ktekka'/V. Of L 
82 G 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 20, 1909. 
Modern Yacht Cordage. 
The art of spinning cordage must be a very 
ancient one, for even in the earliest day of his 
development man must have constantly wanted 
to use the equivalent of that “little piece of 
string,” without which no sensible person is 
now supposed to leave home. According U 
E. du Boulay, a writer in the Field, the first 
rope was probably a creeper of some sort, and 
it would soon have been found out that sharps 
bends could be taken, and even rough knots 
tied in it without fracture, provided that it had 
had a preliminary twisting so as to separate the 
fibres as is still done in the case of the hazel 
bonds used to tie up faggots. 
Where a single creeper was not strong 
enough for any special task it would be 1 
natural thing to take two or more, but he must 
have been a genius who first discovered that y 
giving each cUper a preliminary tw.sand then 
laving up together two or more in a reverse 
direction the result would be a rope which in¬ 
stead of trying to untwist, would always keep 
its component strands twisted together 111 a 
spiral k-rm, so that it could be used over and 
over again, and this simple art contains the 
kernel of all the subsequent ropemaking and 
twine-spinning methods on which our modern 
•r"or^:,r« ‘L fsu 
Brasses and fibres could be thus laid up into 
fopes, which would possess both flexibility_ 
durability to a marked degree, and the art o 
the present-day ropemaking consists 111 nothing 
more than carrying out the latter operations m 
3 The* 1 first Thing to be done is to comb out the 
material of whatever kind is selected, so as to 
suaighten out each fibre and remove all. im¬ 
purities or defective parts, and then to spin 11 
up into long continuous yarns of as uniform 
strength and size as possible. According to the 
size S the rope required, a certain number of 
these yarns are taken and twisted up into a 
strand, and, simple as such an operation sounds 
a considerable amount of knowledge and ski 
is required to carry it out properly. Thus, 
[he yarns were simply stretched out alongside 
each other between, say, two hooks, one°f 
which were then caused to revolve, the result 
would certainly look like a strand; but on ex¬ 
amination it would be found that while th 
central yarns were slack, the outside o , 
owing to their spiral course, would be much 
tighter, and thus the first essential of a good 
r0 pe—i. e., that every yarn should take an equal 
share of the strain—would be lacking. In twist¬ 
ing up a strand, therefore, the outer yarns must 
be allowed to gain on the inner ones, and this 
is done by rolling up each yarn on a drum 
attached to a revolving wheel,, so that the feed 
adjusts itself during the spinning 
Two or more of the strands thus made are 
now taken and laid up in a contrary direction 
to their original twist, the result being any¬ 
thing from a ball of houseline to a mam sheet, 
according to the number and size of the yam* 
and strands. In the case of a rope a good deal 
of the flexibility and durability will depend on 
the amount of relative twist in the strand and 
the lay or spiral of the rope, and for every size 
experience has shown that certain proportions 
give the best results with certain materials; 
and here comes in the- individual experience of 
the ropemaker. If the twist of the strand be 
too high the resulting rope will be hard and 
stiff, and its lay will be “short in the jaw” and 
generally unpleasant to work, while if the twist 
of the strand be too low the rest will be a rope 
“long in the jaw,” needlessly soft and flexible, 
stretching a good deal under strain, and ab¬ 
sorbing water and shortening under its influ¬ 
ence. Formerly all rope making was done by 
hand, and the streets of Bridport, if not as wide 
as Sackville St. Dublin, are the widest in Eng¬ 
land, compared with the size of the town, simply 
because in former days the art of ropemaking 
was carried out on each side of the central road¬ 
way, for this place was the center of our rope¬ 
making industry for many years, so much so 
that it was customary to say of a man that had 
suffered death from the hangman that he had 
been killed with a “Bridport dagger.” 
In the town of Bideford there is, or, at all 
events, was quite recently, one of these old 
rope walks, whose rights came before those of 
general traffic, which latter had to be suspended 
during its operations, and the sight of the 
ancient ropemaker, girdled round the waist with 
loose bundles of Manilla hemp, slowly walk¬ 
ing backwards from the spinning wheel down 
the street as he fed the fleecy fibre into yarn, 
brought one back in imagination to the days of 
Amyas Leigh and the “Rose of Devon.” Up to 
comparatively recent times every seaport and 
even fishing village made its own cordage, and 
in the picturesque little village of Seaview, in 
the Isle of Wight, may still be seen a certain 
straight roadway known as the “Ropewalk.” 
Although nowadays machinery is used for 
ropemaking, yet individual skill and craft are by 
no means entirely ousted from this branch of 
manufacture, especially in the spinning of the 
yarn from the fibre. As long as a rope is kept 
straight under a pull, there is practically no 
movement among its internal parts, and conse¬ 
quently no friction; but directly it is led over 
a sheave its strands have to slide over each 
other, so as to accommodate themselves to the 
curve, and it is the friction thus produced which 
tends to wear out ropes more or less according 
to the nature of their fibre. Up to the present 
no fibre has been found to approach cotton as 
far as standing wear is concerned, and for this 
reason it is almost exclusively used for convey¬ 
ing power in factories. When its strands have 
been properly lubricated with a suitable medium 
it is extraordinary for how many years.it will 
last under daily use, but, of course, it is kept 
free from wet when working thus, and water is 
the great enemy of all cordage used on yachts. 
