Dye the lines...

[Kelly Hanson East]

Give em enough rope or those off-colours will Clash, surely....

[Inquisitor]

Yeah! I was going to clash something fierce. I wanted some UT Orange lines, but they were all of the kind that didn't take... they came out a crappy cream color.

[Inquisitor]

Turns out... the only thread on Dye the lines... was mine from the stone age.

I found dying the lines a great success. They never bled on me or the boat because I rinsed them thoroughly like the instructions said. The old blue main halyard faded in blotches, but then its because it was out in the elements even over the winter for some years probably in a coil so only the top got faded. The green spinnaker sheets, on the other hand, were always inside and are still so dark, it almost looks black.

I don't wish to force anyone to learn the names... hull, I have to look names up half the time. I have no friends or acquaintances that sail... Bass Fishing Country. "Why do you have such a large flag pole on your boat?" It's a whole lot easier to just say pull the blue one. Even for me, when I single hand, and get the all the white sheets in the cockpit it gets kind of frantic getting the right white one. And lake sailing tacking is every five to ten minutes. And now that I have a sock, I'm hoping to get to the point I can single-hand with the spinnaker... and have five sheets in the cockpit. We'll see.

This time around I got a whole roll 600' for a good price, but white. I found a dye that worked very well with the polyester lines. More lines, more dying.


Old main halyard dyed back in 2008.

• I left the main-sheet and boom-vang white (not shown).
• Here (bottom row)
  • Spinnaker halyard new line blue
  • Main halyard old line re-blued
  • Genoa sheet, old line, red (really somewhere between pink and mauve)
  • Spinnaker sheet still original too-dark green.
• Top row - Dagger board line. This is an experiment to see if I can avoid taking out my daggerboard again. I dyed it two colors. Where the line goes from the block at the daggerboard trunk to the first starboard block will show green if the board is fully up. Otherwise it will show red.

[OverEasy]

Nice!

Mind if we copy your Green/Red line trick?

[Inquisitor]

Nice!

Mind if we copy your Green/Red line trick?

I'm flattered, that finally, someone might want to use one of my ideas.
I don't know how many times I hit the trailer with the old daggerboard OR how many times I tugged on that line to see if the D/B is all the way up. With the new D/B coming on-line, I want some insurance. "Give me a sign!"

The one trick... remember tie-dyed shirts? Bend the line and just barely dip in melted wax. It keeps the dye from bleeding up the line. Close Pin to top of pot to keep the line at the dye level.

Also... the regular RIT dye doesn't do anything to Polyester line. Got to get this Rit "Dye More". I followed the directions to the letter otherwise.

[Russ]

Great idea and thanks for posting results and the two-colored dagger line is brilliant.

Also the "Dye More" tip is great.

[Inquisitor]

Great idea and thanks for posting results and the two-colored dagger line is brilliant.

Also the "Dye More" tip is great.

Oh! A couple more things. I did use it at the higher dosage... 2 oz of dye to 1 gallon of water. I did it for the full 60 minutes at 200+ F. It looks far darker at the end of the 60 minutes. Much still rinses out.

[OverEasy]

(Sorta like my bank account.....A lot goes in...Follow the advice....watched carefully..but most of it still rinses out in the end... )

The end results are what matters here.
Thanks for the heads up!

[Inquisitor]

Just to follow up about the bi-colored lines. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27969&p=349681#p349681

[OverEasy]