Whippings?

[Dan_Lehman]

@squarerigger post:4

An interesting point that I would like to make here about whippings on laid lines - most, if not all, book references to whippings show that whippings are made against the lay of the line. I have never understood this until I came to see that those old salts took a whipping to be a merely shortened serving over the line and therefore followed the mantra of ‘turn and serve the other way’ without applying too much common sense.

Hmmm, I thought that Ashley’d recommended such direction for whipping,
but as it appears to be only as you report of other books --it is shown but
maybe not verbally specified!? (I’m also now surprised that whipping doesn’t
appear in [u]ABOK until p.546 !)

I have tried, and I now recommend after literally hundreds of trials and at least a dozen years of practical applications, whipping the ends of laid lines WITH the lay. This does two things:

It tightens the end of the line as the whipping is being applied, keeping the whipping secure
It produces a better working stitch in the wormed portion of the whipping

If anyone has any reasoned and practical advice to the contrary of this (I found that common whippings came undone rather readily when wrapping against the lay and I thought I was applying them too loosely) I would like to hear of your experiences.

If you notice my Extended Strangle + Sailor’s Whipping (finish) in
my 4th/bottom photo --the close-up of two whippings, in monofil & mason line–,
the buried overhand crossing of the ends lies in the groove between strands;
the right end of the strangle-knot part is 4 wraps from the right side. Those
4 wraps are of the sailor’s whipping finish, whose effective end lies in the
groove below & out of sight here. At the 5th wrap from the right is where
the strangle ends with one leg of the bight-end (here the bight-end was put
on the rope-end side, more difficult to work with, slightly, IMO) wrapping
away, against the lay, opposite the strangle’s wrapping with the lay.
Note that, however, in my usual orientation of setting the stoppered (for
tightening purchase) short whipping end towards the rope end, one wraps
around against the lay.

.:. In the end, either way, one hauls the strangle hard tight : I don’t see
that it will matter how this whipping’s put on --it will be very tight.

Btw, with mason line, I find that 4 overwraps is mininal to cover the double
overhand crossing that is buried, and 6 starts is about the limit before one
starts to seem too many; with monofilament, the crossing must be more
extended (stiffer), as 8 wraps seems about right (and is what is shown
on the blue CoEx rope --to which the sailor’s whipping finish adds another 4).

Lindsey’s rationale seems reasonable. I’m surprised at Ink’s test & finding
of a difference, given tightness of his setting. (That blue rope is likely
more independent, as the CoEx is stiff and holds its lay.)

@Inkanyezi post:15

I tried making a whipping with the lay now, and I am not convinced. As I never did it before, I had no idea what the outcome would be, but after hammering to even out tension, I noticed that a distortion that I hadn’t experienced before had occured. It seems as when the tension in the wrappings is released by the pounding, it contracts, and then the worming, or frapping, parts are not tightened, as when it’s done against the lay, but they take a shorter route over the wraps, thus with less frapping action. When the tension of the wraps distort the frapping in the whipping against the lay, it gets more tensioned. I think I will stick to what I am used to.

I have come to doubt the effect of frapping turns – they might bear
hard on the very edges of what they wrap, but otherwise they can
have little pressure on all internal wraps they “frap”. AND, further,
in the case of laid rope, if they are able to hold the whipping’s wraps
down into a groove of the lay, then that whipping must be WAY WAY
less tensioned than anything I would put on --there is no pulling down
the span from strand-top to next-strand-top of a tight whipping’s wraps.

With a lot of “play ropes”, I have lots of chances to explore different
whippings --in form & material (esp. with the flat strips of PP twine).

–dl*