uls yacht braid

7/16 Yale ULS (Polyester double braid)

Regular price $0.79 $1.24 Sale

Yale has produced a great Ultra Low Stretch polyester double braid.  Great for halyards, sheets, guys, control lines.  

Yale ULS is easily spliced using a class I Double braid splice.  

Applications : Halyards and sheets Construction:  Braided polyester. Sleeve:24-strand, two end per carrier polyester. This new version of Yale ULS Yacht Braid double-braid polyester made with a low angle braided core. Based on polyester fiber advances and this low angle construction, now maintains improved strengths and lower stretch. A firm, yet easily spliceable rope that allows for good handling .

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Getting a line on voyaging

W hen considering gear for a voyaging boat, you likely think of a diesel engine or a multifunction display or a bank of batteries. But there’s another type of equipment that most voyaging boats, especially sailboats, can’t operate without: the simple but vital tool of rope. Without rope (line on a sailboat), sailing a boat offshore would be all but impossible. And while rope may seem like a fully developed product in the age of satphones, rope innovation continues. One example of this is Yale Cordage’s ULS Yacht Braid product, a rope for cruising boats that takes advantage of newer materials and new methods of manufacture.

A hundred years ago, the most prevalent type of line found on a boats was made of natural fibers like manila, sisal or hemp. The most frequently used and the strongest was three-strand manila rope, made from the fibers of the Abaca tree grown in the Philippines. Major rope manufactures like the Plymouth Cordage Company in Massachusetts spun massive amounts of manila rope for use on boats and applications ashore.  

After WWII, though, natural fiber rope was doomed. Hydrocarbon-based synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester emerged. And these synthetics had big advantages: they’re stronger than natural fibers, and won’t rot or degrade from use like manila, far outlasting the natural fiber king. Another change was the movement away from three-strand twisted rope to braided ropes, usually with an inner core protected by a braided cover.  

The improvement to Yale Cordage’s ULS Yacht Braid began with better source material. While Yale builds rope products for a wide variety of applications and industries, it doesn’t manufacture the starting point for rope: thin strands of polyester. It buys these from a supplier. “When we get it,” Skip Yale said, sales manager at Yale, “it looks like dental floss.”  

These yarns are twisted together into thicker strands. The strands are then braided on machines that whirl at high speed like caffeine-addled spiders, producing the polyester core of the ULS rope. These cores are then sheathed with an outer braided cover.  

According to Yale, the improvement to the source polyester fibers starts with more abrasion resistance due to better a quality polyester fiber and superior coatings.  

Improved source yarns are only part of the way Yale has worked up a better product, though. The other improvement, says Yale, is the way the rope is braided. “We’ve taken the braid angle and let it out a bit. Made the core more straight.”  

Decreasing the braiding angle might seem counterintuitive — it might seem to make for a weaker rope rather than a stronger one. As Yale explains, however, rope is strongest when the fibers are lying parallel to each other; all being stressed on the same axis. The problem with such an arrangement of strands is that it isn’t much of a rope, there’s little to hold the strands together. That’s why the strands in a three-strand rope like manila are twisted so they stay together as a unit. In a braided rope, this is achieved by the braid. The braiding, while great for getting the strands to act as a unit, does make the strands lie less parallel. They cross each other at angle and this crossing causes abrasion and acts to weaken the rope slightly. In the same way that a knot in a rope — in which the rope can cross itself at sharp angles — weakens it.  

So, the ULS (which stands for ultra-low stretch) Yacht Braid from Yale has a core with superior abrasion resistant fibers and has them braided in a way to make them slightly straighter and thus stronger.  

In addition to the core, braided ropes also have a cover or sleeve. And for most polyester ropes the cover can provide up to half of the rope’s overall strength. According to Yale, in the ULS Yacht Braid case, the core/cover strength breakdown is 60/40. For those ropes with high tech fiber cores such as Kevlar or Dyneema, on the other hand, the core is doing all the work and the cover’s job is largely to protect the core from issues like abrasion and UV degradation from sunlight.  

Rope remains an important tool across a wide variety of pursuits and industries, not just for use on voyaging boats. Some of the sectors that Yale Cordage supplies rope to include commercial marine, entertainment and theatrical, electric utilities, government and defense, inland marine, oil and gas, safety and rescue, mining,   heavy lift, mooring, etc.  

In his capacity as Yale’s point man for special applications, Skip Yale has worked on some “otherworldly” projects. Yale was involved in the design and testing of the lines for the parachute bridle used by the Perseverance rover when it landed on Mars in February 2021. Another science project for Yale was to make rope for lowering detectors into a series of holes bored in the Antarctic ice at the South Pole. The detectors formed an array called Ice Cube that can sense elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos.  

