Halyard

[Eric 14700]

Hi; the surveyor said the 20 year old halyard needs replacing; so it's a standard 3/16" ss tied to 3/8" line. I've heard 'everyone' replaces these with 100% line; getting ride of the ss. Sounds fine to me, but, will this require the replacement of the sheaves? It looks like the ss goes to the top, then in and down inside the mast; such that the rope section does not roll on the sheaves. I suspect the sheaves may need replacing as well due to wear. Any experiences or info are wecome and certainly appreciated.

 

[JeffM]

Likely a wire sheave

My 1980 Ericson 30+ has the same wire to rope halyard you described, and I found out that replacing it with all rope didn't work because it did have a wire sheave at the masthead. It seems to work until you put a load on the halyard, and then it binds and makes it difficult to even drop the sail.Bottom line ... check the sheave first.

 

[David Irwin]

Go for it.!

I believe someone on the list found a replacement bearing sheeve to replace the original solid plastic sheve. The outside dia. is the same (I'm recalling 2 3/8 or 2 1/2" dia.) but you have to drill the center pin to the next larger size I want to say 3/8" original up to 1/2" to accomadate the larger center of the Harken sheeve. It would make a nice upgrade especially if you have bought the line already.

 

[Gary Schroeder]

all but one

We had to do this on our '87 38 in February. Duplicate wire/ropes were $175 each(installed), but we have longer halyards than you do. We got 18 years out of them, whereas our rigger told us to plan on replacing the hi-tech rope halyards every 3 years, so we stayed with the wire/ropes.He also told us that to change to hi-tech rope, we'd need to change the shives in the mast head, in the turning blocks at the base of the mast, and in the deck organizers. All these locations had shives for wire that are not the correct shape for hi-tech and chafe these new ropes. That made the price to convert too high for us, but I'm happy for the people that can do it.

 

[Eric 14700]

thanks

for the replies. I decided (chickened out) to stay with spec. Cost a bundle more but the boat was designed professionally and when you go changing parts, you certainly run the chance that things won't work as well (or at all). So i got the 3/16" ss wire fused to 3/8" NE stayset X. So I'll sleep at night not wondering if the sheave is chewing up new braid.