The head of the splicing department Allan Wester gives us a brief explanation as to why and when they would use this piece of equipment: 'The winch on the bench can be used to apply a force of 4 1/5 T when used with purchase blocks. This winch is used to assist in splicing the large lines that are used in the industry today. The ability to load up the splices and “bed them in” prior to the lines going on board is very important to ensure a quality product is supplied to the vessel.'

'The winch is also hydraulic and used for milking any slack between the cover and the core of the lines which can happen during splicing in the workshop and fabrication in the factory. Where the winch is hydraulic, it allows us to milk full lengths of lines (sometimes over 200m) under a constant load. Having slack in lines (especially captive winch lines) can be quite catastrophic as this slack can get bunched up in pre-feeders, causing damage to both the cover and core.'

'Large diameter lines which have slack in the covers are almost impossible to milk out by hand. We can apply 100kg/200kg of weight during this milking process and do it all in one go.'

To contact our splicing department email splicing@rsb-rigging.com to discuss your ropes running rigging program.