From ice-bound neutrino arrays to halyards, sheets and mooring lines on voyaging vessels, the humble tool of good quality rope remains essential.   n

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3/8 Yale ULS with Halyard Shackle

Regular price $123.50 Sale

3/8 Yale Ultra Low Stretch Pre-Spliced with a 5/16" Type 316 Stainless Halyard Shackle

Choose your color + Length

Don't see what you are looking for?  Contact US for a custom rigging quote. 

ULS Yacht Braid

This new version of Yale ULS Yacht Braid double-braid polyester made with a low angle braided core. Based on polyester fiber advances and this low angle construction, now maintains improved strengths and lower stretch. A firm, yet easily spliceable rope that allows for good handling.

Applications: Halyards and sheets

Construction: Core: Braided polyester. Sleeve: 24-strand, two end per carrier polyester.

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Departments - YALE ROPE ULS YACHT BRAID LOW STRETCH WHITE W/BLUE FLECK 1/2" (BY FOOT)

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• POLYESTER BRAIDED

YALE ROPE ULS YACHT BRAID LOW STRETCH WHITE W/BLUE FLECK 1/2" (BY FOOT)

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Yale Rope ULS Yacht Braid, Low Stretch, White w/blue fleck, 1/2". This new version of Yale ULS Yacht Braid double-braid polyester made with a low angle braided core. Based on polyester fiber advances and this low angle construction, now maintains improved strengths and lower stretch. A firm, yet easily spliceable rope that allows for good handling. Sold by the foot. Applications: Halyards and sheets Construction: Core is Braided polyester. Sleeve is 24-strand, two end per carrier polyester. Spliced Tinsel Strength: 9700 lbs.

*Product images are for illustration purposes only and may not be an exact representation of the item. Please refer to item description.

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How pro-Russian 'yacht' propaganda influenced US debate over Ukraine aid

A website founded by a former US Marine who now lives in Russia has fuelled a rumour that Volodymyr Zelensky purchased two luxury yachts with American aid money.

Despite the false claim, the disinformation plot was successful. It took off online and was echoed by members of the US Congress making crucial decisions about military spending.

It was an incredible assertion - using two advisers as proxies, Mr Zelensky paid $75m (£59m) for two yachts.

But not only has the Ukrainian government flatly denied the story, the two ships in question have not even been sold.

Despite being false, the story reached members of the US Congress, where leaders say any decision on further aid to Ukraine will be delayed until next year.

Some are vehemently opposed to further support.

On X, formerly Twitter, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said: "Anyone who votes to fund Ukraine is funding the most corrupt money scheme of any foreign war in our country's history."

She linked to a story containing the yacht rumour.

Tom Tillis, a Republican Senator and a supporter of military aid to Ukraine, spoke to CNN shortly after senators held a closed-door meeting with Mr Zelensky last week.

"I think the notion of corruption came up because some have said we can't do it, because people will buy yachts with the money," Mr Tillis said. "[Mr Zelensky] disabused people of those notions."

Mr Tillis has butted heads with another Republican Senator, J D Vance, who has also mentioned Mr Zelensky and ships in the same breath.

While discussing budget priorities on a podcast hosted by former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Mr Vance said: "There are people who would cut Social Security, throw our grandparents into poverty, why? So that one of Zelensky's ministers can buy a bigger yacht?"

Although the yacht rumour is false, the BBC has discovered the story was given a major boost by a Russia-linked website that pretends to be located in Washington.

It is, researchers say, a "likely purpose-built tool for narrative laundering with links to the Russian government".

The 'Washington' website with roots in Russia

The story first emerged in late November on an obscure YouTube channel - one with only a handful of followers and just a single video in its feed.

The next day, it was picked up by a site called DC Weekly, alongside pictures of the two yachts - called Lucky Me and My Legacy - and documents purportedly confirming the sale of the boats to Zelensky's associates.

But the luxury yacht brokers where both vessels are listed for sale said that the allegations are false. The sales documents appear to be forgeries. And instead of having been purchased by Zelensky or his close advisers, both Lucky Me and My Legacy are still up for sale.

The DC Weekly story touched off a blaze of online speculation, with multiple sources linking to the story and content citing the story across multiple platforms.

However, the site is not, as the name implies, a weekly publication - nor is it based in the US capital.

Research by Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren, disinformation researchers at Clemson University, shows that DC Weekly was started by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine and Florida police officer who moved to Russia in 2016.

