Can someone explain the benefits of wire to rope halyards over just rope halyards? I'm looking to replace the halyards on my oday 25' and I'm not sure which route to take....
halyards: wire to rope?
- Thread starter tigereye37
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With the advent of high strength low-stretch rope, replacing a halyard with rope is fine. Many folks are doing it. I will one of these days. I plan on using 3/16" with a 5/16" cover milked over 1/2 of it for handling. I might get lazy and splice them instead. Not sure.
as I understand it, they were popular years back when rope technology wasn't as good, and the materials available would stretch allot, so they used the wire to rope halyards to limit the stretch. With newer synthetic lines they don't stretch anywhere near as much as the old lines did, and some may even stretch less than the wire sometimes used for halyards, so for most people there is little reason to continue to use them in my opinion.
Ditto all the above. I just rigged new halyards on my boat recently but I stuck with wire to rope simply because that was what was already on there and I didn't want to have to change the masthead sheaves to accommodate all rope halyards.
Dittos and one more thought
I agree with everything said here. One other plus for the old wire halyards is that sunlight has no negative effect on the the wire portion. If you cover the exposed "rope" end of these halyards they will last almost forever. They are heavier aloft, so most people have gone lighter, high tech line.
Agaliha
I agree with everything said here. One other plus for the old wire halyards is that sunlight has no negative effect on the the wire portion. If you cover the exposed "rope" end of these halyards they will last almost forever. They are heavier aloft, so most people have gone lighter, high tech line.
Agaliha
I hadn't thought about changing the masthead sheaves.... is it difficult? Something that could be accomplished by a novice? Since I had to drop the mast for the hurricane now's the time....
I doubt you'd need to b/c the sheave that's there should be compatible with rope and wire (since that's what you have now). I can tell you that about two yr ago I went from rope/wire to rope only and I did not change my sheave at the mast head. I had the halyard made and installed by a professional rigger, so if the sheave needed changing, I'm sure I would have been told (and charged for it!).
You're making me feel very old.
But yeah, 20 years ago I replaced a wire halyard with Kevlar (since spectra and its relatives did not exist). Another advantage of fiber is that you can use a 2:1 halyard, which was my reason; the mainsail was a bear and there was no winch.
I'll check the sheaves when I can swing by the boat. Not sure if I'll be putting it back in for the rest of the season or not....
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