I'm going down to Oakland California next week to help launch Aluna, the Tiki 38 that Beat Rettenmund and Beatriz Restrepo have been building over the last few years. Beat asked me to help splice the standing rigging which he is using rope for. The type he is using is a Samsom rope called Validator SKB which uses a class II eye splice. The sheath is very stiff and the core "expands" once out of the sheath so it is a little bit of a task to splice it. I hadn't done one of these in awhile but once I got going I remembered having done them before and some of the tricks to get the core back into the sheath. I tried the splice with a teardrop thimble, Beat is using round wooden thimbles he's made himself the round shape of the thimble will add some challenge getting the splice just right.