1977 cruising 31 meat hook ( fraying wire halyard)

Bill Tanner · Jul 16, 2015

Hello there, I have a 1977 Ericson Crusing 31 and I am the new owner of a boat that hasn't been sailed in 10 years. This week I went out and after a couple of malfunctions I returned safely to port. I have the all wire halyard on the mainsail which I discovered has ( meat hooks) fraying wire just below the shackle that attaches to the main sai. I have read many articles and opinions in this system about the winch and switching to other materials for the halyard. I want to fix this so I can sail with the least amount of work and dollars which to me means replacing the wire. I understand about the winch and its brake and I also understand that if I go to rope or dyneema that I have to replace the sheaves which means dropping the mast or going aloft or something of that nature. I hope someone has some ideas here for locating the parts and getting it done. Thanks Bill

Glyn Judson · Jul 16, 2015

Replacing halyard with rope.

Bill, If your boat is anything like mine, you'll find that the sheaves are dual purpose, that is to say grooved in the center for wire and tapered out to the sides to accommodate dacron line or whatever you choose. I'm holding my old main halyard sheave in my hand as I type this and my scribbling on the cheeks read "3/16" wire slot, 2 3/8" total width, 5/8" wide and a 3/8" bronze bushing in the center. Although our boat didn't have wire when we bought her, it was a simple task of butt joining my new line to the old and pulling it through. Is the working end of your wire spliced to synthetic line? If so you can do the same as I did. If it's all wire, that's way above my pay grade, I've only seen wire at a distance and know nothing about it but I know others here do. I should mention that the new line is 3/8", nothing fancy just what West Marine had on their spools at the time. If I had to guess, I replaced that line 17 years ago and aside from a little fading of the red threads, it's doing fine with plenty of miles and years to go. I went one step further in this process and replaced the above mentioned sheave with a hi-load Harken one, their #754. It's a little bigger at 3" but still fits up there without modification except that I had to use a 1/2" pin for it, again a simple task of drilling out to size and getting a replacement pin. I chose to replace the sheave in order to make hoisting the main that much easier for my wife Marilyn who still can be seen single handing our boat. I hope this has helped and if not I'm sure others will chime in. Cheers, Glyn Judson, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey CA P.S. We plan to be in the Isthmus at the end of this month from July 29 through August 3. Anyone is welcome to look for us on J-8 and we'll have you aboard for a cup of coffee or a soft drink, weather depending.

Emerald · Jul 16, 2015

Hi Bill,

I'm with Glyn on this one too. My original sheaves were like what Glyn describes, and the prior owner had converted them to rope, and they worked fine. I'm guessing that Ericson probably fitted the same style sheaves to all of these, so even if you were all wire, I bet it's the same stuff at the mast head and can handle the conversion.

Glyn Judson · Jul 16, 2015

Other sheave choice.

Bill, Glyn here again. Garhauer offers a very similar sheave to the Harken, it's their MH-30 at a very affordable price, same specs, hi-load and all. Glyn

Loren Beach · Jul 16, 2015

For a sail plan that's probably smaller than our boat, you might want to consider changing to 5/16" very low stretch line. I changed to T-900 quite a few years ago. Almost zero stretch at these modest loads and it has approx the same strength as our ss shrouds. :0

Loren

ps: sell your coil of old ss wire to the metal recyclers.

Rick R. · Jul 16, 2015

We went from wire to rope with no changing of the sheaves as well. No problems...:nerd:

GrandpaSteve · Jul 16, 2015

My rigger recommended keeping the existing sheaves when I switched from wire to rope, and he could have sold me anything he recommended. Same with the shackle.

Bill Tanner · Jul 16, 2015

All metal Halyard

Hello again and thanks for all of the advise.

