FTV Deck Maintenance Duty

4/c Haley Delahanty; Holden, MA Sarah Monteiro; N. Falmouth, MA Cassandra Kolstad; Madison, CT 

3/c Kat Rastallis; Falmouth, MA

Today during deck maintenance we got to sit outside and splice line. We also put permanent whippings at one end of the line to keep it from fraying and unraveling. The weather was nice during the first half of the morning however, during lunch it began to rain. After lunch we came back and learned how to backsplice and short splice which will help in future classes. After that we got the chance to varnish a bench that will be used for many years to come. This is the average day in deck maintenance. Hard work pays off!

Rope splicing in rope work is the forming of a semi-permanent joint between two ropes or two parts of the same rope by partly untwisting and then interweaving their strands. Splices can be used to form a stopper at the end of a line, to form a loop or an eye in a rope, or for joining two ropes together.

 Rope work is essential in any aspect of work at sea. This is a given, as well as being useful in many  other pursuits as well. A thorough understanding of rope work will be required by all Deckies. Now take the quiz.

Use this tutorial to try line splicing

Play this rigging game

Design and Build a ping pong ball zip line ride

You and your team mates must figure out how to build the bridge anchored to the deck, with only ropes.

Ropes and cordage have been used since prehistoric times for daily activities such as fishing, trapping, hunting, carrying, lifting, and climbing. The tensile strength of a rope (or any object) is the amount of stress it can handle without breaking from being pulled apart. A rope in a game of tug-o-war is under tensile stress. So are the cables of a suspension bridge. Experiment with rope structure and tensile strength through the process of making a rope from grass.