I can do an okay job of whipping. I've tried my hand at seizings. I've woven the anchor chain to the end of the rope rode.

But.

Double-braid splicing?

I'm working on it.

More accurately, I'm struggling with it.

It's not terribly difficult.

But. The first time I tried I got this:

A mess of loops and whorls that are deeply entangled.

I'm using very old line to practice on. This is it's own unique nightmare, making it harder to learn.

The line is dirty and compressed. It doesn't come apart easily and the core isn't really very well braided.

Because it only ¼″ in diameter, it seems awkwardly small.

After a false start, I've graduated to this…

You can see my blue lines for where things start and end.

You can see little fuzzies sticking out from where I didn't quite get everything pulled through correctly.

So.

There's a lot of room for improvement.

Since I finally got the process to work in the first place, I'm now happy to put eyes in the end of every line in the boat over the next week or two.

Once I get the hang of this, I can then start to look at replacing all the running rigging.

In particular, halyards all have eyes with shackle more-or-less permanently woven in. The backstays and sheets have eyes. I think the whisker pole topping lift also has an eye with a shackle for a shackle.

Even the mizzen outhaul should have eyes for a shackle the attaches to the car on the mizzen boom.