e25 masthead

[Joe]

Attached is a picture of my e25 masthead and the sheaves and spacers contained within. The boat still has the original wire/rope halyards. A previous owner must have added the extra (white) spacer shown -- causing a very tight fit. The sheaves were obviously not rotating as can be seen by the friction marks on the spacers and within the sheave tracks. Before I throw the extra spacer out, I thought I'd better check whether there was an obvious reason the extra spacer was added: perhaps the wires were jumping the sheave tracks?

Thanks...
Joe Williams

 

[Loren Beach]

I have had the wire jump the sheave on other boats and jam. It caused a trip to the masthead... and if your sail is still hoisted, you have other potentially damaging problems looming. It can make for an ...interesting...day on the water.

You want to keep the space beside the sheave to a minimum, and then change to all-rope halyards to further prevent the problem. On your boat that new line could easily be a quarter inch or 5/16 at the most.

My .02 worth,

Loren

 

[raslocum]

e-25 masthead

My halyards jump the track on my e-25 quite regularly, causing 4 trips up the mast in the last six months. I just dropped my rigging last weekend for maintenance, and i suspect I'll be doing some type of similar process that your previous owner did.