SpeedCruise

[broadoak 0]

we are wanting to change the main and genoa halyards from the ancient wire/ rope and are looking at buying speedcruise rather than spectra/ dyneema but we don't know anyone who has used this. If anyone has any comment as to their experience with speedcruise or any suggestions as to what would be the best to use it would be appreciated?

[wheels 543]

What is speed cruise and why not Dyneema??

[Guest]

Speedcruise is a Spectra/UHMWPE blend cored braid. Low stretch, around 4% at 30%, a good dyneema 75 being 3-3.5% at 30.

 

Speedcruise is good for halyards due to the low stretch and good for cruisers or the more budget challenged as it's cheaper than dyneema cored braids. Medium level splice, made in Italy, solid colour covers. There are quite a few Speedcruise halyards in NZ and a few just left on some offshore cruisers.

 

Speedcruise is pretty much the same as Donaghys Spectraspeed.

 

NOTE: The elongation (stretch) numbers are expressed as one at 30% of the ropes break load and at break load. This seems to becoming a more common, even if still knot hugely so, way of describing ropes. That is a bloody good thing as there isn't a lot of standardisation. So you'll start to see more Specs showing XX%/30 and XX%/Break.

[broadoak 0]

Thanks for the information and help Knot Me. It sounds as though it will do the job we need it to for both the main halyard & genoa halyard. Now we just need to sort out how much we need and who to buy it from.

Cheers

[Island Time 1,231]

Buy it from KM! Support crewers!! Just send him a PM...

[Rangi1 50]

What sort of price per meter are we talking about for 12mm KM?

[Guest]

Around $9.50 a mt +/- a little depending on timing being a import. Inc GST.

 

Another possible option for those knot needing the real high performance dyneema has, which is less boats than actually use dyneema, is Star Plus. A pre-stretched HT polyester under a HT polyester cover. Good grunty stuff with numbers of 5.5/30 and 12/bust, now you know how to read those Sub $6 mt inc.

 

With Armare Ropes the load numbers include a termination i.e a spliced on the end. Watch for that as many RopeCo's don't include a termination, which I find strange as every one has to have at least one, usually 2.

[banaari 27]

May I jump in and broaden the scope a wee bit...

Am looking at doing "something" with the halyards on the love object, which are currently wire with rope tails. The rope has seen better days (many years ago by the look of it).

What are the pros and cons of eliminating the wire and going all-rope?

[Island Time 1,231]

There is NO benefit for wire/rope halyards any more. They are old tech. They were used to minimize stretch.

 

Just make sure when you change to a modern fibre that the dia is enough to work your jambers. Also, check that the sheeves are OK for rope. If not, replace them...

[Guest]

Pretty much what IT said Banaari. Wire/rope, which good for it's time has been superseded by better materials. But there is nothing wrong with wire/rope and we still make a fair few even today.

 

The Pros of changing to all fibre - weight saving, less blood lose from sprags, more boaters can do repairs on the fly if required, easier to handle, a colour range to match your Aura or your beloveds eyes if you need to suck up her for the coin

 

The Cons - wire is still a little hardier but that's a little marginal really, wire sparkles .... grasping a bit there for good reasons to have wire.... Oh, maybe a smidgen cheaper in some size areas but knot that much in it really.

 

I'd say if you have wire/rope and they are fine don't change them and save the beer tokens. When they become buggered yes maybe then do it.

 

But note as IT mentioned, you need to check a few small things before swapping. Knot big or hard nor expensive to tweak if required (generally speaking) but the checks are a must do or you run a big risk of trashing your new fibre strings.

[banaari 27]

Good stuff; thanks IT, KM and the Oaken one.

[Rangi1 50]

Yeah, thanks guys. KM - I can feel a new halyard coming on very soon.

[Guest]

Just thought I'd chuck that in as some people do spend more than they need to sometimes and it is topical.

 

While Dyneema/Spectra/Vectran and those things are great they also tend to cost a lot for goodness a lot of boaters will never use i.e. some are paying money to have the ability to say 'I have dyneema' rather than actually needing it. The halyards on my boat are strong enough to lift her out of the water with but the mast they are in isn't, the sail cloth they hold up isn't, the cleat that hold the halyards aren't and so on. I have excess goodness I'll never be able to use and I've paid good money for that... or would have had they knot been part of our Research and Development programme of course

 

What has also been happening while the 'fancies' have been developed is they have also been working on fine tuning materials and construction techniques with the older materials like Polyester for example. I remember a wee while ago knot long after leaving school and starting this working crap, the rope world was all a buzz with a simple polyester rope made by Marlow (the real one). Everyone was jumping up and down with joy for this new wizz bang bit of kit. It was simple polyester that had pre-stretched but for us end users it was a technical jump in goodness as everything back them stretched. Like today stretch was a bad thing.... unless it was in the areas you do want it, so this rope changed the landscape to a degree.

 

That same sort of thing is still happening and some of those older techniques are coming back, mainly due to cost reasons I'd expect. For example we have a pre-stretched polyester braid that would be good for halyards on boats where ETNZ like performance isn't required as it doesn't have a ETNZ wallet to fund it. Also there are some HMWPE and UHMWPE fibres, which Spectra and Dyneema are, coming out but don't have the marketing budget DSM (dyneema) and Honeywell (spectra) have meaning they cost less. That Speedcruise for example has a core which is a blend of Spectra and a UHMWPE they developed leading to a cheaper cost.

 

So don't be shy in having a suss around to see what there is you can use for whatever application you have. Many will point you at the usual suspects and in many cases they could be the best option............. but knot always.

[Jon 360]

There he goes again

Confusing the issue so you have to go and spend half a day talking about everything but what your after before finally getting to the issue

But I have to say that the final answer is worth the wait.

 

 

 

You coming out to help on the start boat again ?

[Guest]

Crap the edit timed out so here have a just thought about part 2.

 

Also consider a plan like this, again if you aren't ETNZ. Say your halyard is shagged and you need a new one, we'll say it's 10mm. Now the general trend at the moment is to go to a 8mm Dyneema cored rope. That's perfectly fine, assuming your jambers can hold it. But as you are a cruiser you have no need to go fancy so why knot use, say a 10mm pre-stretched polyester instead? Lets look at the technicals -

- Weight assuming a 35mt halyard - the 10mm polyester will be 910 grammes heavier than the 8mm Dyneema.

- Stretch at 30% of break load - 8mm Dyneema 3%, the 10mm pre-stretched 5.5%. Note here that very few boats will put 30% of either break load on their halyard. On that 10mm 30% is over 800kg, over 1000kg on the 8mm dyneema, on my R930 main bad sh*t happened at 300kg, I know I have load cells on her to suss things like that.... for work reasons, I'm knot that anal a racer.

- Cost - Ball park the 10mm will cost you around 60% of the 8mm but that will vary a little obviously.**

 

So as you can see there is good money to be saved should you be able to live with a couple of very tiny trade off that most boats wouldn't notice anyway.

 

** Ba humbug - That pricing was working one of the Westhaven 3's web pricing, which I just noticed is now selling eastern made yachting braid and calling it NZ made. That's pretty damn dodgy but sadly a lot more common than most of you would realise at the moment.

 

 

Sure can D, just say when, where and whatever.