wire main halyard

[dunx]

We have a B37 2001 with in mast furling. I am about to change the main halyard but thought I would seek some views around the pros or cons of using a wire halyard spliced to rope. With the main permanently rigged it looks like the halyard takes a lot of load in one spot over a much longer period of time that a vessel rigged with a traditional sail. I'm told the current halyard is Kevlar cored and it looks like failure is imminent!

Any views from the forum?

Thanks

[Salty]

I don't have experience of a wire halyard spliced to a rope for use with an in mast furled sail, but on my B36 (2002) with a slab reefed main sail the present combination of part wired and part rope main halyard has worked very well. I'm not the original owner of the boat, but I am very aware that the original owner spent the absolute minimum needed to keep his boat working as a charter vessel. I'm also very aware that some of the persons chartering the boat cared very little about any damage they may have caused either to the boat or to its equipment during their time onboard. Despite that the main halyard is probably the one that was fitted originally to the boat, and also despite annual thorough checks carried out by me since I bought it in 2010, the halyard remains in very good order.
Do you know how old the present main halyard is onboard your boat? If it's anywhere near the age of my main halyard, I'd be inclined to stay with the same system on the basis of "if it works well enough, then leave it alone."

[geoff]

Beware the noise of wire inside the mast it is much worse than rope. I had wire on the boat when new[ 40 ocean] but have changed to dyneema which is not prone to the sudden failure of Kevlar Geoff

[Symphony]

Can't see any advantage in a wire halyard for in mast reefing. The idea of wire is that it is low stretch so if you have a main that needs constantly tweeking and the halyard tension adjusted you can do it more accurately. None of this applies to in mast. Halyard tension is only needed to ensure that the sail furls evenly. Although there is load on the halyard there is no movement to cause wear. My 2001 B37 still has its original halyard despite 7 seasons of chartering. No signs of wear when I took the sail down this winter.

[Imagine]

I used a wire to rope on 36 Bavaria it took me around the world without a problem

[Craig]

Am I missing something?  The main halyard does not usually have high stresses.  The weight of the sail is minimal and most of the force on the luff is directed outwards, and only minimally downwards. The headsail halyard can have large forces if you tighten the back-stay without easing the head-sail halyard.

Unless you are racing and continually changing the Luff tension, I don't think it makes much difference as to whether you have a stretchy line ( nylon) or non-stretch ( steel wire, dyneema).

It would be interesting to know if the "wear" you mention is near the end of the halyard. It may be deterioration due to sunlight where the exposed halyard goes over the pulley at the top of the mast.

Craig
"Shirley Valentine"
Gold Coast
Australia
 

[abouttime]

About 3 years ago, my 2001 bav was starting to show some signs of wear at both the point of wire/splicing and where the halyard passed around the sheave at the top of the mast. It was replaced with Dyneema. One thing that struck me was the difference in weight of the two types of halyard. To me, It makes sense to minimise weight high above the water line.

[Yngmar]

Wire halyards aren't really done anymore. They were used on Genoas for a while (my 40 Ocean had one, which I've thrown out), but with the advent of modern ropes they're a thing of the past. The rigger confirmed this, and added that splicing rope to wire is really, really horrible and nobody wants to do it.

When switching between wire and rope, you must replace, or at least inspect the sheaves - wire sheaves have a V or notched shape and due to the smaller area must be stronger, while rope sheaves have a round shape. If there was wire in a round sheave, it may also have worn the sheave and left it with sharp edges that will chafe the rope it's replaced with.

For your furling main a braid-on-braid polyester halyard will do just fine, and due to simply having more material it will last longer than polyester covered UHMPWE (unless you buy it at the same size, which will make your wallet cry). In addition, polyester will not creep, which is a bigger problem than stretch with a sail that's left up all the time.