This splice requires a long needle-like fid. Begin by forming a tight overhand loop knot 2m from the rope’s end to bind core and sheath together, then measure about 250 mm back from the rope’s end and make mark A.
Form the size of eye required and make mark B at the throat against A.
Open the sheath at B (using an ordinary fid) and extract the core, then tape round it alongside mark A.
Unlay the core back to this tape and cut off half of one strand and three-quarters of another. Bind the end of each strand tightly with tape before taping the three strands together. (It’s not easy to get the tape on tightly as the core fibres spring apart very readily, but the bindings must be tight enough to slide into the sheath in the next step.)
Insert the needle into the cover through the throat at B and out at A. Thread the end of the core into the needle’s eye and pull the core through the sheath and out at B. Insert a thimble if required, milk the sheath, and pull the core to settle them round the eye and thimble.
Untape the core and lay the three strands alongside the rope. Insert the needle into the sheath just short of the longest strand, exiting at the throat of the splice (B). Use the needle to pull the longest strand of core through and out of the side of the sheath. Repeat with each of the shortened strands.
Tug on their exposed ends to tighten the eye. Cut the ends off close and milk the sheath to hide them.
There are two ways to finish off. Either, unbraid the empty tail of sheath back to the throat and pull individual strands (or small groups of strands) down under the main part of the sheath below the throat, just like the three core strands. Spread these strands around the rope and cut them to random lengths, milking the sheath to hide their ends. This is a very tedious and often extremely difficult operation (because of the quantity of material crowding in below the throat), but gives a neat, tidy and very secure result. Or, if you can’t manage that process, cut the length of the sheath down and cover it with a tight whipping like that on page 82.
