Halyard chafe … learned a lesson

[Sea-Fever]

In the spirit of sharing and learning….

I noticed my main halyard had chafed on the spreader. I resolved to replace the halyard ‘when I get a chance’. I left it too long and the outer braid chafed all the way through leaving the core exposed.

No problem, bought a new halyard, now to pull it through…..I attached the new to the old and began to pull it through. Unfortunately I made the mistake of causing the chafed part to pass through the top of the mast…..resulting in the outer braid failing to pass through the sheave and bunching up. So now I have the naked core at the top of the mast and bunched up outer braid either side preventing the halyard from going either way. Brilliant, what a tw*t I am….trip to the top of the mast is now in order.

Lesson learned.

 

[Martin_J]

Unless you cut an inch off one end (after tying a knot a few feet further back) then carefully sliding the outer back enough to get perhaps a 5mm diameter mouse line stitched end-to-end to the exposed end of the inner core... Then is there sufficient play in the outer cover to milk it off the remaining part of the halyard (after untying the knot) and letting the sufficiently long new mouse line slide right the way through the old outer...

Might just save a trip up the mast...

And yes.. halyards can chafe through rather quick :/

 

[Martin_J]

I only suggested cutting an inch off one end because I assume it's either been whipped or 'cut and heat sealed' thus joining outer and core at the bitter end.

 

[Sea-Fever]

Unless you cut an inch off one end (after tying a knot a few feet further back) then carefully sliding the outer back enough to get perhaps a 5mm diameter mouse line stitched end-to-end to the exposed end of the inner core... Then is there sufficient play in the outer cover to milk it off the remaining part of the halyard (after untying the knot) and letting the sufficiently long new mouse line slide right the way through the old outer...

Might just save a trip up the mast...

And yes.. halyards can chafe through rather quick :/

It’s worth a shot, thanks for the idea.

 

[Neeves]

Another place where halyards wear is at the clutch, this is a specific problem for dyneema halyards. The core does not stretch but the cover does and its the stretching that causes the issue (as the cover moves inside the clutch). The answer is to keep the halyard on the winch (which ties up a winch - almost). Practice is to leave the halyard on the winch, take it off the winch when the winch is needed then replace the halyard on the winch and re-tighten. The issue is common on multihulls and with big headsails, Code Zeros etc.

I was on a cat where this happened and exactly the same as you - we could not get the halyard down as the cover had bunched up inside the mast. We had to cut the halyard - at sea - to get the sail down and of course had no mouse line.

The cover failed at the clutch and the internal dyneema simply slips.

Jonathan

 

[Refueler]

Unless you cut an inch off one end (after tying a knot a few feet further back) then carefully sliding the outer back enough to get perhaps a 5mm diameter mouse line stitched end-to-end to the exposed end of the inner core... Then is there sufficient play in the outer cover to milk it off the remaining part of the halyard (after untying the knot) and letting the sufficiently long new mouse line slide right the way through the old outer...

Might just save a trip up the mast...

And yes.. halyards can chafe through rather quick :/

That's what I would do .... basically cut of one end to free outer from inner, remove the outer and pull the inner through the mast with a moused line attached. Its not easy to remove the outer - as you pull, its designed to tighten and grip the inner ... so you have to 'work it'. The only thing to be careful of ... is to keep tension on the old halyard as pulled through - the inner core has nothing to keep it tidy as it polls through other than tension.

Or if you are going up mast ... take the end of light line with you .... fix it to the exposed inner up there and then cut away the rope hanging outside the mast

Or you could actually remove the sheave while up there, To allow the rope to be pulled through opposite direction to what you first did .... mouse line attached other end before of course.

 

[Neeves]

On yachts I have sailed on - removing a sheave demands drilling out rivets. Have I been on the wrong yachts?

Jonathan

 

[Refueler]

On yachts I have sailed on - removing a sheave demands drilling out rivets. Have I been on the wrong yachts?

Jonathan

NOT all have rivets ....

My Alacrity ... Snapdragon ... and my Sunrider - all were retained by pins through and then split pins

I would be person to remove rivets to allow easy maintenance ...

Example : At mast base (Proctor) ... the sheaves are held by plates with pins ... the plates self-tapper screw retained. You can imagine that years later - those self-tappers just fail.

See here broken off ...

I had my pal knock up some new plated pins ... but in the end decided to keep in drawer and modified to :

Stainless bolts machined in centre to clear deck step blade - but with original diameter to fit ..

Typical sheaves when removed ... before good scrub and clean up ...

I'm sure some purists will say its all wrong ... but now I have sheaves that run free on 'pins' that will not shear as origionals can and do ..

I can always be sure of being able to undo and remove sheaves / bolts etc. The bolts even add some transverse strength to the mast foot in fact.