How to Make a Dyneema Grommet

A rope ring is called a grommet and they are incredibly useful on a sailboat! Anything you need to connect or attach can be easily setup using a grommet. Once you have a few of them you will soon find uses for them and then need even more grommets for other uses you have found around the boat!

I use this very same technique to make the deadeyes that hold up our synthetic standing rigging. This grommet, made with a Möbius Brummell Splice is incredibly strong and will stand up to whatever challenges you can throw at it!

Marlin Spike Hitch

A Marlin Spike Hitch is a very useful tool that can be used to tie other knots better. It allows you to pull much harder on a small line and actually create incredible amounts of tension in a line with ease.

This video shows you step by step how to tie a Marlin Spike Hitch.

Bending More!

Our little touch with the pier caused more damage than we expected. When I talked to Monitor, they said that very rarely does the shaft inside get bent. To be on the safe side, I bought one of those two.

I set them side by side on a flat piece of wood, base to base, and you can see how they go different directions. This is because the flange at the bottom of the old one got bent about a millimeter! I tried to reuse the old one but it would bind and I notice the slight gap on one side of the flange.

They look identical at first glance, but when closely inspected, the damage becomes apparent.

That little bump with the pier turned out to be really expensive!

We pulled in stern to for the express reason of hiding the Monitor from the fairway traffic. I worried that someone might bump it while trying to dock so we pulled in Monitor first to keep it safe and protected.

Looking back, I wonder what would have been better? Risk a collision by keeping it in the fairway or placing it so close to a pier that with the simplest stretch of the lines, it would bump into a pier?

Damage to our Windvane

I awoke one morning to the worse thought. We had a rather dolly night in the marina and I was worried that our windvane might be contacting the pier behind the boat.

My fear was confirmed when I looked outside to find that the dock lines had stretched a few feet and the pendulum of the windvane was lightly but steadily contacting the pier.

This small touch made some big problems. The pendulum was being pushed by 18 tons and that force easily bent the pendulum. I overlaid the old and replacement pendulums so you can better see the damage. See how the bracket bent?

If I align the brackets, you can see how fiercely the strut is bent.

The discrepancy at the bottom is most alarming. This is thick stainless steel and it bent so much!

Thankfully, all the damage was contained to the pendulum and I was able to order replacement parts from Scanmar to get our Monitor Windvane back up and running!

Hidden Stairs

While eating at a quaint restaurant in the Douro Valley, where Port Wine is made, Maddie needed to use the restroom.

The waiter pointed at the corner and said “watch out for the stairs” but from where we were all sitting, we saw nothing!

Then, Maddie disappeared into the floor! At first, it looked like she was doing the stair trick behind the table, but then she really was gone!

It was a very cute thing to see as you don’t often encounter a hole in the floor with a spiral staircase coming out of it.