Robin
Well-known member
OK I saved my pennies long and hard and finally bought a new Dyneema main halyard on special offer £175!!! We have a big mainsail a 50ft plus mast and the halyard goes back to the cockpit, so a long length heavily loaded and prone to stretch, hence our change from 12mm braid to 12mm Dyneema.
My question is how best to join the halyard to the headboard shackle? The existing halyard has a hard eye spliced in it, this results in a fairly long join which limits how high it can be hoisted before the splice gets into the masthead sheave, we normally do final tensioning at the bottom via a cunningham eye. I recall some years back a rigger showing me a knot like an angler's half blood knot which he said was as strong and could be made direct to the shackle, a much shorter and compact join which would allow several inches more halyard hoist. The rigger who supplied our new Dyneema halyard however said a splice was better and he has provided one end with a soft spliced in eye that is cow hitched to the shackle.
What does the panel think please? Strength is not really an issue, we could have swapped our 12mm halyard for a 10mm in Dyneema and still had a much greater break resistance, but it might not hold as well in the clutches.
Robin
My question is how best to join the halyard to the headboard shackle? The existing halyard has a hard eye spliced in it, this results in a fairly long join which limits how high it can be hoisted before the splice gets into the masthead sheave, we normally do final tensioning at the bottom via a cunningham eye. I recall some years back a rigger showing me a knot like an angler's half blood knot which he said was as strong and could be made direct to the shackle, a much shorter and compact join which would allow several inches more halyard hoist. The rigger who supplied our new Dyneema halyard however said a splice was better and he has provided one end with a soft spliced in eye that is cow hitched to the shackle.
What does the panel think please? Strength is not really an issue, we could have swapped our 12mm halyard for a 10mm in Dyneema and still had a much greater break resistance, but it might not hold as well in the clutches.
Robin