9.3 Splicing steel wire to double braided rope

How to make a steel wire lead to a double braid polyester rope for a halyard?

Read our blog for more information about Wire-to-Rope halyards

[geoffallen]

I've just completed this splice. I took my time, it took me an hour stopping and playing the video for each section. I didn't want to spend £25 on rigging tape my local sail maker advised using packing tape which I did.
My advice is take your time, wear a glove on the hand holding the wire when you're pushing the fid through, pull each individual strand as it comes through the wire before you pull the fid out that way there are no loose strands. Great video, no stupid music or hours of explaining what was going to happen before during and after. Nice easy to follow brilliant thanks saved me £50 getting someone else to do it and I learnt something.

[Megaptera]

Good post - thank you. Happy days (and nights) doing these in the days of the IOR maxi race boats 30 years ago, using 11mm wire and 19mm polyester tails. This was in the days before Spectra and modern rope. So everything was wire with a rope tail - all the halyards, heavy number 1 jibsheets, number 3 jibsheets (7m more wire so you still got 6 wraps of wire on the winch drum), mainsheet, runner whips, aft guys, everything. A set of wire jibsheets and aft guys would last a couple of days of hard round-the-buoys racing and then had to be replaced, so we spent evenings in the shipping container with beers and music doing this sort of splicing, normally using the original rope tails spliced into a new piece of wire. End-for-end the tail if you can so you get fresh polyester.

Some suggestions:
A. Rubbing a block of beeswax on the rope strands is a good aid to amalgamate and lubricate the strands and keep them together as you push them through the wire in the Swedish fid, especially for used rope.
B. Tie a big slip knot in the tail about 3m from the splice so the core and cover don't slide against each other further down. Put the knot in a sturdy bench vise to help you with the cover milking.
C. As an aid to milking the cover back over the core splice, a 2m length of shock-cord wrapped round the cover with a rolling hitch works great as a pulling tool.
D. It's important to get the core tension and cover tension equal.
E. It really helps to taper the tucks - three full tucks, then cut out 1/3 of the polyester strands, two 2/3 tucks, then cut out another third, and a final two tucks with just 1/3 of the polyester.
F. Most of the load is taken by the bury between wire and polyester, which used to be 1.5m or more. The splice is primarily to establish the join.
G. Last, we found the spliced rope ran better through blocks if you spliced the cover strands "with the lay" rather than against it. So the cover tucks went the opposite direction to the core tucks, effectively spiraling round their two wire strands, getting thinner as you taper. This made for a much smoother splice. Again abundant beeswax is your friend.
F. Finally, after the final bit of tape comes off the cover, a very tight sailmaker's whipping right where you start to unlay the cover strands was useful to keep everything tight.

I must have done hundreds of these.

[DeeJay]

I learned this splice from Marsh Pardey brother of Larry pardey 25 years ago and I put five halyard's on my boat when I launched it in 1993 with the wire to rope splice for all halyards. They have served me very well for all these years but I'm going to replace them this year (2021) just because I think I should not because of chafe. I will never go to all synthetic line because wire does not chafe. Thanks for the video it reinforced my memory of this splice however at the end unlike you I tapered the last few tucks by cutting off a few the strands of the outer cover and tucking them and repeating to 1 strand
Try getting 28 years of service out of a synthetic halyard!

[johnlcallaway]

I had no idea this type of splicing was possible. Thank you very much for sharing.

[collarandhames]

This is so helpful. I am so thankful you took the time to show me something that I can do and have been staring at for months. Thanks again!

[MrGiulianoferrari]

fantastic ! My Saliboat Microtoner 19 uses this kind of splicing, This video helped me out ! Thank you !

[Jmmondeau]

Thanks for the video, although I had no audio. I don’t know why but the video says it all.

[JohannesNeumeier]

Great video, thank you! Our sailboats' halyards have this kind of wire to rope splices. The problem with replacing those with all Dyneema ropes has been that all the mast fittings take at most the 8mm wire size, but the winch end needs 10-12mm rope for the self-tailer. I wonder if there's a way around this to avoid the wire, otherwise I'll be following this tutorial ;)

[bennyvrads]

I love that video. Van I splice a single braided to a wire the same way (and expect it to be strong)?

[JW-pppo]

Great Video. Not sure if comments are still reviewed but I was wondering if you could do the second and third pass a little slower on the core. I can get the first inserts, however, I seem to be missing a step when it comes to starting the second and third pass. In the video, the hands and focus seem to get in the way. Every time I start the second pass the line starts to cross over each other and clump up. The whole video in regular time with more all-around shots of the braid would be great. Guess the easier alternative would be to just buy the pre-maid and understand the cost is paying for the experience and expertise the company already has. Oh well, practice makes perfect! Will keep trying! Great all around video though.

[NA-xmwj]

Does this have to be done with double braid. I have single braid I’d like to do this with. I was thinking just splice it in 6 times instead of just three

[saileyboy]

Looks like I will also be making my halyards too. I notice you don't twist the 3 free strands before inserting into the wire. Any advantage to twisting them tight? Also no whipping needed.

[joelfine]

I know this is an older video but do you know where I can get the fid you used to insert into the wire? I am having a hard time finding one.

[NA-xmwj]

Can this be done with single braid dyneema

[gaborzs]

Does it work with softer (7x7) wire too?