Our new skill: Splicing

The wife and I took a two hour seminar/lesson on splicing doulble braided line. It was most informative. The first photo are my three attempts when we got home, the first two were failures but the third was spot on perfect.

The second photo shows my wifes three tries, one wrong and two perfect. The marks you see are reference points for us rookies.

She is the better rigger.....

I learned you cannot splice used rope. Rope that has been wet, nor rope that has been stretched.

Being able to splice loops in lines will save a bundle of $$$ as buying unsliced lines is cheap, cheap, cheap.

Road trip to a boat wrecker

What you see here is our new to us ST2000+ Autohelm plus four turnbuckles. Not shown is our man over board bouy and a tiny anchor for our dinghy. All for a mere $140. Another boating couple and us went on a road trip for this place.

The autohelm does work, we ran it through its paces at the yard. What sucks now is waiting for our launch in spring to put her through sea trials.