Mike, congrats...that's good work, and creative too! were you able to determine
what causes the halyard to separate in the first place?
Richard
1985 C&C 37 CB: Ohio River, Mile 596;
Richard N. Bush Law Offices2950 Breckenridge Lane, Suite NineLouisville,
Kentucky 40220(502) 584-7255
On Monday, December 1, 2025 at 10:28:11 AM EST, Hoyt, Mike via CnC-List
<[email protected]> wrote:
An update on my stuck halyard.
It became almost “cleated” inside the mast in September. We were flying our
155 genoa on a reachy leg using starboard spin halyard. When we turned for
upwind leg at mark the halyard parted about 14 inches from the head of the
sail. Initially crew thought the halyard had slipped and attempted to grind
the sail back up. This is what likely “cleated” the halyard inside the mast.
The working end dropped down into the mast and fell on the opposite side of an
obstruction from the cockpit end of the halyard. The halyard could not be
retrieved out the bottom of the mast and was securely “cleated” inside the mast
Investigations involving a borescope attached to the jib and port spin halyards
from the bottom going up and also from the masthead going down revealed the jam
to be a couple of feet above the upper spreader.
Nearest access port from beneath the jam was topping lift sheave. ( I removed
the sheave from the mast). Nearest access port to the jam from the top were
masthead sheaves and the opening for VHF antenna cable.
I decided to try pulling the cockpit end of the stuck halyard upward to free
it. I attached the stuck stbd spin halyard to the freely working port spin
halyard at the topping lift area and then pulled the port halyard up to the
masthead. It WORKED! I was then able to pull the stbd halyard down and out
thru the topping lift
Now that it was freed I had to get it back to masthead and thru the stbd spin
halyard sheave. I attached the top end of the stbd halyard to a mid point on
port spin halyard at tipping lift port and pulled it up to masthead and out
through port spin halyard exit sheave.
Next I had to reroute the stbd spin halyard to stbd masthead sheave. Using a
wire coat hangar with hook at the end I was able to retrieve the top of the
stbd spin halyard out thru the masthead vhf cable opening. Next I threaded a
plumbing snake down thru the stbd spin sheave and using the same hook managed
to pull the end of snake out thru vhf cable opening. Finally I taped the stbd
halyard to the snake and now had the stbd halyard running properly in the mast
and out thru top stbd spin halyard.
Messenger lines have now been run for both stbd and port spin halyards and I am
off to the rigging shop to have them replaced.
Thought I would share this process in the event you run into similar problems
Regards
Mike Hoyt
Persistencee
Halifax
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