Changing Our Main Halyard

One of the big projects that has been sitting on our to-do list was to change out the main halyard. This is the rope that is used to raise and lower the main sail. The original line was 12mm thick, but had swollen to 14mm and was creating huge friction in the whole system. This can be especially dangerous in high winds if you’re not able to get the sail down quickly.

Fortunately we had purchased a new line when we received the boat in France, since it was a known issue. The plan had always been to do the job over winter before setting sail again for the 2020 season. And after much brainstorming around the logistics, the time for action had come!

The first step was to create a custom eye splice (loop) at one end, in order to attach it to the crane at the top of the mast. Although our splicing abilities are rated as novice, we still gave it a good go... But the double cover dyneema defeated us! Thankfully our good neighbour Brendan from s/v Creeky was up to the difficult task, and was repaid handsomely with a bottle of Bordeaux. We were at least able to recover some sailing cred by installing whipping (waxed nylon twine) at the base of the eye splice. Although it was not required, it was still good to practice!

The final step was to swap over the two 60m lines. Ben was hoisted to the top of the mast and changed out the loops. We then cut the dead-end off the old line (to feed it through our Karver hook), stitch-attached the tail of the new one and fed the lines back through mast. Difficult to explain and hard to visualise! But after a few days and nights of hard work, we did it! And the new halyard works like a dream. Looking forward to giving it a proper workout soon!