On 20/02/2011 21:54, Ronald Raygun wrote:

No. Do not twist. Twisting is what leads to kinking and tangling.

The correct way to coil a cable, rope, or hose, is to imagine that
it were a flat ribbon with the two sides a different colour. Suppose
the ribbon is lying flat on the ground with no twists in it so that
the blue side is on top and the red side underneath.

(For a right handed person hold the end of the cable in your
left hand blue side up. Grasp the cable with your right hand,
holding it blue side up, then bring your right hand towards your
left hand and just place the cable onto what is already there, so
that it stays blue side up during the whole move. The action of
your right hand does not involve any twisting. You just lift a bit
of cable straight up and plonk it down again, as if you were lifting
a chess piece from one square and putting it down on another.

If the cable is stiff, a side effect of this will be that each coil
will end up with a self-cancelling double twist in it, and will most
likely hang in a figure of eight pattern. But that's the idea.


Ronald, as a sailor you should know the difference between a cable and a
hawser. And of course the hand you use should be the opposite one
depending which way the rope is laid.

When you are coiling twisted rope it's imperative to coil it in such a
way that the twist is not destroyed. This is of course not an issue
with plaited ropes, mains leads or garden hoses.

Andy