New Halyard

[martinmayer]

I would like to install another halyard on my boat. Please note, not replace one, install a new one. Any suggestions on how to do this? The mast is made to accept another one but I am wondering how to feed the halyard down the mast to the correct location at the base.

[JohnV]

Weight it with a bicycle chain and catch the chain with a magnet or hook at the exit hole at the bottom.

[Brion Toss]

Hello,
Best to attach the chain (or better yet, a string of large fishing weights, with one steel nut, for the magnet) to a light messenger, then pull the halyard through with the messenger. There's a reeving eye on that halyard, right?
And get weight onto the side of the boat where the exit is. And stop to think about ideal halyard layout in the mast; the traditional "main on starboard, jib on port" makes no sense for internal halyards. Oh, and if the new halyard is for a trys'l, make sure the line exits on the same side as the track. And so on.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[Ian McColgin]

As Brion points out, it's important to lay out internal halyards - really all halyards but with external you see it and won't make this mistake - such that they lead fairly to their exit and don't cross or bear on each other.

But I want to make a small disagreement with whether it matters what side halyards and other lines are on. More generalized than "jibs to port, main to starboard" is that control lines for sails ahead of the mast go to port and those for sails behind the mast go starboard. The reason is that most people are right-handed. Positioning such that the stronger side is toward the work load when you're glancing up at the sail just makes life easier.

This practicality of course does not mean much where the lines are led through blocks and organizers back to the cockpit. For that, it's merely conventional. But if the work takes place at the mast, the convention is most practical for most (right-handed) people.

[Brion Toss]

Hi again,
I've been thinking about this one for a few days, and have a couple of issues with Ian's last post.
First, as a left-hander, I am inclined to scream in frustration every time someone justifies something because "most people are right-handed." Everything from scissors (including most "left-handed" scissors) to which side you get on a horse from is optimized for right-handers. Yes, they are the majority (about 9 out of 10), and yes I expect to accommodate that to some extent, but not where it doesn't matter significantly. And that includes, I think, halyard layout. Is it really that much harder to adjust the luff of the main depending on which side of the mast you are on? Is there any difference when adjusting the luff of the jib? I don't think so, but I do think that reversing traditional mast layout makes a difference in how fairly the halyards run inside the mast, and how fairly they run to the winches.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss

[Ian McColgin]

It's not much difference at best and mostly just a better view of the sail going up so you're alert to snagging a batten under a lift or having the jib flog under the pulpit or such. But being ambidexterous, I've neither an arm nor a leg to back the hypothesis.

It's true that an awful lot of our world is set up to be hard on that sinister minority. Even the language. Perhaps it's overcoming adversity from the start that makes so many lefties such high achievers, able to make a knot at such blinding speed and better suited for coiling a lead line. In third grade penmanship when we were just getting to pens, real ink, no ball points, I envied the lefties since they had a great excuse for making a mess while I was just there to annoy the teacher.

G'luck

[John Stone]

Brion,
You have really peaked my interest since I am about to start rebuilding my rig--what is the best way to run internal halyards? I have looked in your book (which is dog eared and full of margin notes by the way) and I could not find anything discussing which side of the mast specific halyards should exit and why, if they should be crossed and why, and considerations for halyard winch layout. None of the books in my personal library have any specific info that addresses these questions nor have I run across any useful info on the web. I realize some of these questions are answered by personal preference but your thoughts in general would be most appreciated.

John

[Brion Toss]

Hi there,
The good news is that all of your questions are answered, in exquisite detail, in my new book Rig Your Boat. The bad news is that I haven't finished that book yet, though I have been gnawing away at it for years. So meanwhile the short form is: if the halyard goes into the mast in front, it should come out of the mast in front. That way it will have the fairest lead, and the least likelihood of encountering throughbolts, other halyards, and any other obstacles. This method also makes it easy to figure out whether a line is a jib halyard or a main, because the jib, for instance, is in front, and that's where the halyard exits.
And if that halyard exits in front, then it will lead fairest to the starboard winch; if you brought tit out on port, from an exit towards the front of the mast, you would have to deflect it aft, to get a lead to the winch, which would make for a foul lead. And one sees precisely this a lot, because people are still fixated on the "main on starboard, jib on port" mantra, which was evolved specifically for external halyards. Actually it goes even deeper than that, back to the days of external halyard blocks and the first, jib-less sailboats. The point is that rig layout should reflect rig traffic patterns, and inverting the traditional patterns makes sense with internal halyards.
There are refinements, like optimizing relative leads based on load and frequency of use. For that, I fear you will have to wait for the book, or take one of our classes.
Fair leads,
Brion

[Stumble]

My answer has always been that it doesn't matter where halyards come out, what matters is what happens inside the mast. So I try to make the mast top duplicate itself as the halyards come out. So my jib halyard comes out from the most forward exit, then starboard spin on the next back, on the starboard side, port spin on the forward most on the port side ect. My thought is that so long as the halyards don't cross each other inside the mast, and have fair leads down and out the crew will learn where each line is.

[benz]

Maybe I should have started a new thread, but this ties in with Ian and Brion's posts above pretty nicely. In "Hand, Reef, and Steer," Tom Cunliffe says that main halyards were traditionally on the starboard side because when hove-to to shorten sail, a starboard tack gave the vessel certain right-of-way advantages. I don't know whether those ROW rules apply any more, where it's just "Boat to Starboard Stands On," since power boats are largely oblivious to wind considerations. Along those same lines, I'm always fascinated reading Arthur Ransome's "Peter Duck," where fog signals indicated what tack a boat was on, and everyone could deduce what others were doing by the sound of their horns. Pity that's all been ruined by powerboats.....