They are vinyl coated and are cracked and yellowing:
They just look dingy. They can be dangerous because if the metal beneath the coated vinyl start to deteriorate, you would would not see it. ABYC now spec uncoated lifelines for this reason.
I did some measurements:
On Still Time the gates that you drop down to get on and off the boat are at the rear. They were a pain to undo, plus since it was not the widest part of the boat, you had a gap to step over getting on/off the boat. This was troublesome for Rita's 89 year year old Moeder (Dutch for Mom).
I decided to replace the lifelines with uncoated stainless and move the gates to the middle of the boat.
Close to $1,000 with taxes, but will be a welcomed upgrade for the boat.
Too cold to put on these days.
