Retrieving Halyard

[Dick of Sylvan]

Last Saturday I was on a friend's 1984 C22 when his shackle holding up the main let loose. We returned to dock and retrieved the upper end of the halyard after lowering his mast, and replaced the defective shackle. To unstep his mast, we had to hold up the upper end of the mast since we didn't have a crutch for the stern with us and the slot in the step was not sufficiently high to allow the mast to sit on the stern railing, adding to the difficulty.Question: If we had had a sandy beach (which we didn't this time), might we have been able to reach the shackle if we placed the boat broadside to the beach, raised the swing keel, then pulled on the jib halyard to heel the boat over enough to reach the upper end of the mast with the hook on our whisker pole? Dick

 

[David Williams]

Neat Trick

I have a neat trick for recovering my halyards. I put a permanent 3-4" loop using a wire-tie through the thimble. Then I duct tape my boat hook to my whisker pole, which gives me enough reach to hook the loop from the deck, and pull the halyard back down. Not too hard to do at a dock or on smooth water. I have tried hooking the shackle before, but it is usually open, and there is not anything to catch with the boat hook. David

 

[Ray Bowles]

We used apiece of PVC tubing and wire.

We used a 20 foot piece of 1/2 inch PVC tubing (2 10 foot sticks pushed together) with a clothes hanger taped to the top with a hook bent over on the end. We taped this tubing to the jib halyard and raised it up, hooked the shackle and pulled it down. We left these pieces, plus the extra 10 foot stick at the marina to others as gifted as us.Ray