Amsteel for spinnaker sheets?

[alan-bc]

I'm thinking of using Samson Amsteel for the assym spinnaker sheets on my 28' boat.

Light, strong, and pretty darn cheap from my local rope supplier (compared to the competition .. NE Ropes Flight line or Samson Ultra-lite).

One problem is that it's slippery, as are most all uncovered lines made of modern "magic" materials, making handling difficult.

To offset this, I thought I would go with much thicker line.

This of course screws up much of the weight advantage, and so I thought

"how about 50' of 3/16" with 25' of 1/2" line on either end?"

(100' total).

Most if not all of the line "in the air" would be 3/16 while the line actually being handled would be 1/2".

3/16" Amsteel has a listed breaking strength of 5400 pounds, which should be plenty strong enough.

These thoughts lead to three questions

1. Is this nuts?

2. If not nuts, is it possible to adequately splice two dissimilar sized hollow core lines? (I'm thinking there's little more a guy can do than a bury with some stitching.)

3. How about 3/16" Amsteel spliced to 3/8" or 7/16" regatta braid (for a really nice feel)? Can these be adequately spliced?

Thanks for any thoughts.

Alan

[Brion Toss]

Hello,
You can indeed bury the Spectra into a Dacron single-braid, and stitch. We've been doing this with runners for years. We do a lo-o-ng bury, and proportion the tail so that the Spectra inside the Dacron is around the winch when the load is on. We put a whipping or two at the end of the Dacron, rather than burying it inside the Spectra. Attach to the clew with a soft shackle.
Fair leads,
BrionToss