This article recently published in the Chesapeake Paddlers newsletter discusses the use of open hooks often found on bow and stern tiedowns for canoes and kayaks.
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I put the hooks in a vise and closed them down to where you can just get the rope through the slot… certainly not perfect, but highly unlikely it will slide out.
I saw this title and immediately thought of triple hook fish hooks stuck in dock lines. Sometimes I find a hat at the dock. Usually the bad way…
But reading the article I see it is about “S” hooks in hoist lines. Those S hooks are too long and increased our head bumping problem. So I replaced them with a shorter spring safety shackle. Holds the boat higher and doesn’t slide off.
Oh gosh, I got rid of those immediately and replaced them with good climbing carabiners.
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I use rope or sailing cord, and I tie on with a bowline at one end and a trucker’s hitch at the other so I can snug it down.
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good article, thank you.
in related horrors, seeing bungee cords used to tie anything down… not only open hooks, but spring-loaded to launch and flail around upon any failure of cord or hook.
Bungees are like velcro - use only for unimportant things where failure is an option…
Amen to that! One of the sailors in our sailing club has a very damaged eye from a bungee cord snapping – the plastic hooks on those things are terrible. Bungees should never be used at any serious tension.
Bungee cords are little more than a bundle of rubber bands inside of a woven nylon sheath. Over time the rubber bands break on at a time, completely unseen, until the remaining ones fail, often totally unexpectedly. I would never use a bungee to hold anything critical. Even with deck bungees, if used for something like a GPS, it’s tethered as well as bungeed.