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1977 cruising 31 meat hook ( fraying wire halyard)

Bill Tanner

Member I
Replacing wire Halyard

According to the info online a 4 mm dynema rope has a breaking point at 2000 kilo average breakload, that will fit right in that hole as the wire is 4.1mm. It will also dirt the sheave as it's virtually the same diameter in addition to being very light. Does anyone out there think I'm playing with fire here? I can get 40 meters for $116.00, thoughts anyone?
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
I don't see why that isn't worth a try, if you really want to keep the winch. The sheaves should be no problem.

I would test with some light line first and see how the winch handles it--wire being very stiff and line, well, not so stiff.
 

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
Related discussion on the Cruisers Forum from 2011

A couple of folks on the Cruisers Forum mention dangers of wire winches with the friction brakes. Also mention possibly replacing the sheaves that were made for those winches needing to be replaced for dyneema halyards.

I only have one piece of dyneema line on my boat and that is a loop at the clew on the end of my genoa I use to attach the whisker pole. Yes it is very strong, but very soft. I'm guessing it might not work well attached by those set screws shown in the photo of your winch Bill. You might just buy a few inches and try to attach it to that winch to test it. Also would it bind up in the possibly narrow sheaves (made for wire) at the mast head though? I will be very interested to hear what you decide to do Bill.

This Guy seemed to know a bit about it:

"You have 9/32" wire on your halyards now so you should be able to replace that with a Dyneema, Spectra, Vectran core of similar diameter. Add a polyester outer braid and you are probably up to about 1/2"/12mm.

It is my understanding that the rigging shops strip the polyester outer braid off the working end of the halyard for a lighter weight line. They don't splice the line, just take off outer core and bind the remaining cored part to the exotic core where they strip it. That gives you an easy to hand larger diameter line where it's best for comfort and just the actual working core for the rest of the line. That is fine for racing boats but I'd want the outer braid all the way on a cruising boat for UV and abrasion protection.

Doubt that you'd need 14mm outer diameter line even for a boat your size. 1/2"/12mm is plenty easy on the hands for me and way easy to coil and secure on the mast.
__________________
Peter O.
'Ae'a Pearson 35"



Here is the cruisers forum thread for what it's worth.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f116/replacing-wire-halyards-with-dyneema-60473.html
 

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Martin King

Sustaining Member
Blogs Author
Ugh...wire winches. Nasty bit of work guaranteed to produce meat hooks and other unpleasantness. Had one of those for the main halyard on my previous boat. If the handle was in and the brake let off too
fast, the handle would whip around with enough force to break an arm or any body part in its path. The E 39 also came equipped with a sliding boom. The gooseneck was attached to a car that ran up and
down the stick, just like a spinnaker pole. When the brake on the reel winch was released, the boom would come crashing down, injuring anyone unlucky enough to be under it. Reefing the main was a nightmare.
This was the factory set-up for racing, and how it could be considered a good thing is beyond me. First project on that boat was fixing the gooseneck in place, and replacing the reel winch with something decent.

Martin
 
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