Mast Music

[Dick Emrich]

Anybody have a suggestion for the simplest way to keep the halyards from banging against the mast in the wind? I kind of enjoy the sound in a harbor when there are a lot of boats, but where I am it bothers the sleep of neighbors. What I've tried so far is a sliced tennis ball and a half painting roller. They work somewhat, but at times they don't.

[Oswego John]

Hi Dick,

FYI (and others) you might experiment with a little trick that I sometimes remember to do. It's not veddy, veddy propah and Bristolwise, actually it's downright sloppy. But it seems to work for me.

Are you familiar with a guitar or other stringed instrument. If you tighten the strings to a point and then strum, you get sound. As you back the pegs off, the sound flattens and finally ceases.

Empty barrels and tight halyards make the most noise. (Aesop). When you secure your boat for the evening, don't sock the halyards down hard and cleat them fast. Try leaving them a little loose and see if that helps any.

This seems to work whether the halyards are internal or otherwise.

The proper terminology for this maneuver is called "The Oswego Wet Noodle Syndrome." Keep your fingers crossed and give it a try.

O J

[mahalocd36]

We use a bungee or rope to pull them away from the mast, to a stay or something if the clanging gets too annoying.

[bottomscraper]

With our external halyards we find that bungee cords with plastic hooks work well. Hook one end to the halyard and the other around one of the side stays. Experiment until you get the right combination for the wind speed. I see that some of the boat owners loop the halyard around the spreader so that it holds the halyard away from the mast. I haven't tried that. In our mooring field we have a few boats with wire halyards, they seem to be the most musical.

[Tom in Cambria]

For the main halyard you take it loose from the mainsail and take the shackle out to the rail. I made up a pennant which I attach to the stanchion base and then shackle the halyard to it. Or you can attach it to the lifeline if it isn't blowing too hard, but you don't want to lift the stanchion out of the base. Now you take the fall and whip it around the spreader and then bring it to the cleat. This works for the main. For the head sails you shackle them to the pulpit, cleat them off and then tie them away from the mast to the shrouds. For the noise from inside the mast this is from the wires to the lights as well as the halyard. There are several suggestions in the archives about these, but what I finally did was install a pvc pipe inside the mast and run all the wires including the new radar cable inside the pvc pipe. The internal halyard which is out of the wind doesn't make much noise if it's set up either tight or loose as John suggests. This was the only thing that worked for me.

This can be cured, but in the meantime this will drive you nuts when you're trying to sleep in a rolly anchorage.

[skairis]

Bungee cords work quite well for us...well worth a try~

Sharon
'Splendid Splinter' CD28
Pasadena, Maryland
CDSOA, Inc.
________
KNIGHT RIDER DICUSSION

[Dick Barthel]

I used 3 foot sections of pipe insulation to quiet the clanging of internal wires. One bit of advise is if you do it this way (at least on a 25D) there is a compression post between the spreaders that the wrapped wires got hung up on when pulling it back through. We ended up having to disconnect it to get the wire through but be careful it doesn't fall off into the mast. It also helped to wrap the leading edge of the wrapped wire in tape to make it easier to feed.

Dick

[M. R. Bober]

After we anchor,considerate (power)boaters frequently drop their hook very close to us and run a generator all night. This, we find, blankets all mast music.

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Annapolis (Music? Oh, I thought you said muzhik. Couldn't hear you over the generator.) MD

[neil]

After we anchor,considerate (power)boaters frequently drop their hook very close to us and run a generator all night. This, we find, blankets all mast music.

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Annapolis (Music? Oh, I thought you said muzhik. Couldn't hear you over the generator.) MD

I would go berzerk

GRIN!!!!!!!

[Kittiwake CD 28]

Question - does the banging of line or wire on mast damage the anodization? Somewhere I heard that it did, and should keep them tied off.
Thanks, Bill Watson

[bobc]

For the main halyard you take it loose from the mainsail and take the shackle out to the rail. I made up a pennant which I attach to the stanchion base and then shackle the halyard to it. Or you can attach it to the lifeline if it isn't blowing too hard, but you don't want to lift the stanchion out of the base. Now you take the fall and whip it around the spreader and then bring it to the cleat. This works for the main. For the head sails you shackle them to the pulpit, cleat them off and then tie them away from the mast to the shrouds...

Here's a slight variation. I shackle to a lifeline or to the pulpit, as described. For the fall, I loop around a lifeline and tie a rolling hitch (http://www.apparent-wind.com/knots/rolling-hitch/) to the standing part of the halyard. I can then easily take out the slack by sliding the knot up the halyard. For the main, both ends are near the shrouds For the longer headsail halyard, I tie off much further aft.

Just to be fair to the power boaters ... last year it was a large sailboat anchored next to me with a generator that ran continuously.

[rtbates]

This is not easy to explain, but it very easy to do. Take the shackle end in your hand and walk it out board of the shrouds and with some slack in the line you can loop the line around the spreader tips. Now take it back to the mast and secure. Do the same for the other bight. Doesn't need to be real tight, only tight enough to keep it from coming off the spreader tip. Surely lots of folks on this board have seen this method. It's as old as Donald Street and just a 'salty'. I do my main halyard this way. The headsail being on a furler I don't want to let it slack enough for this to work, so I simply give it a few inches of slack and pull it toward the port shrouds using a light line I keep tied off there for this purpose. Besides being annoying, halyards constantly beating on the mast beats the heck out of the lines and mast finish.

Happy sailing
Randy 25D Seraph #161

[Neil Gordon]

Question - does the banging of line or wire on mast damage the anodization? Somewhere I heard that it did, and should keep them tied off.
Thanks, Bill Watson

It's not good for the lines, either.

I find that the noise is eliminated if I pull the halyards tight and secure them tightly within the sail cover. As for noise from a neighbor's halyards, they can be silenced easily with a rigging knife.

[Guest]

Check out the SailCare site. They sell plastic hooks that go on the spreaders. Work great. I tried all the bungies, lines, etc and the hooks are the only thing that worked.

Boyd
s/v Tern
CD30 MkII
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

[winthrop fisher]

Hi...

thats an easy one.
what i always did was pull then tight and pull then out and slip the fun doodles over then, besides they float and you have a toy for the kids or your self, put one around each line.
it all was work for me and others in clear lake and some people here in kansas city do it as well, i think i started some thing new for them.
besides it only cost $2.50 for one, get as many as you want from walmart or kmart...

have fun with it.
winthrop

Anybody have a suggestion for the simplest way to keep the halyards from banging against the mast in the wind? I kind of enjoy the sound in a harbor when there are a lot of boats, but where I am it bothers the sleep of neighbors. What I've tried so far is a sliced tennis ball and a half painting roller. They work somewhat, but at times they don't.