Stuck halyard

[rnye]

I have a 1993 42' Hunter Passage, this past weekend while sailing the jib would not deploy from the furler, finally, after working it backward and forward it freed up and deployed correctly. Later, after docking and cleaning the boat I noticed that the jib halyard had broken with about 18' of halyard attached to the shackle on the jib. I slowly, tried to pull the halyard from the base of the mast, but at one point it got stuck. I assume that when it broke and having tension, pulled back into the mast and fell down on top of itself and in doing so got some knots or kinks. My question is has anyone ever had this problem and did you find a solution without having to un-step the mast?

My first attempt at solving the problem is to pull both the spinner and main halyards up at the same time while having someone put some tension on the halyard at the base of the mast...does this sound like a workable solution?

Thanks Before Hand

 

[higgs]

Is the masthead end already inside the mast?

 

[jdhohmann]

Another thing you might want to look at is the sheaves at the top of the mast, we had this happen, and it was caused by a busted sheave on the mast head, which eventually cut through the halyard.... Maybe the tension you are feeling is the hapyard jammed up top.
To fix this we simply dropped a new halyard down from the top of the mast, which there was an inspection plate and picked it up at the mast base.. It worked out great!!!!

 

[sailingdog]

Is the masthead end already inside the mast?

It sounds like the masthead end got pulled in to the mast by the weight of the halyard... and that it is all piled inside the mast. not a good thing.

 

[Seattle Scott]

Are there any exit plates on the mast that you could take off to get a better look inside. When I was runing wire down from the spreaders I took off a halyard exit plate about 5 feet up the mast to find the wire.

 

[Benny]

A jammed line is not good. Do not make it any worst. As you say try to pull up on the other halyards and see if you can move the broken halyard up. The amount of resistance on the other halyards may indicate if they are routed together and just how tight the jam may be. If you are able to move the broken halyard back up then try to wigle them loose by gently pulling the others up while holding the broken one down. If you are unable to loosen it then you may consider removing any accompaning lines from the conduit. At this point or prior to removing other halyards get a proffesional rigger involved as they have tools and equipment to get up the mast without the need for halyards and can repair whatever may have broken and replace the halyards. I would not think it is necessary to unstep the mast.