Tying off a deadeye lanyard?

[Ian McColgin]

Firstly, you may find in some of Brion’s work and in Harvey Garret Smith’s books deadeye information. Second, a San Francisco rigger who goes by the internet name of Clyderigged has lots of experience and has shared on the WoodenBoat Forum a nifty tool for setting up deadeyes. http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/show...hlight=deadeye

The simple part is you don’t tension to a winch off to the side some place. You tension pulling up.

The deadeyes I’ve meddled with all have three holes in the eye on the stay and the eye on the chainplates. The three holes on the lower eye and two of the three on the upper have the in-facing edges relieved fro a smooth turn of the lanyard. One hole in the upper eye is relieved on only one side as the other accepts the stopper knot.

The lanyard is rove from the first upper eye hole down to the first lower eye hole, back up to the second and down to the second, up to the third and down through the third, and then brought back up to be secured by a hitch around the stay above the upper eye. It’s not exactly a block and tackle as the friction is huge and you can’t just winch it taught.

The two ways I’ve used and a third I’ll mention for tensioning are:

Fleet a tackle or comealong to the stay and to the lanyard tail. Haul it up.

Use a heavers hitch on your mallet which can find the top of the upper eye as a fulcrm.

Get Clyderigged’s pictures of the the trescool tensioning tool he made and uses.

With all of these, you take some tension and then sweat each part of the lanyard between eyes in turn to send that tension into the whole. Keep taking up a bit at a time till you’re happy. It only takes a little hand tension to hold that while you get your tensioning tool out of the way and make the hitch.

G’luck