Advice on replacing grab loops

General slalom chatter...rant about the bad, rave about the good
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James Hastings
Posts: 80
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:43 pm

Advice on replacing grab loops

Post by James Hastings » Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:47 pm

Hi all,

The grab loops in both the bow and the stern of my boat have worn through (not a good idea to thread boat straps through them while travelling), but I'm stumped trying to work out how to replace them, especially the one in the stern.

Any advice on how to do this would be gratefully received.

Cheers,
James

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Advice on replacing grab loops

Post by JimW » Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:04 pm

Yes, making it watertight is only the latter half the problem, tying the knots on the inside at the end of a skinny boat is a real challenge!

The easiest way is to wait until your seams are knackered and take the deck off. Easiest being a comparative thing of course, re-fitting the deck is not a beginner repair...

The alternative which requires less seam taping, but you still need to be able to do the awkward bits in the ends, is to either cut a hatch in the deck (works on bigger boats like WWR, but the ends of slalom boats are quite narrow), or cut across the deck from seam to seam, and around the seam at the end and lift the end of the deck off. Make a neat straight cut across and around the seams. You can glue or screw a few strips to the underside of the deck to support the piece when you tape it back on, and then later tape over the whole lot (or remove them if screwed) on the inside (using a brush on a stick, which is how you will do the internal seams). You will leave a ridge of tape across the deck unless you build it up a lot with gel/flow coat, but you can make it neat if you are careful. I have re-repaired a WWR that had a stern hatch cut to do an internal bottom repair (I ended up taking the whole deck off, it needed a lot of patches in both ends), and I did a repair for a friend last year where I cut the end of the deck off and then re-attached it after, on that one I did manage to build up with clear flowcoat so although you can see the tape, you can't feel a ridge, but I was re-gelling the entire hull on that one.

JFNG
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2021 4:26 pm

Re: Advice on replacing grab loops

Post by JFNG » Wed Apr 07, 2021 10:19 pm

The easy way is to just drill a slightly bigger hole, tie the knot, force it through and then fill said hole with carbon / putty / filler. I have done it this way for years ;)

James Hastings
Posts: 80
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:43 pm

Re: Advice on replacing grab loops

Post by James Hastings » Thu Apr 08, 2021 10:10 am

Thanks for the advice chaps. I think I'll try JFNG's method first as it's a lot less drastic than yours Jim!

Cheers,
James

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Advice on replacing grab loops

Post by JimW » Thu Apr 08, 2021 8:37 pm

James Hastings wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 10:10 am
Thanks for the advice chaps. I think I'll try JFNG's method first as it's a lot less drastic than yours Jim!

Cheers,
James
It should be sufficient, I mean we never actually hang onto them on slalom boats, and now you know not to tie the boat down by them on the car...

I have tried various methods for tying the ends down without fraying the grab loops. The most reliable is to use my boat bag and tie through it's grab loops :D BUT the way I do it is to wrap a strop around the end of the boat, through the grab loop (on the bag, or the one of the boat if I have to) so it can't slide off the end, and then tie the end ropes to the strop so the rope and strop do the flogging not the grab loop. In fact, there are rope strops permanently tied round the ends of my boat bag and I just slide the ends of the boat into them (its a bit fiddly). The idea is that I am pulling down on the boat, not the grab loop, it is just stopping the strop slipping. You could easily make up some webbing strops from old cam straps. I have sometimes used straps and then led the excess to the middle of the boat and tied the ends together to stop them slipping.

For WWR boats I used to wrap my end ropes over the boat just passing through the grab loops for position, but the extra length of the boat means they angle back towards the bumper, with a slalom boat the front one is always forwards to the bumper. I now use a carabiner to the grab loop most of the time, which doesn't fray them. I might use a carabiner on my slalom boats sometimes - it's been so long, I think I've forgotten how I tie boats on now!

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