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What colors are your lines?

markvone

Sustaining Member
The E36RH has a lot of lines for adjusting stuff. All of mine were old and faded when I bought my boat in 2011. I've replaced almost all of the lines and tried to keep them different colors or at least keep like colors away from each other. I've got one red halyard and red genoa car adjusting lines that were new in 2011. These have faded significantly more than any other color line that I have. My black, blue and green lines of the same age have lost their shiny new appearance but have not faded nearly as much as the red lines. The least faded color is white regardless of the color of the flecks. All these lines come off the boat by December and are cleaned and stored inside until March.

Here are some pics. Red halyard is faded on exposed shackle end, looks new in the middle where it lives inside the mast. Comparison of faded genoa track line to brand new vang line. Formerly red, now pink, line from purchase. Blue genoa sheet has lost it's shine and is slightly faded but the color is still OK. White furler line looks best after eight years.

Moral of the story: avoid red unless you like pink.

Mark
 

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Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Good Point.
Another way to keep them 'brighter' and also better-handling is to remove them each winter. A friend of mine has tag lines for all of his halyards. He removes and stores (and washes, as needed) all of the major running rigging.
I have a couple of tag (or 'messenger' lines and do use them to remove and launder our many halyards every few years -- a good thing to do in the winter off-season.
 

toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
I replaced most of the standing and running rigging last year. Did the usual red/green thing with the sheets. I wanted to do a broader, rational color coding exercise, but it turned out to be difficult to get the desired colors/patterns in the (discount yacht braid) materials that I was buying. I suppose that anything is possible if one doubles or quadruples the budget.

I started a nice spreadsheet with the type, size, length, and color of every line, for the manual appendices, but it sort of petered out half-way through. Once you start listing them, there are more than I realized!

Really, for an E29, the most economical thing is to buy the 600-foot roll of 3/8 yachtbraid and use it for everything. But then every line looks the same.

Oops. Sorta misread the topic. I have a lot of red lines. (E.g. red dock lines because the boat has red stripes.) They fade to sort of a dull maroon though, not pink.
 
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tenders

Innocent Bystander
All my mainsail controls are green - sheet is solid, halyard/traveler/vang is flecked
Genoa is blue - sheet is solid (halyard is on a reel on the mast and doesn't usually get touched in-season)
Spinnaker halyard and toppinglift is red flecked, haven't hoisted it in years, not sure what color the sheets are
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
I'm OCD enough to have a color-coding "plan"...

For color, in general portside lines are red, starboardside lines are green, midships lines are blue.

But within that, I have variations: portside spin-halyard is solid-red, portside (second) reef-line is white with red fleck. Same idea on starboard side. on centerline, mainsheet is solid blue, jib halyard is white with blue fleck, vang is blue with white fleck. Jibsheets are solid black, spinnaker tack-line is black with white fleck, spinnaker sheets are gray.

I can pretty much "find" the line I want in an instant.

And, yeah, all that stuff comes off when the boat gets put away for the winter. Messenger lines for the halyards, everything else coiled up and hung down below with the heater/dehumidifier running. It's not a huge chore to put the boat back together in the spring (or to run a halyard and sheets for a winter sail), and it kinda guarantees that the whole set of running rigging gets at least one good inspection every year.

$.02
 
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toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
Yeah, I know it should come down for the winter... but the last two sundays were pretty good sailing. For a certain definition of "pretty good." I.e. better than cleaning out the garage. The one-season (cheap) jib sheets are already looking a little hairy.
Winds 0 - 22 from the E, W, N, and S. And a balmy 40°F. Excellent sailing for up to ten minutes at a time! The rest is a lot of string-pulling...
 

Tin Kicker

Sustaining Member
Moderator
I replaced the running rigging and took a slightly different approach. There are different versions of red color and flakes for the main and jib sheets. If I fall off the boat a guest will hopefully remember that the boat will slow or stop if they let the red ones loose.
 

Filkee

Sustaining Member
Red Reight D’Oh!

I’m the poster child for not having a plan. I started by copying the colors from my Coronado 15 figuring I could keep red=main and green=jib but over time I’ve developed an ever increasing array of contradictions, “No, sweetie...the white and red, not the red and white!” Future choices will be data-driven. And yes, I know. Right not reight but the CMS won’t allow the edit. Again with the planning.
 
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Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Ah, I did wonder about the two requests for a dating app on the updated Ericson Forum.


I think it's a good idea, fellows.
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
I've asked you not to call me "sweetie"

(laughing) I can see where Filkee might be confused. I mean, the last time someone told me I owed them a martini, I ended up with a hangover and (eventually) alimony payments...
 
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