Halyard organizer

Moderator: GreenLake

Halyard organizer

Postby Alan » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:13 pm

I've dreamed up various ways of running halyards (jib, main, no spinnaker, yet, anyway). They're probably all too complicated. I've been all over the internet looking at halyard organizers, for example, this one

http://www.drmarine.com/proddetail.asp?prod=DR018

and have found exactly one picture of how they're used, and now I can't find it again. I vaguely remember turning blocks attached to the holes.

I haven't found anyone here who uses one.

So, experts: Good idea, or no? And if it is a good idea, how do you route the halyards through the plate, and what do you route them to?
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Postby TIM WEBB » Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:36 pm

Those are usually found on larger boats that have a lot of stuff coming down from the mast to the deck. Our DS's don't, and I doubt that that organizer is under the Daysailer section of DRmarine.com?

You are correct in that blocks are attached to the various holes in the organizer. Lines led down to them usually go through them to some sort of "deck organizer" assembly, then back towards the cockpit to whatever line clutches or cleats they belong to ...
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Postby GreenLake » Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:48 pm

When it comes to adding controls, blocks or lines to your rigging, any time I've added something after trying it out with some jury rigged version of same, I've been much happier. Some things can't be tested like that, and I've run into problems with designs that I ended up having to change.

Other than that, as TIM wrote.

The DS is not a scale model of larger boats. Stuff that makes sense there, is not necessarily the best solution for a DS.

For example, I don't see the need to lead halyards off the mast at all. I don't need to raise / lower sails while sitting at the tiller, and standing up in the cockpit, I can easily reach them where they are.

While it may seem that there's poor mechanical advantage trying to pull down at arms-length, that's not how I do it. I make an L in the halyard by holding one end in my left hand and pushing my right palm down to make a corner. With that, I use my weight, pushing down, to tighten the halyard.

When that runs out of steam, I put the end around the cleat and reach up along the mast and pull the halyard sideways. That gives a mechanical advantage of rather high factor, so the sail comes up.

As I let go, I pull slack out of the bottom (around the cleat) rather than letting the sail go down again. Repeat a few times, and you get higher tension on the halyard than you could by just pulling.

Leading the halyard around the cleat is like using a ratchet block, the friction allows you to hold more tension than your pull. Otherwise there'd be no way to hold the higher tension that this method generates.

BTW, If anyone has a cogent explanation why leading halyards off the mast is superior, even in a DS, I'd like to learn. (Spinnaker halyard is a different thing altogether).
Last edited by GreenLake on Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby jdoorly » Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:17 pm

Amen brother, preach it!

Though I have no personal knowledge of this I heard that it's safer to stay in the cockpit and that some racing enviroments disallow crew forward of the mast or even of the cockpit. On bigger boats once you have the leverage of a winch drum and its' handle lever it's a totally different and much slower ballgame.
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Postby ChrisB » Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:37 pm

I am also in the "leave the halyards on the mast" camp. Between the mainsheet, jib sheets, and occasionally UPS sheets, I don't need any more rope in the cockpit and I'm happy to keep the halyards up forward and out of the mess. I have a system that give a 3:1 advantage in tensioning the jib halyard so the lack of mechanical advantage in pulling the halyards straight down is not a concern.
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Postby GreenLake » Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:21 pm

@ChrisB, I'm curious - do you have a good picture of your halyard tensioner setup?
Last edited by GreenLake on Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby GreenLake » Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:26 pm

jdoorly wrote:... I heard that it's safer to stay in the cockpit and that some racing enviroments disallow crew forward of the mast or even of the cockpit. On bigger boats once you have the leverage of a winch drum and its' handle lever it's a totally different and much slower ballgame.


The only times I need to be forward of the mast (or even forward of the cockpit) is when attaching the jib to the tack, which usually happens at the dock, or when attaching my navigation lights (which I do only if I don't make it home before dark and in any case only after I'm done with the spinnaker for the day, otherwise I could even do that at the dock).
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Postby Alan » Thu Oct 27, 2011 5:03 pm

OK, that's unanimous. :) Time to rethink my plans, I suspect...

