What would any of you recommend for a new mainsheet?

Trey Brown. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Salsa, been two years now on the H16, Rick's right, great stuff.

just don't forget the chips <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Salsa on the H-17
Bzzz on the H-16
Swiftcord on the Tiger
Marstron on the H-14

I like the Salsa best - after it's broken in a bit (too slippery when new)

Bzzz is a close 2nd.

Swiftcord is nice, but $$$ and it wears too fast.

Marstron is cheap, hard on the hands and wears out way too fast.

I can sell 8mm Maffioli Evolution Swiftcord at £3.50/m converting to $6.94 Thats a really competitve price here in the UK as it normally retails at around the £4.15 mark. How does that compare to your US prices?

Annapolis Performance Sailing
8 mm Swiftcord: $2.01 / ft = $6.50 / m

Cheaper if you get it from their sale bin.

Robline racing sheet.

Best stuff ever.

Switched to 5/16" Salsa on my H-17. Works great, after two regattas. West Marine, about $1.00 ft.

Caleb

Thanks for all the input so far.

I like the looks of several material mentioned and I'll need to handle them to decide.

What about diameter?

3/8" or 5/16"?
8mm or 9mm?

Hi all,

is there any rational reason, why a main sheet should contain dyneema?. On large boats with winches I understand it, but on a beach cat... Diameter would be around 8mm or more and you will not pull with more than 50kg on it, which is 1/30 of the breaking load of a simple polyester 8m sheet. Stretch would be about 8%*1/30 = nothing, you will sail it anyway from the hand and not cleated... So why dyneema <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />
I use simple plain 8m polyester, it doesn't kink, holds in the cleat and on the ratchet, but it doesn't look Gucci.

What about the spi sheet? Here I looked around for the lightest stuff for 8mm diameter and not water absorbing. I found 8mm life line (the yellow - red stuff), easy to splice, light and with 0.70€/m also cheap.

Is there any other property of dyneema (other than strngth and low stretch)?

Cheers,

Klaus

Light weight, low water absorbancy.

Polyester soaks up water like a sponge.

Bear in mind most mainsheets are 8:1 or even 10:1 so your 50 kilo's now equals 400-500kilo's.

On a two man boat where the crew has 2 hands to use (and legs), you may see more like 100x8 kilo's!

Ouch! West Marine? What about www.OnLineMarineStore.com right here on this site?

As for size, since Salsa is so easy on the hands I use 1/4" (6mm) on the Wave and F16.., really runs through the blocks easy. I would never go to 3/8" though,
Rick

Do you mean https://store.catsailor.com/ Rick?

6mm Salsa from Online Marine Store is $.97 per foot.

https://store.catsailor.com/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=550&idproduct=15783

From Big Box Marine it's $1.15

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/sto...;classNum=11452

This is just one small example of how your little guy can save you some dough on your sailing parts. I'm surprised more people haven't learned this yet.

Hi Dazz,

on a non-cascading system the sheet load is never higher than the input load. The 8x or 10x load is at the shackle of the blocks.

In terms of weight and adsorbed water, it is probably in the order of a few hundred gramms. On a spi sheet, this is an argument of course. However PP material is even lighter (at same diameter) than pure dyneema, doesn't take water as well, so for a spi sheet PP should be the material of choice?

Cheers,

Klaus

Ouch! West Marine?

Sorry Rick. I needed it right away, it was available and on sale in Seattle.

Caleb

My Bad.

Its a distrubuted load, there may be 400 kilo's of load on the rope, but its shared by 8 peices of rope.

The biggest selling point for me, as rick has pointed out is the texture.

can anyone bring up http://www.onlinemarinestore.com/ for me its a dead stick.

Hey Matt,

Can you elaborate on the differences that make one line better for one boat model than another?

Mike