Mr Dougan spent three years as a deputy with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office, then after he left in 2009 he started a website spreading rumours about his former employers.

Since moving to Russia he has reinvented himself as a journalist covering the invasion of Ukraine, and has spread a number of false and baseless claims - for example that Russia was attempting to destroy biological weapons labs.

DC Weekly, the Clemson researchers discovered, is full of news stories copied from other sites and rewritten by artificial intelligence engines. The site's "reporters" have fake names along with headshots copied from elsewhere on the internet.

Mixed in with the rewritten stories - apparently designed to give the site a sheen of legitimacy - are dubious original reports.

One such story was the origin of the yacht claim, and the Clemson researchers tracked how the story spread widely after DC Weekly published its version.

Evidence collected by the researchers indicates that the site continued to be connected to the same server as several of Mr Dougan's other websites. BBC Verify also found that part of the DC Weekly website is hosted on a server in Moscow.

Earlier this year Mr Dougan was identified as being a DC Weekly commentator when he gave several talks at an academy affiliated with the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"It is pretty obvious to me that Dougan has been involved with DC Weekly for a long time, and remains connected to the infrastructure behind it," Mr Warren said.

Mr Dougan said via text message that he "emphatically denies these assertions", and that he sold DC Weekly for $3,000 several years ago. He said he does not recall the person he sold it to and has lost the paperwork due to being kicked off payment platforms and losing access to email accounts because of financial sanctions against Russia. He says he has nothing to do with the site's current operations.

The researchers say the site is part of a much larger pro-Russia propaganda machine.

"Whether this one particular guy is behind it doesn't really matter much," Mr Warren said. "The key point is that it is an important element in a very substantial and effective pro-Russian influence operation that needs to be exposed and understood."

The Ukrainian President's Office said of the DC Weekly story: "All information in this article is fake. Zelensky and his family members do not and did not have any yachts."

Mr Tillis and Ms Greene were contacted for comment.

A spokesperson for Mr Vance said: "For years, everyone in the West recognised that Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Somehow everyone forgot that just as we started sending them billions of dollars in foreign aid."

Costume jewellery

The yacht story piles fictional stories onto existing concerns about corruption, which has been a long-running problem in Ukraine. Tackling it is one of the tests the country would have to pass to join Western institutions like the European Union.

According to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, Ukraine ranks 116th out of 180 countries, although efforts in recent years have seen its position significantly improve.

• Ukraine's hopes of rebuilding rely on fighting corruption

But the attention given to the country's real and ongoing corruption issues has been mild compared to online chatter over false stories backed up by fake documents and shadowy social media accounts.

In October, a widely shared claim on social media stated that President Zelensky's wife spent a fortune on jewellery in New York while the Ukrainian president was in the city speaking to the United Nations.

Like the yacht rumour, this claim originated on a YouTube channel with very few followers and just one video. The video featured a woman who said she is from Benin. She claimed to work at Cartier on New York's Fifth Avenue.

The woman showed a receipt dated 22 September, with Mrs Zelensky's name on it and a bill for $1.1m for a bracelet, earrings and a necklace.

Facial recognition tools threw up a close match between the woman in the video and photos from social media profiles of a woman who lives in St Petersburg, Russia. When we looked at the pictures of the woman it appeared to be the same person as the one in the YouTube video.

The story went viral on Facebook, TikTok and Telegram. Russia's UK embassy X account shared it with the comment: "Best use of UK taxpayers money ever".

But the receipt is a clear fake. By 21 September, Mr and Mrs Zelensky had left New York and travelled to Canada.

One English-language site was instrumental in spreading the rumour - DC Weekly.

BBC Verify and the Clemson researchers found a number of DC Weekly articles posted between August and December this year that followed the same pattern.

The articles falsely alleged that Prince Andrew made a secret visit to Ukraine, that Ukraine provided weapons to Hamas, that an American non-profit organisation harvested organs in Ukraine and that Zelensky's administration allowed Western companies to use Ukrainian farmland for disposal of toxic waste.

Stories on DC Weekly were often published within days after allegations first appeared on YouTube.

In addition to DC Weekly, some of the allegations - including those about Cartier jewellery and yachts - also appeared on several pro-Kremlin English-language websites as well as legitimate news websites in Africa that accept "sponsored" (paid-for) content.

Some of the stories were picked up by other outlets and accounts. But with the story about the yachts, the people behind DC Weekly appear to have achieved a level of success that had previously eluded them - their allegations being repeated by some of the most powerful people in the US Congress.

Additional reporting by Paul Myers

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