Spinnaker Halyard for Ericson 30+
Adding to this thread, which I found very useful. I went up the mast to add a spinnaker halyard yesterday to my 1984 30+, Zenergy. (For an asymmetrical.)
Discovered not the side-by-side cage mentioned in this thread, but a narrow cage with three sheaves stacked in a tall SS slot. The aluminum sheaves were still in good shape. The middle sheave was mounted furthest from the center of mast with a clevis pin and split ring so it could be removed. The others are further toward the center of mast and cannot be removed without removing the whole cage. (Cage is fastened to mast with 10 rivets, 5 on each side of the slot.) I used the top-most sheave for my new spin halyard. Halyard is 1/2 inch diameter--nothing bigger than that would work with these sheaves. Used self-fusing tape to attach a messenger line (mason's string) to the end of the halyard and fed that down for my partner to fish out of the exit hole in the side of the mast.
Here's where it was essential to remove the removable middle sheave: The first try with the messenger seemed perfect, but once the halyard itself went down more the 5 inches it jammed hopelessly. I took out the middle sheave so I can see what was happening in there. Turns out that just below the top sheave and offset further toward the center of the mast there is a very small sheave/fairlead. If you just drop your halyard over the top sheave like I did, you go forward of this fairlead, and you get jammed against the jib halyard. You have to have a long skinny tool (stiff wire with inverted hook is perfect) to insert into the slot to coax the messenger aft of the fairlead in order to prevent the new halyard from running too close to the jib halyard. Takes some patience to do this while hanging 40' in the air, of course.
Still not entirely satisfied with the chafe potential. The slot opening was clearly made to prevent chafing, it flares out on the sides of the slot so that the opening is bounded with curved and smooth edges rather than sharp ones. So that's good. But if there is downward pressure on the halyard, it is probably going to get involved with the headstay attachment. I suppose/hope that when flying the spinnaker, the halyard is going to be pulled out from the slot and, and not so much downward. Or am I crazy to think that?
Ernie Galvan
Ericson 30+ Zenergy