The halyard is all wire ( I have to get there and measure) and is attached to a #3 Barrient winch at the mast which works just fine, I have seen the comments about possible broken arms and such though if I can use it I will. I am trying to do this without taking my boat near our boatyard every time I say hello to them it costs me $1500.00. Is there anyway of telling what type of sheave I have up there without going aloft? Or do I splice the wire to a short piece of rope and them back to a new piece of wire? I am all for changing to high strength rope if I can use the other existing parts. Thanks again

Glyn Judson · Jul 16, 2015

Keep your existing sheave.

Bill, From my experience and the comments of others, I'd say you're pretty safe in assuming your sheave will accommodate synthetic line and installing it is something you can do fairly easily without even getting close to a boat yard. Go for it, Glyn

Loren Beach · Jul 16, 2015

Casting a spell: Wire Begone!

One other (unrequested !) observation: given that the E-31 has a reputation as a good sailing boat, anything that you can do to improve that is a Good Thing.
Once you take down all of the original wire-to-rope halyard, and you might have three, main, jib, spinnaker... you might want to weigh the part that is all up in the air normally, i.e. the wire parts.
Next weigh some modern no-stretch line. I believe that the difference will surprise you. Since an average of that weight difference will be affecting your weight about halfway up the mast, that's an amount of weight that would take several times that if added to the bottom of the keel, about 5+ feet under the water.
This amounts to a subtle change in righting moment and ballast to displacement ration, but real nonetheless.

I recall that we were a kind of amazed at the raw weight of the four wire halyards we removed from our boat, and with our 'air draft' of over 53 feet this was enough pounds to make a (small) difference.

Not worth obsessing about, but it's a nice little bonus for the modernizing of your halyards. At some point your boat may get a new or recut main and that will reduce speed-robbing heel another degree or three.

A curmudgeonly observation, if I may: I really believe (subject to this being another of those things I believe that might be proven to be untrue!) that there is measurable sailing performance "hidden" in many of our boats designed in the 70's and 80's that we just are not aware of due to aging sails and older heavier technology. With the bulk of the new boats being mal-designed as dockside condos first and sailing boats second, designs like the E-31C become rarer and ever more appreciated.

Cheers,
Loren
:egrin:

Bill Tanner · Jul 27, 2015

Repacing wire halyard

Okay so I'm back at the boat ready to measure the all wire halyard, as I look at the winch the wire goes into and out of two holes and the wire is held with two set screws if I go to all Dyneena can I stay with the same diameter as the wire and use the set screws?

Jeff Asbury · Jul 28, 2015

Bill Tanner said:
Okay so I'm back at the boat ready to measure the all wire halyard, as I look at the winch the wire goes into and out of two holes and the wire is held with two set screws if I go to all Dyneena can I stay with the same diameter as the wire and use the set screws?

I'm really having a hard time visualizing what your describing here. Can you take a photo? I did the same thing Loren did. I changed my wire halyard to 5/16" very low stretch line 12 years ago. I just took a bolt cutter and cut off the swaged loop at the end of the wire halyard then taped the new low stretch halyard to the end of the old wire one and hoisted it up and over the sheaves. Hooked up a snap shackle and that was the end of it. Nothing complicated or too expensive. I think I paid a little over a $100. for the new rope halyard.

This is what I can't visualize. "as I look at the winch the wire goes into and out of two holes and the wire is held with two set screws". Holes in the winch?

Boy it was nice to get rid of that wire that not only scratched up my hands, but made a mess scratching up the mast.

Glyn Judson · Jul 28, 2015

Wire to rope dilemma.

