Rope is flying out the door! I have just placed orders for more than 40km (25m) rope today as the rope store is looking rather bare and I’m down to my last 50m of 6mm Amanawa Linen Hemp. The latter seems to be selling itself with a lot of the orders being repeats from happy customers, as indeed are most. It’s a full-time job keeping up, even with Nina cutting huge piles of 8m lengths and treating it on a regular basis. The downside is a thick layer of rope dust that magically regenerates as fast as it’s cleaned covering every inch of Esinem Towers. Even Quentin Crisp, Britain’s stately homo, who claimed that “dust doesn’t get any thicker after 5 years” would quail at the quantities that collect here!
Half the order is for Tossa Lite, which has such an extraordinarily long lead time that I suspect they must deliver it by cart drawn by an arthritic 3-legged donkey. Last time it took at least 6 months. Luckily, I have reasonable stocks but whether they will last till then is unlikely. I have asked if I can get it in a prime quality fibre, i.e. the very blonde, clean fibre that the very best Japanese rope is made from. That said, I have heard a few people grumbling about the recent decline in the quality of the fibre from several of the better known Japanese suppliers. Apparently, a poor jute harvest has been blamed but I don’t buy that as the latest batch of Tosssa wasn’t red but a pale blonde, indicating a younger and better fibre. Maybe they hope stupid gaijin won’t know the difference, just trying to squeeze a bit more profit or we are getting more discerning? Who knows? Anyway, I have also asked my suppliers to send me some 7mm Lite as there’s a demand for more substantial rope these days; a possible result of the rope break incidents and my tests.
The rest of the order is for the every popular 6mm Asanawa and Tossa, plus, of course, a lot more Amanawa, which should arrive later this week. I’m looking forward with some anticipation to the arrival of an experimental run of a new rope made from pre-waxed double-twisted jute yarn. Hopefully, this will produce a rope of 5-6mm that is ready treated and a little tighter in the lay (twist rate) than my Asanawa. The search for the Holy Grail continues…