Joe... Did your 222 come with internal halyards or did you convert it? I would like to go internal halyards if possible... J.
Red,
My boat came with a Z-Spar mast and boom which had internal halyards in the mast and three control lines in the boom.
I don't see why you couldn't convert your mast over to internal halyards. All you need is the halyard exit plate covers, two Aluminum cleats, and two open clam cleats if you have a mast winch. The clam cleats need to be a little out of line with each halyard as it exits the mast and goes to the horn cleat. Each clam cleat will snub off the halyard when you get the sail raised, and allow you to remove the wraps off the winch and make fast to the horn cleat. You should be able to use the same winch for both halyards. I noticed that at least one O'Day 222 had a winch on both sides of the mast with an exit plate on each side of the mast. I really don't think that this is necessary but this was the way that the spar manufacturer set it up before they figured out a way to make it work with one winch.
My mast has only one winch and the two exit plates are on the same side of the mast with the winch.
My original mast came with a cheap cast Aluminum Tabernacle with single a sheave attached to the base of it for the Jib halyard and I hated it with a passion. The halyard would kink up and prevent me from getting my Gennie down and I hated having to pull up on the halyard from the bottom of the mast. After I lost my mast, I had the rigger at Rig-Rite, install a stainless steel hinged tabernacle and cut an exit hole in the mast for the Jib Halyard above the mast winch. Today I have a CDI Furler and I only use the Jib halyard for my Gin Pole, but it made a big difference when I had to raise my Gennie before I got the furler.
You can buy a Jib sheave block made by Dwyer and cut a hole in your mast to receive it.
Your mast sheave needs to protrude at least 3/4" inside your mast to have the clearance inside for the halyard.
Internal halyards can sometimes break the wires going to your steaming light so you really need to take that in consideration. It shouldn't bother the anchor light and coax wire though as long as they're taped together every couple of feet and are secured out of the path of the halyards.
Here's some pics of my set up. I had a rigger do mine. I don't know if I would tackle a job like that, but I did replace my Jib halyard block with involved cutting a larger square hole in my mast to make it fit and drilling and tapping the mast for machine screws to hold it in place.
In the pics, the white halyard with green flecks= the main halyard and the clam cleat for this halyard is located just under that exit plate along with the upper horn cleat above the mast winch.
The Jib halyard = white with red flecks. The clam cleat for it is just under the exit plate and the horn cleat for this halyard is just below the goose neck fitting. You can see in the picture that the clam cleats are just a little out of line with the halyards, in relation to the exits plates and horn cleats. When you let the halyard off you do want them getting caught in the clam cleats, yet there is always enough slack in the halyard after it has the tension on it, to insert it into the clam cleat.
I hope that this info can get you started in the right direction. I love this set up and I also prefer doing all my halyard raising/lowering and reefing right at the mast.
Joe
