halyard back to boom end or not?

[john_morris_uk]

I move mine because the wind makes the topping lift flutter, which causes the boom to emit a noise like an organ pipe. Adding the halyard changes the resonances so the boom stops moaning.

We have the same problem, but I now wind the halyard round the topping lift a few times so that the two are twisted together in a very slow spiral - and that stops all the wind generated hum. Simple... so long as you unwind it the right number of turns when you want to put the halyard onto the head of the mainsail. No guessing how I know that.

 

[Seajet]

Resonating halliard

When David Harding of PBO did a sail test on my boat, we were returning to the mooring and I handed the main, tensioning the topping lift, it began to hum as usual.

David said " that's a 4mm topping lift, isn't it ? We've been discussing this "

And yes it is 4mm...

 

[mattonthesea]

mystery noise solved

Different boats need different solutions. There is nowhere very convenient on the coachroof for my halyard, so I take mine to the boom end, where the shackle joins that of the topping-lift. One advantage of this is that I can take the weight of the boom on the wire halyard and slacken the braid topping-lift which developes a resonance in light winds and hums loudly, a noise that was curiously hard to trace at first.

Thank you - noise abated!