Rope in the Marine Environment

Abstract

Rope has always been an important item in the marine environment. The transition from one type of construction to another, notoriously slow: for example, rope of both wire and fibre supplied to the S.S. ‘Great Britain’, launched in 1843 was of a similar type and quality to that which would be equally familiar to our mariners a century later.

Many having experience in this latter period might recognize some similarity with the rope in use today but there have been substantial changes, and these changes have occurred not specifically because of any major breakthrough in rope design and production, although there have been very substantial advances in these sectors but because the detail of today's and tomorrow's applications have themselves changed.

The paper examines a number of the major applications involving rope in the marine environment, and shows how rope characteristics must be recognised and wedded to the duty parameters if optimum performance is to be achieved.