Colnebrook Headsail reefing - any experience in replacing forestay?

sharmajm

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11 Feb 2005
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Martlsham Heath, Ipswich Suffolk
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I have a Halcyon 23 and am looking to replace my standing rigging as it has not been changed in the last 10 years at least.

The headsail reefing is a Colnebrook and I am being told that these are notoriously hard to take apart. Has anyone had a go and is there anything I can do to it before dismantling it to reduce any damage?

I don't have the money to replace the whole unit so I want to do as much as I can to save this one.

Any help gratefully recieved

Regards

Jon
 
I didn't do the job myself, but I did have my forestay replaced by the yard rigger 3 yrs ago. He did it very quickly and made no comment about it being difficult. [and he is the sort of guy who probably would let me know, if it had been].
I have since replaced the gear because it spat out the lower bearing, and parts were hard to find.
If you need bits [other than bearings] it's laying in the yard at Burnham.
 
Thanks for the advice, so far the bearings look OK, it is the alluminium sleave above the drum that has to be disconnected to replace the forestay so if this goes badly I will be very glad to take up your offer.

Regards

/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
We did ours and it was simple. There is a swageless connection inside for the forestay. Believe I have the manual (1/2 pages) for taking apart and doing the Colnebrook will look and let you know
 
I replaced thforestay in mine last year (on a Pandora).

The only awkward bit was removing the grub screws that clamp around the swageless fitting at the bottom. Due to corrosion these were locked solid. I had to drill them out, then retap the holes to take larger screws.
 
Re: Colnebrook Headsail reefing - any experience in replacing forestay

Did similar on Kingfisher 30 about 3 years ago. Squirted lots of wd20 into the grub screws, then squirted even more, and then, you guessed even more, over several days.
The heated the drum with small blowlamp to break seal and grub screws came out OK..
Good luck
 
I have a Colnbrook on my Halb and for the past year or so have had problems with the bearing tightening up.

Last job last autumn was to strip it and sort this out..unfortunately I managed to gall the bottle screw so had to replace it.

Absolutely no problem as it is really 'old tech'.

Good luck, Nick
 
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