Erik, Thanks for your message. There are good reasons for decklines and towlines being entirely separate. One is that towlines for use at sea may need to be 15m or so long: rather longer than a line from stern to cockpit, even doubled. On long tows, being able to swap the line from one boat to another makes it easy to swap towers, set up double tows, and so on. Another is that the boat may need to be grabbed while its towline is deployed: a trailing line isn't much help in that situation. A third good reason is that long (and springy) lines don't give a secure grip, hence the 75cm spacing between fixing points. As you're aware, the reason for 6mm being the minimum is that anything thinner can be uncomfortable, even hazardous to cold, wet hands. (I know of a case where hands were cut on 4mm line.) Thicker line, say 10mm, is much more comfortable and safer. There's nothing cosmetic about Australian deckline and towline systems: practicality, borne out of experience, is the guiding principle. Cheers, Peter pcarter_at_acslink.net.au allegedly <www.acslink.net.au/~pcarter> temporarily <users.senet.com.au/~pcarter> 34deg 55' 24.1" S 138deg 32' 9.8" E (GDA-94) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu May 18 2000 - 14:20:52 PDT
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