring to release. But after we've put the hook through the shackle and close the hook, the leverage increases the tension on the guard rail. Does that make sense? It took a bit of fiddling with the screw fitting on the other ends of the wire to find the "just-right" balance point of enough tension in the wire to feel like it was doing its job, but enough slack to let releasing the pelican be easy, and not an exercise in pulling the pull ring while swearing loudly at the fool who set this up (oh it was me).

A few words of warning - do make sure the pelican is an easy fit through the retaining shackle. We found that some that were supposed to be the same size were in fact just fatter enough to jam in the shackle if you didn't release them at just the right angle. Difficult to explain in words, but very memorable after the pelican has jammed halfway out of the shackle and you are strugging to get it free or back in.

Has anyone got pictures yet? So much easier than these verbal explanations! :-)
 
Interfering with radio signals, If the guardrail is connected with wire all around the boat ,you have one big steel loop, with push and pull pit, that can effect radio signals, that is the main reason for having cord bindings on the end of the guard rails, to break that circuit.

And there was me thinking that it was to allow the cord to be cut quickly in a man overboard situation to make it easier to get casualty back on deck
Must be why my aerial is at the top of the mast away from the "loop"
 
So, wanting to replace the manky old plastic covered guard wires on the boat, I looked to upgrade to pelican hooks for the ends and found Talamex M6 threaded ones for a good price direct from their website. I added a couple of other bits and made the order online on 30th March, their site acknowledged the order by email.
Since then I have phoned them three times to find out where the f#%^ing parts are, to be told that they are still in their European warehouse but are due this week or tomorrow or whatever. They do answer the phone though, so presumably they are not total shysters!
Has anyone else had trouble with them? Should I get a recharge and go elsewhere?

Right, back to work now

Did you order from Talamex.co.uk, the UK address of the Dutch company Talamex (Lankhorst Taselaar) or from Talamexleisure which is just Marine Mega Store under yet another guise? The genuine Talamex is a reputable company.
 
See my #10

I now have , but the first line does not quite make sense ( as usual :encouragement:) Plus I have consigned the RDF to a cupboard where Its always handy if I never need it again

As an aside---It amazes me how many people start threads with " I know nothing about the subject" or words to that effect
Then type a whole post about the subject in question

& that is not aimed specifically at you but it always makes me smile

I seem to recall at various times seeing the RYA, PBO mag & RNLI all suggesting a lashing allows the guardrail to be quickly disconnected. Like you I am not so sure, but a pelicamn hook would solve the problem here but create some as well

As for demountable section in the guard rail - I am not an advocate. If getting in from the dinghy I really hate those "fat lumps" who insist on swinging on my guard rails to heave themselves aboard

A lot of boats need a step betwixt pontoon & deck so the user will tend to pull on the top of the 2 closest staunchions

I always suggest that people board alongside the shrouds where they can reach up & have a more stable holding point. then they can step over the rail once their feet are on the deck

With staunchions their height is such that at the final point of getting weight over the feet the body is bent & has an unstable C of g. A slight roll of the boat could easily cause someone to fall back-- especially if not so nimble

So some have removable rail sections & if it suits them good for them its their choice
personally I have opted not to bother
 
The first line means ' we were always told RDF would suffer interference if using shackles not lashings, the latter break the loop '.

Thought if you did still have a masthead RDF aerial you might use it for aero beacons, I presume they're still around; again in RDF lore, one wasn't really supposed to use them ' as the nearby land could bend the signal ' but I found the ones at Hurn and Guernsey worked OK, in the days when we were glad to have anything.
 
Top