368: First Time Repairing Our Catamaran Bridle – Can We Pull It Off?

We've procrastinated long enough, it's time to fix the bridle. But before we begin, let's first talk about the purpose of the bridle and why it's so important. The bridle is two lines that connects the anchor chain to both hulls, spreading the load evenly between them. Its main purpose is to reduce strain on the anchor roller and chain, center the pull of the boat to keep it facing into the wind or current, and absorb shock loads with nylon lines that stretch slightly. This setup also keeps the chain from rubbing against one hull and provides a quieter, more stable ride at anchor. It's a yucky day, we're on the boat and we've got some strands from the three strand that are broken. So we're gonna have to re-splice this and then re-splice the eye because this is gonna, one of these is gonna get a lot shorter. Let's get going. Why does this happen? Well, in really weird currents, the chain instead of being underneath this bridle, ends up coming across the bridle here and it just saws. And as it saws, it goes through the layers of one of the three strands. Chainsaw massacre. First thing we need to do is cut this part of the bridle. We're doing a little bit of electrical tape to keep the rest of the rope from unraveling. Okay, good. Now we've taped up the ends of each of these strands so that it's easier to put them through when we weave. And now we need to hope that we counted correctly because one of these lines, this line we're hoping is the one that goes all the way through and around the symbol. If it's not, this is gonna be a lot more of a pain in the neck. But what we need to do now is unwind the strand that we cut from here all the way up to this point and then we're going to splice the new one. We're going to splice this into here instead. So that's the process. All right, we're just slowly pulling this weave through. There's the next one. Wow, once you get it started. Ladies and gentlemen. If this pulls all the way through, then we've got it. We've got it right. All right, well that's good news. Just want to get that one area. We have just burned the tips of the splice that goes this way and now you can see the difference in the size. This one has the splice that's out. We're gonna have to splice the new one in, which we have here. But you can see the size difference once it gets spliced. So we're doing really well. We're color coding each of the ends of the three strands that are gonna get woven so we have order. So we gotta install the blade. This is gonna be our first time to use the hot knife, which will really help us. We're going to put chafe guard on our bridle. The chafe guard that was on there has come off. It got just completely destroyed in the water after a year and a half. So this is our hot knife that we're gonna put to use for the first time. Should we use two layers of the chafe guard? It would stop it, you know what I'm saying? Let's see if it fits. Okay. So when you start to splice you want to find the natural middle strand and in this case it looks like the blue one is the natural middle. And we're ready to go ahead and put that through all the way up to here. But before we do that we are cutting the chafe guard, this webbing. And this webbing is going to go over all of this. This used to be covered with a black webbing but the black webbing came off just over time. You can see some of the black webbing still here and we're going to be able to cover the ends of one of those. We might be able to do the second one but we're gonna have to slice the webbing because we can't put it over the thimble. So we'll deal with that in a few minutes. Wow this is our first time using a hot knife. Wow that's cool. We have a very sophisticated tool right here to separate the ends here. Yeah we sealed the webbing. We'll have to learn how not to do this in the future. And wow look at that. Oh no we got to get the other end. Oh man. Now you're not gonna be able to get it off. We're gonna have a chafe guard on the broom. Well it's not a bad idea right? All right let's try it on this side. There we go. Okay the first part is the hardest or the first strands go. I think we've gotten it right. So now we're gonna keep weaving. The process is gonna continue. Wish us luck. We need it. The next is to the left of it. Okay so hang on hang on. Okay first one's in. Yeah. Now left. This is gonna help. So left goes over the loop. Left goes over the loop and under that one. Yeah. So that was green and then red. Okay so green and red and now this one. So it needs to go under. Is it that way or the other way? Well let's look at it once we get it done. Yes. Yes. Okay so I think we got it. I think that's it. All right let's pull everything. Thank goodness for diagrams. All right I think we're making progress finally. There's supposed to be five. But that if it's the slippery synthetic stuff you need to do more. First splice is done. Oh you mean there's another one? Yeah. Is it gonna be as hard? Yeah. The next one's gonna be this hard? Yeah. It's gonna be harder. Are you serious? Yeah. Our first splicing project together and we did it. And now we just got to cut off these little ends and we're gonna use the heat knife to do that. Nice. Good. We have finished the splicing of the bridle up here and now because we spliced it, lost a bit of distance on about the length of this splice is what we lost. And these have to be equal length. So we're gonna have to take this thimble off, undo this splice, move the rope down. Might be a problem. We're gonna try and then re-splice to make it the same size as this. Let's see how we do. So we need to pull these out and that's a start. Once you get it started it really does come out pretty easily. It's a whole lot easier than putting it in that's for sure. We need to get this back together again. Okay. So keep twisting it. And we'll just uh... This is gonna be a real problem. We can put it down and there you go. Good job. So the rope was