Rope issues

The other day we had a bit of a muckup out on the water. Too many people etc, bad current etc but i managed to drive over a new coated spectra line cutting it in half. Ive ordered another however wouldnt mind keeping this as a spare. From back in my old waterskiing days i remember being able to resplice them. I've had a look at a few sites but i cant see to find anything specific to spectra lines?

tie the two ends together. Search aroudn for the type of knot you'll need to tie.

Trash it!! Ropes can be bought cheap. Not worth it IMO.

Aaron, they're handy! I had an amateur driving my boat and ran over one of my fave straightline ropes. We couldn't unwind it from the driveshaft so we had to cut it. I now use them for dock lines and for a while I used a sliver of it for a surf rope. Now I have a real one but they're not bad to keep around.

I repaired a rope like that 3 seasons ago. I didn't tie the two ends together. Instead, I turned each end into a loop, like any other take off section.

I used a wood pencil to open up the core of the lines, I forget, about 16 inches from the cut end, and thread the cut end into the core behind the pencil until I had about 6 to 8 inches of the cut end inserted in the core. Then I tied a knot at the base of the loop.

That knot I kind of lucked into by trial and error. I studied the factory knots and tried to imitate them. But it took several tries. To keep the inserted end from pulling out while experimenting with that knot, I took a safety pin and pinned things still.

Works fine.

I grew up around boats, and splicing lines was one of the basic tasks to learn as a kid. A "Fid" is the tool that we used. We spliced ski, dock, and anchor lines all the time.
Not sure about spectra's small diameter, but every boater should have one nonetheless.

Here's an example of one available, but the more basic ones I've used work just fine...

http://www.fid-o.com/the_fid-o_splicing_tool.htm

(Message edited by rio_sanger on January 20, 2010)

Chris is right on! The other viable soluation is to tie a loop to each section using a bowline knot and linking the loops together like Johnathan said.

Splicing is definitely a handy skill, although I honestly wonder how you could do it on a coated line. Mine came from the factory with knots on the ends.