On Tuesday, October 18, 2016 at 9:39:24 AM UTC-4, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
We start with a ~200' rope, it allows doing multiple new ends and still be a reasonable length, it also allows (when close to full length) more glider movement but keeping the angular distance to the tug reasonable.
When the rope gets towards 100', we either splice two short ropes together or use it for ground ops.

Short ropes are also useful when doing an aero retrieve from a short field.

Correction Charlie- We start at 225 feet and add length when we get down to about 175 feet.
Short ropes make it harder, especially for students to keep rope angle to the towplane in the "safe " range for any given position error.
We believe we reduce the probability of a tug upset by not letting ropes get too short.
FWIW
UH