Day Sailor Life Lines

[Essington]

I've replaced the standing rigging, and sails on my Spirit 6.5 this year, and now I've turned my attention to the life lines. They are the plastic coated wire kind, but the plastic is cracking off.

The existing lines have a turnbuckle up front, and a gate hook at the back, with no intervening hardware. There are two stanchions between the bow and stern, but the back stanchion doesn't have any kind of bracing for a gate hinge.

I would like to replace these with HM lines of some sort, but I've got a couple of questions.

Is it reasonable to just splice a loop on the front end (ring hitch to the bow) and ring hitch to a gate hook on the back? Will the gate hook take up enough slack over the life of the lines (if I perform the splices correctly) or should I add an adjuster or turnbuckle up front as well?

I don't suppose there is any reason to bother with the extra gate hardware since my stanchions aren't braced to support the forward lifelines while the gate is open anyway?

I was looking at Amsteel, and Endura 12 as my options, and noticed that the Endura was less expensive by about 25% (based upon the prices in my marine catalog), but then while searching on the internet I found that Samson makes Amsteel Blue (the color matches the trim on my boat), and that is stronger yet. It also seems to be a very popular replacement for winch cables on 4 wheel drive vehicles. Now, based upon the prices in the marine catalog, I was expecting something on the order of $2/ft for 1/4" or $2.75/ft for 5/16", but the off-road stores are selling pre-made winch cables of Amsteel Blue for half of the per foot prices found in the marine catalog!

What's the deal? Where is the best place to buy rope? How about the Johnson Fittings? At the prices listed for the Amsteel Blue winch cables, Is it reasonable to just buy one of those and cut off the winchy bits, then cut my lengths as needed from there?

Any thoughts or suggestions would certainly be welcome

-jason