New Halyards; material, etc.

[mashenden]

I am not all that thrilled with Stayset X, it is stiff ugly stuff that is hard on your hands...

AGREED!! but for a different reason. I found it to be a bear to splice. I have spliced many a 3 strand over the years, and recently learned to splice Sta-Set with a few trial and errors before it looked respectable, but I was never able to get a tight splice around a shackle for my main halyard. It ended up being a knot instead .

IMHO, if splicing is a requirement and you plan to do it yourself, run quickly away from Sta-Set X. Any performance gains between Sta-Set and Sta-Set X is probably moot on our not really for racing yachts.

[Sea Hunt Video]

At present I am thinking of the following:

Main halyard - red
Genoa halyard - green
Spinnaker halyard - blue
Topping lift - white

If you're going to color code your lines, I'd be consistent in keeping the red ones to port and the green ones to starboard.

A brief update.

The other day I installed the new Samson main halyard and the new Samson Genoa halyard. Rather than sewing the end of the old to the end of the new, I used a method suggested by "Steve G" on this board to use electric tape to secure the two ends together. Worked perfectly and very, very easy - even for this dummy.

Unfortunately, the rains in advance of the cold front came in and prevented me from installing the spinnaker halyard and topping lift. Hopefully, tomorrow.

Neil, I intentionally wanted to have the main halyard in red and the Genoa halyard in green. In this way, when someone says to me "let out some of the red line on the left side of the boat" I do not accidentally start dropping the Genoa halyard. Equally significant, when someone says "let out some of the green line on the right side of the boat" I do not accidentally start lowering the soon to be installed new main.

Once the new mainsail and new Genoa are installed all that is left of major jobs is installing the new marine head and painting the deck and non-skid. Yeah

[Neil Gordon]

... "let out some of the red line on the left side of the boat" ...

I can see where if that was said to, for example, a brother-in-law, there's a fair chance the red rope would be promptly tossed over the port lifeline and sucked directly into the prop.

You're going to make off the bitter ends, right, so that they're attached to the boat?

[Sea Hunt Video]

. . . there's a fair chance the red rope would be promptly tossed over the port lifeline and sucked directly into the prop.

"Rope" Neil, this is very disheartening. And from a Navy man no less. Somewhere in the back of my Guinness soaked brain I seem to remember being told a rope is a rope until it is onboard a boat or a ship. Then, it magically becomes a "line". A line with purpose or without but a line nevertheless.

[Oswego John]

[quote
Somewhere in the back of my brain I seem to remember being told a rope is a rope until it is onboard a boat or a ship. Then, it magically becomes a "line". A line with purpose or without but a line nevertheless.[/quote]


Can you imagine every hour someone on board ship yanking on the bell line?

Think spring.
O J

[Neil Gordon]

. . . there's a fair chance the red rope would be promptly tossed over the port lifeline and sucked directly into the prop.

"Rope" Neil, this is very disheartening. And from a Navy man no less. Somewhere in the back of my Guinness soaked brain I seem to remember being told a rope is a rope until it is onboard a boat or a ship. Then, it magically becomes a "line". A line with purpose or without but a line nevertheless.

I'm just calling it what my brother-in-law would have called it.

[Neil Gordon]

Can you imagine every hour someone on board ship yanking on the bell line?

According to Wikipedia, "... "Rope" refers to the manufactured material. Once rope is purposely sized, cut, spliced, or simply assigned a function, the result is referred to as a "line", especially in nautical usage."

As OJ notes, there are some exceptions. Bell rope and bolt rope, for example.

Further, just to be clear, whether it's called a rope or a line does not depend on whether you have a wheel or tiller or if you lock or free-wheel your prop.

[Oswego John]

How about ROPE locker?

O J

[M. R. Bober]

Soap on a rope

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster, (Where Muhammad Ali never ROPEd-a-dope.) VA

[Dick Villamil]

I used StaSet for my halyards on my Typhoon and for cruising needs that is all I ever need. However for club racing in my other boat I use Sta Set X - Have Rigging Only make then up for you - their cost for doing the splice is minimal. I always get a few extra feet so I can raise the genny while feeding it on the forestay. I have solid blue for the Spinnaker (use Sta Set for this since the minimal stretch is not a factor for Spinnaker work - and it is a lot cheaper). I use red fleck for the main halyard and green fleck for the genoa halyard (avoiding solid color since it is more costly and the Fleck is easy to see. If you have a spare genoa halyard - use solid white. As for main sheet - choose a line with a fuzzy cover for ease of use. Ask Rigging Only what they recommend and tell them what kind of sailing you do - they will be very helpful - just a phone call or email away!

[Steve Laume]

Raven has Sta Set X for her main halyard. It is stiff but manageable in this application. It might not feel quite as good in your hand but you don't need to handle it very often. It is low stretch and strong. The perfect line for main and jib halyards, if performance matters.

I use buntline hitches onto a shackle for all my halyards. I had a spliced, main, halyard fail a few years ago. The line all looked okay but it parted under mild conditions right where the splice went around the shackle. By using buntline hitch I can move that stress point every couple of years by cutting off the end and retying it where fresh line will make the turn.

The Sta Set X takes knots perfectly well, Steve.

[tjr818]

This is a little embarrassing. I had hoped that my brief sentence explaining why I wanted different colored halyards would be sufficient. "The sole purpose in color differentiating is ease of use. At present no matter how many times I am at the mast I still have difficulty picking out the main halyard, etc."

The limited sailing I have done, and intend to do, is mostly single hand. When another person is aboard he or she is ALWAYS more experienced than me. Of course, not a difficult bar to climb over. The color coordination is for me and me alone. I really am that dumb.

I recently saw an Island Packet 38 at the sailing club that had color differentiated halyards. Sadly, being stupid, I did not ask the owners what brand, etc. They are staying for a few weeks so hopefully I will get to talk with them.

In between reading these posts I have done additional research. Not surprisingly, I am not able to find solid color halyards from any of the reputable rope companies. All I can find is white line with what are called "flecks" of red, green or blue woven into the white.

Anyone have any suggestions on where I might go to source solid color (red, green, blue, etc.) halyard line

Roberto,
I think the latest issue of Sail magazine has given your idea some vindication.

Color Coding.jpg

[Terry]

. . .thinking of the following:

Main halyard - red
Genoa halyard - green . . .

Cassandra's (CD25) previous owner replaced the main halyard with a white line with a green spiraling strip. I replace the jib halyard following his lead, using white with red spiral strip. I guess the idea was that the green-striped halyard on the main matched the color of the navigation light on that side. It's pretty apparent which color is which, but a solid color would certainly leave no doubt. I have a furler so don't touch the jib. I seem to always go forward on the starboard side, so the main winch is right if front of me. That makes it easy for me.

All the best. Terry

[Jim Walsh]

I just grab lines at random till I find the one which does what I was expecting.

[tjr818]

I just grab lines at random till I find the one which does what I was expecting.

I remember doing that same thing in the back seat at a drive-in movie years ago. I guess it still works