Hi, I've recently bought an older solo and have noticed the recent boats have a couple of strops holding the mainsheet pulleys to the boom, my pulleys are connected straight to the boom with a shackle, couple of questions 1st what is the advantage of the strops and 2nd can I make some out of deneema or do they have to be wire
Thanks in advance
Hi Daren,
The basic reason for the strops is to have reduce the amount of mainsheet you have in the boat. 6 to 8 inches of strop multiplied by 4:1 will save you a few feet of rope washing around the cockpit floor. Pretty marginal, but everyone seems to have it, so it must be fast ;-) Strops are easily made with dyneema. Just copy the lengths from another boat. Ideally, you'd want to use Brummel splicers to ensure nothing comes undone :-)
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
G