Thanks Brion
I recently heard from a guy who told me he has seen the sail disported or stretched out of shape by the non stretch super halyards.
I am always looking for ways to make the synthetics work, or what new thing I did not think of come back to bite me.
Example: I operate a 125' Trawler in the Bearing Sea. When we first switched over to an 1 1/8"Dynex Dux haul back line, that had replaced a 1 3/8" wire. We were very concerned about chaff (none) strength or breaking it (none) worried about how it would lay on the drum, or if it could take shock loads (we get some ugly out of sync haulbacks where the 125 ton bag of fish and the boat go slack and come tight in big seas)
Well none of the things we were concerned about came to be. But we did crack the drum on the 50ton pullmaster winch! The manufacture told us it was designed for wire, and the Dux had not give and did not crush like wire so the drum took the hit.
It it these kind of things that keep my eyes open and my thinking cap on. If I make halyards that do not stretch, can I distort the sail that is designed and built with a different set of parameters? May be a small thing but just an example of what happens when you introduce a new thing into the rig. It all has to blend or run as a system.
Perhaps I will haul and set the halyard up snug, but not winch on it too hard. Not pre-loading it too much, and enjoy the light weight and low windage of the new materials.....