really deformed and a lot of times if you just give it some pressure on the floor rolling it. Smooth it over in other words. Yeah. Sometimes you can work out the issues. Sometimes not. But I'm really hoping we can because we really need to use this part of the rope. I need you to do it for your strength. We have measured out the length of the splice that we need here on the thimble and now we're just going to put black tape at the ends. Right there? Yep. And then we're gonna hot knife those off and then that's the part that's going to get weaved into itself. Time to splice. We've color-coded our ends so it's got to go in that one. All right. Hold on. I got it. Oh this is where we need the tool. I know yeah. Okay can you grab it? Yeah I got this. Where's the thimble? I just want to make sure it fits. Okay we got the first splice in and now we're going to set the thimble. So go ahead and put the thimble in. It really needs to be tighter. Well it's going to be tighter when you pull. Okay. So we've got it and actually. And then this is good. This is good. We finally finished the splicing on this one. I think we may have made a mistake somewhere but I think it's close enough. This is not life threatening so that's okay. Just got to hot knife these and we're good. The hot knife did its job. Done with the splice. We're gonna call it a day for this part of the project. It's been, I don't know, three or four hours that we've been working on this and we're hungry and tired so got to get cleaned up. The place is a complete mess so definitely need to do a little work on that. Yesterday we finished all the splicing on our bridle but I don't really want to work on this because this is where there's the weakness. When the bridle gets pulled apart there's a lot of stress on this area and this is where we start getting lines shredding and then that weakens the performance of the bridle. So I'm gonna try and bind this so that that area is protected a little bit and I'll be able to watch what happens over time. I'm not sure I have strong enough twine for this but I am gonna try. It's just this wax twine. It's probably not thick enough and it's probably too waxy but I'm gonna give it a shot because that's all we've got and then when we get a shipment from the states we'll need to get a little bit stronger material than this but for now that's what I'm going to try and do so we can get this back on. So to get this sleeve on this part of the thimble we have to cut this in half and hopefully brown will be able to just run the tool down and we can separate it and open it. A little sorry. You've done great. Okay that's one good job on that technique. I have been sewing all day long literally for the last four and a half five hours and I'm really happy with the results at this point. All of the chafe cards have been sewn on and the point that is concerning to us about where the wear occurs which is right here that has been sewn so that should take a while to break through that chafe card and also the twine the whipping twine so I'm really really excited to see how long these last but it's done and they are ready to go back on the front of the boat. Definitely thrilled it's over but really proud of us for taking this on because we probably won't get another bridle until November December somewhere in there so making this fit for us temporarily is huge. Anyway let me know what you think if those of you who are boaters think that this is really gonna hold or if it's not. The holding that black tape was there because it was just what held the chafe card on for me. We finally have a calm day to install the it's just thinking we didn't we don't have the that would have been actually pretty funny if we had gotten all the way up there and didn't have the bridle so we've got a very calm day which is really nice for us to be able to install the bridle so that is what we're doing we think we've got all the tools that we need to get this done let's hope we do otherwise we'll be crawling back up on the boat. The gondola waits. Okay all right lovey where's the first wow we've had a perfect day today super low wind day really nice brown made quick work of getting that first half of the bridle connected to the bow now we're working on some of the bolts that really take a beating up here you can see this one has even lost some metal on they just get so much salt water on them this is crazy the galvanic and literally if you don't wash everything with fresh water as soon as you return to shore or finish a passage you end up with corrosion it's just the way it is and we just don't like using that much water even to clean the boat maybe that's the problem so we have pulled this tight because we want to make sure a we didn't have any knots and b it was straight we think we've got it right but it's not yeah i just need to pull it through and so you're okay there we didn't screw it up look at all the stuff we've done you remember when we were at the uh marina i couldn't do any of this remember when we needed the help of those two really nice guys that fixed our davit we were too afraid or didn't know how to put the two shackles on or the you know to shackle the new bridle onto the we were we were uh traumatized we were traumatized and very needy that was a rough couple weeks of course how rough is not like other people's rough all's well that ends well all right we're back that means officially the bridle project is over until until we get a new bridle anyway good job hi everybody out there in blown away land we are so glad that you could be with us today on this beautiful day that we don't ever want to end and we are so thankful that you're watching hopefully you've learned something or been entertained or both and what we love is if you please hit that subscribe button that would be just love for us then brown would stop asking you to do it so if you all subscribe we never have to say it again hit that like button share and we want to hear from you okay thanks for watching guys