Added 03/07/2004
Any lines I am likely to
use while at sail, are hanging on my stern rail. That way if I need them,
they’re within reach. All other lines are gently chunked to the back of the
quarter berth. <bg>
Pack Stith
On Fling, the PO
installed a set of study cuphooks inside the starboard cockpit locker.
They are mounted to a
strip of wood that he fixed to the boat in some manner I can't remember right
now.
There are 7 hooks.
I coil all the rope and do the figure 8 thing with one of the loops to
get a good loop to hang it on. On
the 26MkII, the lockers are deep enough to hang even my spinnaker sheets without
rubbing on the bottom of the boat. It
works well and the ropes are still easy to get at unless your great aunt Bertha
happens to be sitting on the locker.
Ken
I coil them up and store them in those net, wet laundry bags sold at
K-Mart, etc. The bags
keeps them separate, but if they are wet, they have a chance
to dry out.
Bruce K
I don’t even trust
cloth. If it gets wet and the lines inside do too. You still end up with mildewy
lines…or rotted ones. Hanging outside, they get wet, dry, no problem.
<BG>
Pack Stith
I would suggest to those
who like to use plastic bags and such that maybe
rot happens really fast
when wet or moist lines are trapped in a plastic
sweaty bag for a period
of time. Air circulation and
overall just common
sense usually will win
out. I keep some line in the
cockpit locker and some
down below in the V.
I drilled a 1/2 in hole
through the inner lip of the cockpit locker lid molding,
(inside edge only, not
the outer edge), one hole on each side, 3" from the back of the locker.
Inside the hole I slid a 3' long 1/2 aluminum tube, stiffened by stuffing
it "full" with epoxy and a dowel, It's "just" short of being
end to end. This dowel slide in the
hole, then across to the other hole and two clips through the shaft, hold it in
place.
All ropes, lines, spare
sheets, are coiled and then "locked", then tied off with a 1/2 hitch
to the dowel, (it acts like a towel rod) with all the lines visible and handy
fenders also clip to the dowel.
Naw, I coil it, then do
the wrap around and cinch it down. Take the tail end of the line and tie it to
the rail with a clove hitch. Besides, I tie them inside the rail so the netting
I have around the boat to keep shadow on board keeps the line on board too.
<BG>
Pack Stith
I can agree with the
Netted bags, as long ast they’re hung somewhere. Think Towel Bar in the
Lazarette!!! This avoids hooks. I too have a problem with the idea of being
dumped into one while under sail. In port in a storm for that matter. I think
what he meant by the inner lip of the cockpit locker is that on at least my
boat, the locker has channels around the inside to help keep water out of the
lazarette and the hatch covers turn down edges fit inside the channel. I
actually though about putting a bar across the bottom of my hatch covers so when
you raise the lid, there they were. I was soon reminded that if I hung a lot of
lines there…I’d never get the lid open again. <BG>
Pack Stith
SUMMARY:
As I have come to
expect, the responses from this group were great!
I figured that the least
I can do is to summarize the responses, so that (1) I can thank everybody for
their input and (2) make available a distilled version that may be useful for
others looking for answers.
Lots of good ideas for
storing ropes. Jean kicked off the debate with the suggestion of using black
garbage bags. Stephen Scott suggested either hanging them coiled on hooks or in
cloth bags, clearly marked in large letters.
Several commented
that they would be worried about mildew and rot, certainly in plastic
bags, but even in cloth bags.
Ken Eubank also
suggested hooks (cuphooks), mounted to a strip of wood.
Jay proposed something
that seems like a variation on the hooks idea. It sounds really nifty but I just
could not make sense of
it. Sorry, but I did not
get past the passage about the "inner lip of the cockpit locker lid
molding, (inside edge only, not the outer edge)". Wasn't quite clear about
where the dowel goes into the alu pipe, which part is epoxied to which other
etc. It is message 40790 and I would LOVE to understand it.
Pack (and also Jean) put
the ropes in use on the pushpit, other ropes
'chunked' into the back of the quarterberth.
AND THE WINNER IS ...
(drum roll)
Bruce's idea of using
net laundry bags sold at K-Mart etc.
OK, at least that is the
winner for me. I had thought about cloth bags before but was not thrilled about
the idea of sewing them, and even less at labelling them and remembering which
label corresponded to which rope. And, the rot may be a real concern. The net
bag ideas solves all these problems: easy, cheap, readily available, no need to
label, no rot.
Actually, I am thinking
of perhaps combining that with the hooks idea, perhaps I could hang some of the
bags. The one concern about hooks is that I may myself get hung up on them; I
seem to crawl around in the cockpit lockers quite a bit and the idea of a half
dozen sharp hooks at eye level (when I am in there) is not to appealing.
And hanging at least a
few lines on the pushpit is a great idea, too; I would not really see this as a
storage solution but as a way to have some lines readily available. Much
preferable to the tangle on the cockpit floor!
Again, thanks a lot! I
have a much better idea what to do now!
--Ernst