Jeff and others, I wonder if Bill has a cable winch on the mast and maybe he has all wire, not wire spliced to synthetic line? That might explain the two set screws in the winch assembly he talks about. That brings up a nagging question that's bothered me for years. Is the splice between synthetic line and wire cable loaded with meat hooks called a 'fraid knot??? Glyn

Rick R. · Jul 28, 2015

Glyn Judson said:
Is the splice between synthetic line and wire cable loaded with meat hooks called a 'fraid knot??? Glyn

I bet you're correct Glyn!:rolleyes_d::rolleyes_d: :cheers:

Bill Tanner · Jul 28, 2015

photos of halyard and winch

Okay so im not a techie I have the pics on my phone and the file seems to be too large to send, when your done laughing can I email directly to someone from my phone? lol Thanks Bill T

Loren Beach · Jul 28, 2015

Bill Tanner said:
Okay so im not a techie I have the pics on my phone and the file seems to be too large to send, when your done laughing can I email directly to someone from my phone? lol Thanks Bill T

I have a lower-tech flip phone with a cam and can transfer photos from it to our computer via Bluetooth. Once the image file is in the computer I can reduce the size to something the site will accept and re-save it.

Loren

Christian Williams · Jul 28, 2015

Bill,

I plug the iphone into the computer and import the photos. It only took me five years to learn. But that's all right, the forum software has actually forgotten most of what it knew about handling photos.

But if you want to persevere, here is the linear explication, all of which can be demonstrated by a 14-year-old in three minutes.

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?12998-Adding-Photos-to-a-Forum-Message

[h=2]Adding Photos to a Forum Message[/h]

1. Initiate "Post New Thread" or "Reply to Thread"

2. Scroll down beneath the message block to "Manage Attachments"
(This opens the File Upload Manager. Notice that any photos you have uploaded previously remain stored here)

3. Select "Add Files" to choose a new photo from your computer.

4. Select "Select File".
(This accesses all the photo files on your personal computer)

5. Double click on the chosen photo. Its name will appear in the "File Upload Manager" pane.

6. Select "Upload File."
The uploaded photo will appear as "Insert Online". Repeat for as many as five photos per message, then select "Done".

7. Select "Preview" to check the result (box is at the lower right-hand corner).

Photos can be repositioned like text in the Editing Pane, by dragging (but not in the Preview Pane). [NO LONGER WORKS]

To remove photos from a post, or substitute them, return to the File Upload Manager. Check the photo displayed and delete it.

The value of the forum photo system is that the site hosts its own pictures--permanently. There are no "dead" photo links after a few years, a shortcoming of colleague sites.

Troubleshooting:

Many uploading issues--sideways pix, pix too large--result from the use of photo-collection organizers like Picasa, which are designed to leave the original photo unchanged. Therefore, "Save" or "Save As" after editing any photo, or the uncorrected original may upload.

Before uploading, locate the chosen photo on your computer. Crop, enhance, and confirm that it is less than 800 pixels and oriented correctly.

A simple way to confirm that the correct photo version uploads is to save it to the desktop and upload from there.

Regarding size: the measurement is in pixels, not KB. For example, 717 x 553. The larger number must be 800 or less. Re-sizing should be easy but can be confounding. In Picasa 3, "resize" is hidden within the Exporting function. In Windows Live Photo Gallery it's Edit/Resize. In iPhoto it's File/Export/Resize.

Jeff Asbury · Jul 28, 2015

wire halyard winch

So I googled wire halyard winch and found this image and this link. As well as a few others. I don't think I have ever seen one of these.

http://www.tor.cc/articles/c-tip_18.htm

Christian Williams · Jul 28, 2015

We had that when I was a kid. The wire had meat hooks. You wore leather gloves to use it. If slack, tension had to be kept on the wire when winching. If you got a riding turn, yikes.

Of course I took it for granted as a high tech piece of gear, and it got the luff tight. For most other boats, scallops were standard.

Jeff Asbury · Jul 30, 2015

Bill's Photos

Bill Tanner said:
Okay so im not a techie I have the pics on my phone and the file seems to be too large to send, when your done laughing can I email directly to someone from my phone? lol Thanks Bill T

Okay I got the three photos you e-mailed me Bill. Here they are so others can take a look. I have never seen this kind of winch myself.

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1977 cruising 31 meat hook ( fraying wire halyard)

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