Replacing Morse Cables on Pedestal

[bmaraglia]

Thanks! That thread is amazing, I feel I may have earned a stripe or two doing it the ol' fashion way... screw by screw, picture by picture, PB Blast soak after soak ;-)

Moving on to the standing rigging now. The main halyard need replacing so going to replace and run an extra one as well. Currently I only have the Main Halyard and Genoa halyard so no safety line for a bosun chair and backup. Looks like I need a rigger to get up there and get these two halyard ran.

I was fiddling with the topping lift this morning hoping it could be my backup line but looks like it is secured to the masthead and ran through a block then through the boom to anchor point. Too bad.

Any nuggets of wisdom for a safety line that could get me up there instead of a rigger?

 

[Christian Williams]

I'm not the safety officer here, so I'd probably use the genoa halyard as a backup while having somebody (after briefing him about danger of riding turns) winch me up on the main halyard. Probably change the main halyard first.

I was once stuck up there by a friend who did get a bad riding turn on the genoa winch (if you use the genoa winch on a halyard the lead is often bad). Have you ever tried shouting down instructions on how to tie a rolling hitch and set up snatch blocks to relieve the strain?)

I wonder why I'm not the safety officer.

 

[bgary]

^^^yes. Go up on one, attach the second as backup and have someone tail it as you are winched up.

If working on running new headsail halyards, I might suggest going up on the genoa halyard and using main as backup - you'll be in a better position to access the sheave box at the front of the masthead.

Edited to add: if you're simply replacing existing halyards, that doesn't require going up. Can use the existing halyard to pull through a tag-line, and then use that tagline to pull the new one. All doable from the deck.

 

[bmaraglia]

You are definitely right. I don't really want to use the headstay which would force me to have to take down the genoa however I am probably making that a bigger issue than it really is.



The work up there is new spreader boots, replace main halyard, run extra halyard, paint spreaders. I'm going to take another peak at it this weekend and see how best to tackle

 

[Tom Metzger]

For the record:

Old Morse cables are identified by numbers on the red jacket near the end, under 30 years of grease.

Morse D32377--003--0132.0, for example, is 13 feet long (132").

Christian - You should probably stick to things you know how to do, like rebuilding engine panels. 132" only equals 13 feet for very small values of 13 or very large inches.

Sorry... I couldn't resist.

 

[Christian Williams]

Thanks, Tom, yes, of course--132" denotes an 11' cable.

And glad to hear the meds are working.