topping lift

[hanksga20]

I bought my 1984 hunter cutter a year ago. She is my first boat over 22 ft. I live 150 miles from Gulfport, Fl where I keep her docked so I only get over about once amonth to sail her. I am still learning the rigging hardware. I recently picked her up from the boatyard after having a complete sripping of the bottom epoxy and paint job. While in the yard the workers removed the topping lift wire from the boom. I motored her back to Gulfport and then I started to attach the cable back to the boom. I realized that I did not know where at the end of the boom the cable attached. There is an eye bolt at the very end of the boom and and a two hole clevis at the outhaul. I also noticed that no matter which place the cable could possibly be placed the boom would be liffed to high which leads me to believe another piece of harware used to attach the cable is missing. A call to the boat yard concening this matter was of no help. Can anyone furnish me the info I need. It is evident that I need to spend more time educating myself concening my rigging.
Thank you
Jack

 

[Seattle Scott]

Hanks,

My topping lift terminates a couple feet from the end of the boom. On the end of topping lift is an eye splice with a thimble. Attached to that is a singe block. A line runs thru the block with one end tied off to a pin on the end of the boom and the other end of the line runniing thru a cam cleat on the aft end of the boom. The topping lift is slacked or tightened by releaseing the line or taking in the line through the cam cleat. Note, the topping lift terminates at the mast head, even though there is an extra unused halyard exit plate on the mast and ( I think) an extra sheave next to the main halyard sheave. So I think originally the topping lift was rigged as a spare main halyard and then converted to a dedicated lift.

 

[hanksga20]

Thanks Scott. I am heading over to the boat in a few days and will give it another look using your info.

 

[Richard Shelby]

My topping lift cable has a small block. A 3/8 braided line attaches to the boom thru the small block and thru a block in the end of the boom, thru the boom to a deck organizer and back to the cockpit. Basically a a 2:1 purchase. Sorry, I don't have a good picture.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Our H37Cs are all so different. My '79 topping lift connected at the very end of the boom. There was a short pendant between the wire and the end, probably replacing the original 2:1 block assembly.

I connected the wire to the end of the boom. Then I added a fourth halyard and attached it to the top end of the wire. It is my spare halyard but allows me to adjust the topping lift.

 

[Johnb]

And when sailing?

I have the same block arrangement with a line and a cam cleat.

Sometimes it seems that when slackened for sailing the topping lift gets possessed by the devil and wraps itself around the backstay in the most annoying of ways. Although it would mean having to capture the end of the boom and re attach it I have been thinking about disconnecting it and somehow tying it off to the stern during sailing.

Any opinions/comments?

John Brecher

 

[Johnb]

Found a picture.

Not a real good one.

 

[jcherubini]

Topping lift rigging, H25 Mk 1

I tend to really hate topping lifts when they are just a fixed piece of wire or some mistreated length of UV-ripened rope that can't be relied upon to really do anything. When rerigging Diana I originally intended to just call the secondary main halyard my topping lift, as has been done many times before. But when I drew up specs for a new boom I updated it according to hardware available (DAMCO rocks). The fixed part of my topping lift is 3/32" wire and ends in an eye about three feet above of the end of the boom. On there I have a small block, as in Seattle Scott's. The 5/16" rope goes up from an eye at the starboard corner of the boom, through the block, down to the port-side sheave and forward through the boom to the stopper. In this way the outhaul can use the center sheave on the back of the boom and the boom does not hang crooked for being hung from only one side.

(The starboard-side sheave is for the jiffy-reefing line which leads up to the cringle from the eye on the port corner of the boom. This is so it terminates at the deck forward on the port side, so that it can be tailed on port, separately from the main halyard on starboard, when reefing.)

I have seen many people with what I wryly refer to as a 'flying topping lift' that can eventually foul the backstay. The mostly-wire topping lift avoids this. Really under most conditions the topping lift should be loose enough to allow the sail to do the lifting and just taut enough to take up slack. Then again maybe this is my OCD about flapping rope and untrimmed sails that makes me even mention it.

 

[hanksga20]

Re: Found a picture.

Thanks Jonhnb. Your picture explains the piece of rope hanging off the cleat on the end of the boom. Run the rope thru the halyard eye and thru the eye bolt on the end of the boom and tie it off. Hanksga20