Step salsa down in size.

[allene]

I am a bit late on this and may have mentioned this on SA on a similar thread. But if there is a smaller diameter Salsa then use that and bury the Amsteel the entire length of the Salsa to build the diameter back to what you want. This is what I do with my halyard although I am using Tenex instead of Salsa. Tenex of course is polyester but I don't need it for the strength. I am splicing 3/8 Tenex to 3/16 Amsteel. I have several season on it. It was discussed on this forum back when I was first replacing my wire halyard with the Amsteel. I did not replace the sheaves so needed to keep the Amsteel small. I can now report that this has worked fine although I do remove some of the Amsteel each season to get a clean section going over the sheave.

[Brion Toss]

Hi,
We sometimes do a similar thing with running backstays. Most of the length is HM -- covered or uncovered -- and is inserted several feet into a single-braid Dacron tail. We lead this tail through a single deck block, and thence to a cockpit winch, and the bury is far enough that the HM is wrapped around the winch at least 3 times by the time the load comes on. The rest of the tail is empty making things lighter, cheaper, and easier to handle when the runner is slacked on the lee side.
Recent tests have shown that we don't need to worry about having the HM on the winch for security,but with the HM compressed inside things are arguably stronger. Whether or not to bury it that far might depend just on how much room there is in the tailer on the winch.
If the HM is of the covered variety, we strip the cover just below the insertion into the tail, which in turn is positioned so that it remains clear of the deck block.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss