28 May 2022

The problem with Sta-Set

 

This tangled disaster is the primary flag halyard. This is what I contend with every morning.

NER Sta-Set is made with a proprietary stiff core that comes off a roll in the factory and will forever try to go back to its curly origins. In my professional experience the only thing worse than Sta-Set for self-hockling is Sta-Set X. There is very little you can do to avoid it; you can tediously try to lay it all down flat, observe and compensate for each little kink, and add a little turn with your fingers as you flake it; and it will still win.  Trying to un-twist it become more frustrating than leaving it alone.  If you run it through two blocks under any tension at all, you will have hockles or at least excessive friction.

Some will contend with me here and claim that since it’s so popular and widely-used I am probably its only hater out there.  All I can tell you is that such an argument isn’t based on technological fact; it’s based on perception, which is what people in Marketing count on. The world is FULL of bad products successfully marketed at a public (perhaps wilfully) ignorant of their technological drawbacks (VHS, Windows, SUV cars, steel residential entrance doors, vinyl siding, Tesla…). The wise consumer looks for quality using an open mind and an awareness of options.  Most consumers are not ‘wise’.

I strongly advise AGAINST this rope for anything you don’t want to fight with for ever. This 70-ft halyard will be replaced with Sampson Trophy braid ASAP. 

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