Under its influence the fibres swell unevenly, 
so that the even distribution among them of 
the strain is interfered with; the rope gets 
larger in diameter, and harder, so that it wili 
not run well over sheaves, and, moreover, it 
shortens in length considerably. In order to 
minimize these bad effects of wet it has been 
the custom from time immemorial to work 
some sort of protective medium into the yarns, 
such as Stockholm tar. This certainly keeps out 
the wet, but it makes the ropes hard and stiff, 
so tarred cordage is not often met with in 
yachts. The American makers work a sort of 
oil into the yarns of their Manilla ropes, which, 
while keeping them lissom, prevents to a cer¬ 
tain extent the bad effects of wet. 
As regards the material used, nothing 
stronger has been found as yet than good flax. 
Formerly this used to be grown a good deal 
in Somerset, and even now some of our best 
canvas is made in the West Country; but flax 
is a very exhausting crop to the land, and the 
bulk of it is now grown in Ireland, though a 
good deal is grown in Belgium. Hemp never 
did well in our climate, but for several hundred 
years Russia has been the great cultivating 
ground for this most useful plant, and she still 
supplies not only nearly all Europe, but also 
America. A very good class of hemp is also 
grown in Italy, which possesses great strength, 
but for yacht cordage Manilla hemp has always 
been the favorite, both from its clean and silky 
appearance, and also from its flexibility, al¬ 
though size for size it is not as strong as 
Italian hemp. 
A few years ago a new sort of rope was in¬ 
troduced by Messrs Ratsey, of Cowes, for use 
in racing yachts, which for strength and dura¬ 
bility has never been approached by anything. 
It is built up of twine made of flax grown in 
Ireland and laid up on a most scientific method 
in Germany, and although costing more than 
twice the price of Manilla, its extraordinary 
strength and durability amply repay the in¬ 
creased outlay. It was first used in the 
Navahoe, where it was found that one pair of 
jib sheets lasted no less than three seasons, 
and the main sheet two seasons, the yacht be¬ 
ing continually raced. Seeing that it is no un¬ 
usual thing for a racing yacht to expend, three 
Manilla main sheets in a season, this gives a 
good idea of its durability. Sybarita’s running 
gear was also made of this rope, and equally 
good results were obtained. At first a certain 
amount of trouble was experienced, owing to 
too much size being employed in making the 
rope, which occasioned it to get rather slippery 
in wet weather, but this fault is not found in 
the rope recently made. 
As regards the question of its strength, 
the following figures will give an easily 
followed comparison. Manilla, 1^4-inch rope 
breaks at 22cwt., ij4-inch rope at i6cwt.; twine 
rope, 134-inch rope breaks at 63cwt., ij 4 -inch 
rope at 46cwt. Owing to its great strength, 
Italian hemp has been used in the Royal Navy 
for the last hundred years, and it is chiefly used 
for the bolt ropes of sails in yachts; but when 
wire rope purchases came into use^ the strain 
on the luffs became too great for hemp, and 
wire is now used for these parts of sails. As 
this cannot well be sewn on like hemp rope, it 
is run up through a tabling or long pocket in 
the sail, and is held in position by seizings of 
marline at intervals. As all hand sewing is 
done from left to right, bolt ropes must be 
right-handed, and are sewn on to the port side 
of sails. 
Some years ago a good deal of attention was 
attracted by the reports of a new fibre for rope- 
making, which it was claimed would soon dis¬ 
place hemp, etc. This was a plant growing in 
Mexico, which hitherto had only been looked 
on as a weed; it was called Sisal, and in ap¬ 
pearance was something like Manila, and no 
doubt it did make a fairly good rope., one 
peculiarity of which was that when wet it got 
softer instead of harder; but when put to the 
actual test of use it could not hold its own with 
the older fibres, and is now seldom heard of, as 
far as yachts are concerned, anyway. During 
the boom quite large fortunes were made by 
some of the farmers in Mexico by the cultiva¬ 
tion and sale of this plant. 
Cotton ropes have always been in use in 
American yachts more or less, the chief reason 
no doubt being that they are made from a 
native plant, and that their clean white appear¬ 
ance helps to show off a smart yacht. With, us, 
however, cotton ropes never came much into 
fashion, the chief objection being that in our 
climate they were very liable to mildew, and 
that when wet they got very hard and shortened 
a good deal in length. Of late years, however, 
what is called Ramie rope has come in a good 
deal in use for small craft. This is made from 
Indian cotton, and although it pulls down a 
good deal in use, yet it does not mildew, noi 
get hard when wet, and as it can be scrubbed se¬ 
as to look nearly as white as American cotton 
ropes it is very much used in France by the 
owners of small craft. The generality of cord¬ 
age met with is made with three strands, 
although four-stranded rope is often seen or 
yachts, as it is more lissom, but this advantage 
is only gained by a loss of strength. 
The Broom at Masthead. 
It was the famous Dutch Admiral Van Trong 
who originated the custom of hoisting a broom: 
at the masthead of his ship, showing his inten¬ 
tion of sweeping the English fleet from tin 
sea, in the seventeenth century. His signa 
was answered by the English admiral hoisting 
a horsewhip, to indicate that he meant to giv* 
the Dutch a good whipping. Nowadays vessel; 
that make record trips hoist the broom, whin 
a pennant is still oftentimes referred to by sea 
faring men as the horsewhip.—The Marine, 
Journal. 
A. C. A. Membership. 
NEW MEMBER PROPOSED. 
Atlantic Division.—John E. Horn, Borden 
town, N. J., by E. B. Ayres. 
NEW MEMBER ELECTED. 
Atlantic Division.—5923, Frederic C. Pitcher; 
31 Nassau street, New York city. 
APPLICATION FOR REINSTATEMENT. 
Atlantic Division.—3633, Henry B. Fort 
Burlington, N. J. 
