I’ve forgotten the recommendation for colour coding of halyards...

Kukri said:
Sorry to be an idiot. The only bit that I remember is that the topping lift should be white three strand to make sure nobody gets that wrong at night. I seem to remember that there are standard colours for each halyard..

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks
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Wish I had done that idea of a totally different type of rope with the topping lift. I now use a stopper knot beyond the cleat (which also acts as a visual clue). Absent mindedly gave my wife a nasty bash on the head which fortunately was nothing more. Felt horrible :(. Topping lift and main halyard both white but different.
 
Kukri said:
Sorry to be an idiot. The only bit that I remember is that the topping lift should be white three strand to make sure nobody gets that wrong at night. I seem to remember that there are standard colours for each halyard..

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Congratulations! You must have reached the stage where there’s nothing else to worry about if you biggest concern is the colour of the lines ?

My new bit of string purchasing policy is “whatever” ?
 
This is news to me! but the chap who ran the lines on my boat 30 odd years ago had obviously followed it.
Suggestions for colour coding your running rigging:
  • Main Halyard = plain white
  • Main Sheet = white with choice of coding
  • Topping lift = white with choice of coding
  • Headsail = solid blue or white/blue
  • Spinnaker = solid red or white/red
  • Spinnaker lift = solid yellow or white/yellow
  • Reef 1 = white/blue Reef 2 = white/red Reef 3 white/yellow
  • Kicking strap = white with choice of coding
  • Outhaul = white with choice of coding
 
I had a boat which came with all the rigging including halyards, sheets, reefing and control lines etc. supplied by Selden as a package to their coding. I was far from impressed, many of the halyards and control lines looked very similar, predominantly white, some with coloured flecks. I found it a pain at times because I tend to issue instructions to my crew like 'ease the white one', rather than ease the main halyard and she gets cross if I go 'not that one , fffs. the other one'.
So having used Seldens colour coding for seven years I can see absolutely no advantage in sticking to it.
 
I sometimes crew on a gaff rigged ketch with two topsails three headsails and [sometimes ] a squaresail or spinnaker. All the ropes are the same colour.
The rope you should be tending is always "No, the other one!"
 
I would never expect the strings on anyone else's boat to adhere to a standard colour scheme.

Labels and a bit of logic help though.
Solid red, green > port, starboard genoa halyards.
Flecked red. green > ditto kite

Which leaves black, blue, white and yellow for main, pole up, topping lift etc.
When you've got two lines per reef plus the kicker, you are soon needing to identify lines by position, but if you can take the likely suspects out of the mix by e.g. having kicker as black and main halyard as solid blue, then the remainder are more easily sorted.

Top tip, if you've got any stripped/tapered lines, please colour code the business end to match the tail.
 
LadyInBed said:
The trouble with colour coding is that it's difficult to see in the dark.
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True, but bold solid colours for the most important things help.
As does tidying away the things you won't need overnight.

Anything more sophisticated than a Laser, you're not going to memorise everything and work by braille unless you spend a lot of time on just one boat.
Even bloody Lasers, some people rig the outhaul and cunningham to opposite cleats!
 
AntarcticPilot said:
If someone can get confused between the sheets, they've got problems that colour coding won't help with!
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On my previous boat I had 'port and starboard' coloured sheets (and signal halyards) as an aide memoire re lights for the crew (and me!). The green sheet faded to the blue end of turquoise after a while, throwing the whole system into chaos.

It was particularly helpful, though, having different coloured sheets when sorting out the tangle of them when they end up on the cockpit floor.

Like others I was unaware of any sort of standard, and just chose what looked nice, was a different colour to my other control lines, and might be on special offer.
 
I have been sailing cruising boats for around 50 years and this is the first reference I have come across to a standard colour code for running rigging. First time I replaced running rigging it was a coil of 3 strand white pre-stretched polyester for the halyards, which was standard for all the boats I came across. Sheets were white braided. The convention then was main halyard and topping lift to starboard, head sail halyards to port, with halyard winches and cleats at the mast. Still prefer this as I like to look up the mast to check nothing has snagged and there is much less friction than leading halyards back to the cockpit.

My current boat has its own colour code based on what the e-bay seller had in stock at the time, and the sheets that were still in good condition.
 
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