On Mar 10, 4:24*am, Dave wrote:
On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 14:01:55 -0700 (PDT), terry
said:

steel wire is fastened by a now dodgy looking (probably rotting) rope
tie.

Wondering what is the reason for these:
Possible alternatives?
a) Easy to cut and release with a knife in an emergency?
b) To avoid having a metal 'loop' around the boat that 'might' affect
radio direction finding, if used, on the now old fashioned lower
frequencies, such as coastal beacons in the 'Long Wave' band or
broadcasting stations in the 'Medium Wave' or 'Broadcast; band.

Obvously of no concern for GPS!

Could one use a metal turnbuckle and/or quick to disconnect pelican
hook instead?

The CS 27 lifelines were attached in somewhat similar fashion, though at the
bow pulpit rather than the pushpit. Fortunately, the original rigger for the
CS boats is still around, and participates regularly in the mailing list. He
tells me that the original thinking had several bases. Primarily, it was
concern about interference with RDF units. The ability to cut in an
emergency was also a factor. No reason you can't replace now with metal
turnbuckles or pelican hooks.

P.S. I just got replacements for my lifelines and elected to leave the old
type terminals and fasten with line as on the original. Primary reason?
Didn't want to do such precise measurements and run the chance of getting
the lengths wrong. This way, I just took the old ones up to Defender and
asked them to make me lines just like those I brought them. The old setup is
pretty forgiving in that regard. Of course my problem was a bit different
from yours in that I do have gates with pelican hooks by the cockpit.

Thank you to all who have commented/replied. As far as can tell don't
need new lines, boat has been stored for quite a few years. And I
think adjustments will be OK, terry