[C320-list] Jack Lines - buy, make, attach

[Matt Neumann]

My two Cents,

I have raced a fair amount offshore in northern California and unfortunately have seen/heard of stories of people falling off the boat and getting dragged under the boat and dyeing  with a offshore PFD on while teather to the boat. What happens is when you fall off the boat, and the webbing is attached to the cleat, your teather rides along the webbing and stops at the cleat. The teather will pull you face forward in the water!! The force of the water going by will drag you under the boat even with a PFD on. You will want webbing not rope, as most have stated earlier, so you will not slip on it. You want to tie off the webbing as close inboard as possible and a far forward as you can, while still being able to reach the webbing with your teather from the cockpit. So, if you fall overboard you will be next to the boat and behind or under it., you may not even end up in the water. Use a separate webb line for the cockpit that you can connect your teather to while you exit the cabin t
o the cockpit. If you go forward, switch your teather from the cockpit webbing to the deck webbing. West Marine sells teathers with two "clips" for this purpose. Lastly, rig the webbing each time you go out, don't leave it on deck for the summer. Before installing it for the trip, get the entire webbing wet, and then make it as tight as possible. The webbing stretches alot once it gets wet. The correct way to attach the webbing is to install hard points on the deck/cabin-top, don't attach it to something that was not designed to save your life. 

Matt 
#669