Dirty halyards

[Mark Sanford]

I just replaced my main halyard on my H25.5 as the older was worn and very dirty. With only a couple of weeks on the water my new halyard is becomming dirty very quickly. It appears the problem may be in the interior of the mast. The dirt is a grey colour and comes off on your hands. Has anyone experienced this before and is so, how did you fix the problem? How can you clean the mast interior?Thanks for any suggestions.Mark SanfordS/V Phoenix

 

[Michael Bell]

Outside the mast

I put my halyard on the outside of the mast. The dirt was one reason. The slap was another. All it took was a block riveted at the top of the mast. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

[Bill O'Donovan]

Alternative

This may explain why Hunter installs black halyards for the mainsail. Seriously.

 

[Dave Weir]

Halyards

I got the same result on both the main and spinaker halyards. I suspect the sheaves which are black, dull and "soft".Has anyone tried replacing these?

 

[John]

I think it is from rubbing around inside the mast. Mine also get dirty and all is from portions that are normally in the mast. I can get some, but not all, of the stuff off the halyards by attaching a small retrieval line to the shackle and pulling out as much halyard as possible at the bottom of the mast. That leaves some halyard inside the mast, but gives me access to the part of the line that gets stuff on my hands. I then wash the lines as best I can in a bucket at the mast step. Probably gets out half or so of the problem.

 

[jcherubini]

Washing cordage.

I just washed all mine in laundry soap. They were olive-green with mildew. Any time you put the boat up for the night and the halyards are wet, salty, slimy, dirty, you will have this problem. Most boats out there have internal halyards; so long as the lines are maintained you should be able to take care of it.Remember most experienced 'salts' recommend taking the mast down every three years; given well-cared-for nylon cordage, if they are washed and re-reeved or replaced at this interval I can't see it'd be that bad of a problem.(My lines were probably original to the (28-year-old) boat. They're clean now, but they are now relegated to spare on-board line, mainsheet (easy to deal with stretch and to replace), spinnaker sheets (not used often enough to worry about) and spring lines.JC