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from cable to rope?

timoteo

Member II
dear peoples,
thinking about using rope for halyards instead of half rope half cable ,i have an 29 E from 76, anyone outthere who did the same? any plus or minus about this?
thanx
tim
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Yep, time for all rope

Several years ago we found some "meathooks" in one of the original wire halyard sections on our '88 model. I replaced all the old wire-to-rope halyards with T900 or equivalent. I was also able to use 5/16 instead of the original 3/8 rope tails and they would hold in our stock clutches (barely).
Handling the line is much nicer than the wire. This also reduces weight aloft.
Do be sure that your sheaves are appropriate for line -- some boats may have double grooved sheaves in the system (we found one at the foot of the mast, and changed it out). I also removed and machined out the wire scarring in the metal sheaves at the top of the spar.

What with so many diffferent types of rope available nowadays with about the same stretch characteristics as wire, I see no reason not to change over. Do your hands a favor.
:)
After all, no one ever really "wanted" wire halyards in the first place... 30 years ago it was just the only practical way to minimize halyard stretch when the sail was hoisted, without using humongous line sizes.

My .02 worth,
Loren in PDX
 

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
I switched to all rope halyards over a year ago.

I agree with Loren, I switched to all rope halyards over a year ago. Just make sure you get the lines with the least amount of stretch. It's a lot kinder to your mast and spreaders as well. Especially if you mast is painted. :egrin:
 

ted_reshetiloff

Contributing Partner
Good source of excellent line as well as excellent splicing services is APS. They are in Annapolis MD but have an excellent website www.apsltd.com and do mailorder very well. I use them a lot for racing stuff but they are one of the few places that stock high tech line at good prices. Layline is pretty good too. If you are local you can order over the phone or online and have them leave your stuff in a locker outside so you can pick it up at any time, like say 2:30 am when the bars close and you want to go sailing... A good frined of mine James McKenna works there and can help with line selection based on boat size and uses.
 

gareth harris

Sustaining Member
Your mast had a different manufacturer from mine, so this may not apply to you. I had to replace the sheaves with wider ones, and weld the masthead to fill the grooves cut by the wires before running rope. Some others have not had to. I got the new sheaves from www.rigrite.com, and did all the work except for the welding myself. Let me know if you want more detail.

Gareth
Freyja E35 #241 1972
 

rssailor

Moderator
Rope halyards

On my Ericson 25+, I run all rope halyards. Had to customize the mast, as there was this funky external jib halyard that was falling off the mast. I mounted a Schaefer double halyard exit block and used low stretch line for the jib halyard. Rope is great, easy to hold and to rope to wire splices. Just pick a low strech line and have the shackle end spliced. Check your sheeves for burs and get rid of them before running all rope. (the burs on the sheeves.) Good luck Ryan :egrin:
 
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