Coastal Survival !

Rupestris said:
Great stuff pitdog. Thanks for the pics.



Could also be a cradle or bunk for a dingy/tender like a Zodiac inflatable. The shape looks more like the hull of a small boat than a barrel or tank. The felt strips would make it easier to slide a boat off without tearing up the hull.

If they were for a boat, they probably weren't cheap.
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That's a fair assessment. I live roughly a LONG FARKING WAY from the ocean, so we don't see too many cradles for boats. Looking at the cradle, it does have the shape of a boat hull. Good eye.
 
Rupestris said:
Great stuff pitdog. Thanks for the pics.



Could also be a cradle or bunk for a dingy/tender like a Zodiac inflatable. The shape looks more like the hull of a small boat than a barrel or tank. The felt strips would make it easier to slide a boat off without tearing up the hull.

If they were for a boat, they probably weren't cheap.
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My guess is that the assembly was on a dock or launching platform rather than a boat, and got knocked off in a storm. I agree it was for a small boat of some sort. Those castings were not cheap, that's fer sure!
 
Wow, lots of stuff to be found there! Looks like ti would have made a good place to be "survving".

I am very curious as to why your knife wouldn't cut through that rope. Did it seem to have any wire in it or anything of the sort?
 
i love the pics pit, i havent been to the island in a while so its a nice reminder.

sad thing is that wherever you go you find garbage. the one thing that i hate is people who pick up there dog poop in a bag, tie it off and then toss the bag on the trail. that just pisses me off to the max. would be better to leave it out of the bag so it biodigrades.

did you end up bringing that piece of steel home? would be interesting if you actually did forge something out of it!

JC
 
If I lived near the beach I would be out there collecting stuff every week. We never get anything but cans and bottles washing up at the lake.
 
The rope could have been lead core. The trawlers and draggers sometines use this rope for rigging and making the nets sink. Just a thought.

Living on a island myself it is one of my favorite pastimes in the winter. I take my to little ones for beach walks to see what we can scrounge up. Nice pictures.
 
Hey good call on the lead core...pit if it was heavy go back with an axe and get it!

Good lead isn't always easy to come by!

Although I have to admit I have never seen lead core rope that looked quite like that...but that doesn't mean it isn't out there.
 
If it doesn't feel substantially heavier than normal line, it could be made of the spectra material I mentioned above. In fact, if you couldn't cut through the outer layer, spectra composition may be a more likely reason than a lead core. Either way, it would undoubtedly have cost a lot when new.

DancesWithKnives
 
The company I used to work for made hydraulic hose, and when we had aramid (kevlar-type) fiber that wasn't up to par for the hose, we would make rope for stringing up the lines.

You could cut a small 3/8" line with a knife, but nothing much bigger, and your knife would be as sharp as a bike seat when you were done. We usually nibbled it away with a side cutter.

I guess my point is the inside braid could have been a Kevlar-type fiber.
 
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chewbacca said:
The company I used to work for made hydraulic hose, and when we had aramid (kevlar-type) fiber that wasn't up to par for the hose, we would make rope for stringing up the lines.

You could cut a small 3/8" line with a knife, but nothing much bigger, and your knife would be as sharp as a bike seat when you were done. We usually nibbled it away with a side cutter.

I guess my point is the inside braid could have been a Kevlar-type fiber.
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My knife only cut in about 1/8" but it did this easily and then stopped. As so many people have commented on it I will definitely go back with a couple of different blades and try again !!!;):thumbup:
 
Cool, man, if you can't cut off a chunk see if you can hack of the sheathing and get some pics of the inside!

I don't know why this has us all so fascinated but it's a cool little mystery.
 
misanthropist said:
I don't know why this has us all so fascinated but it's a cool little mystery.
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Perhaps because all of our knives can whittle hair but he couldn't get through the rope with one of the knives? Oh, I don't know, it sounds good though.
 
That additional bit of information makes me think there must be some sort of core comprised of tougher material. If it was spectra rope all the way through, the ability to cut the outer 1/8" should have allowed the knife to continue.

DancesWithKnives
 
http://www.machovec.com/rope/spectra_double_braid.htm

Check this out. The Double Braid rope has a polyester sheath/cover over a spectra core. Something like this might explain why the knife cut the outer 1/8" but not the core.

By the way, I think the 183,000 lb rating on the 2" diameter rope ought to handle pretty much anything I could come up with!

DancesWithKnives
 
Nice pictures, Pitdog!

I'm guessing a knife could be fabricated from many of the shells or rocks around. Did you try that? Lots of rope to test on.
 
Could be kevlar core, too.

I grew up partly around the pacific coast and have lived on *some* sort of coast for most of my life. One of the problems I have with Davis is that it's too far away without being far enough away. I'd prefer to be either within 25 miles or more than 160 miles in (I have reasons, yes)

As a kid I used to harvest various sea vegetables and fish, and some shellfish. And I've beachcombed all sorts of stuff I think coastal survival would be great fun. I should find myself a copy of that book, too.
 
That's true, if the rope was lost some time ago. From what I read, spectra is being used more in current production heavy-duty marine rope. But that could be older kevlar core stuff.

DancesWithKnives
 
I was born in Vancouver and lived my whole life in the lower Mainland except a year up a Zeballos (Vancouver Island)
In the late 1960's and eatly 70's I can remember going out and collecting buckets full of welks and clams. My dad and uncles would get huge amounts of crab and the whole extended family whould have a pig out.
My old grandmother that moved to Vancouver in 1910 used to always say "she couldn't understand how anyone could go hungry on the coast"
With all the pollution out there I can see how now. Alot of the places we used to crab are now out of bounds. Not to mention clamming areas.
I wish my kids could have grown up seeing what it used to be instead of what it is.
I haven't been been to Campbell River since the early 1990's when my cousin died (I used to spend part of the summer at my aunts). I wonder how the beaches are now compared to what I remember as a kid
 
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