Tim, it turns out the organizer in the link is for an O'Day 22. However, at the Dwyer Mast website, there's a smaller one (four holes) shown for my DM-2 mast.

I've been admiring Red Witch again. I see you've installed the Harken bullet blocks with cam cleats like the ones Intensity Sails offers. Do you like them? Do they seem strong?

I started down this road in an effort to avoid using the stock horn cleats, since the idea of trying to release a halyard from one of those, especially with wet line and cold fingers, was a little intimidating. The Harken block/cam cleat combinations look like they'd be ideal - quick release and no high-tech spaghetti in the cockpit.
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Postby TIM WEBB » Thu Oct 27, 2011 11:56 pm

There are ways to cleat off on horn cleats that allow for quick release, but there are still long halyard ends that have to go/be stowed somewhere, either on the cuddy roof (coiling them up/wrapping them around something?), in the cockpit, or inside the cuddy.

As a singlehander, my main concern is not easy/quick sails UP but easy/quick sails DOWN, as in lickety split when the finicky FL wx turns ugly in a heartbeat! To this end, I initially removed the horn cleats and installed bullet blocks at the mast base and cam cleats on the cuddy lip, as well as mesh line bags on the cuddy bulkhead. That worked great until I installed the vang, which chafed against the halyards when the boom was out to the side. So then I installed the Intensity bullet block/cam cleats. Yes, I like them a lot, and they seem pretty bullet-proof (ha ha, get it?)!

I took these pix right after I installed the bb/cc's, and right before my first sail with them. So, I hadn't yet removed the cuddy cam cleats (they were later used to replace the old metal jibsheet cam cleats). I've also since flipped the main halyard (stbd) cleat right side up, as it works better that way:

921

920


Rig down, but shows the line bags:

1002
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Postby ChrisB » Fri Oct 28, 2011 7:08 am

@GL,

I don't have a picture, but I'll bring my camera to the boatyard this weekend and get a picture of the halyard tensioner setup.
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Postby Alan » Fri Oct 28, 2011 7:21 pm

Thanks, all.

Tim, I followed your thinking exactly on being able to shorten sail in a hurry. I've been tempted by the bb/cc combinations, but I wasn't sure how strong they'd be. Thanks for the product review. Now I'm really tempted. :)
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Postby TIM WEBB » Sat Oct 29, 2011 12:11 am

So far, they've worked exactly like I need them to. And a couple of times this year, I've needed them to work in a pinch! It's sure been a "weird" Summer season down here in the little lattitudes ...

They *are* pricey, but worth every penny in my book, especially compared to what you'd spend trying to hack together something similar from various other parts ...

I guess the one for the main halyard gets the most action, as it's directly involved in reefing/unreefing. I do both from the safety of the cockpit in about ten seconds!

The one for the jib is pretty much "set it and forget it", but I still enjoy having the peace of mind that I can pop that thing loose, and with the help of the "poor man's jib downhaul" have that thing down on the deck before you can say squall ... :D
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Postby Alan » Sat Nov 12, 2011 4:36 pm

OK, I took the advice of the experts and abandoned the big-boat approach, instead going with the bullet block/cam cleat combinations that Tim has. Photos of a test installation are in my personal gallery.

The sharp-eyed observer will note that there's no mast in the pictures (no time to raise it until next Friday, if then). However, I don't think it will matter. The mast stub protrudes about 3-1/2 inches from the deck to the bottom of the hinge. The blocks, which are jury-rigged to the mast stub for the moment, swing freely. The halyards don't catch on the corners of the hinge when the blocks swing.

The good news is that I can reach both of them from the cockpit while sitting down.

The blocks look substantial, and will accept three fasteners each (a No. 10 screw is a nice fit). I'm thinking of attaching them as shown here, directly opposite each other on the mast stub, with through-bolts. Thoughts and opinions, as always, will be gratefully received.
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Postby TIM WEBB » Sat Nov 12, 2011 11:25 pm

Looks like you're on the right track, although I'd be concerned about the halyards chafing on the hinge regardless of whether or not they catch on the corners?

My hinge is just above deck level, so I had to mount the combo blocks above it, but I did mount them directly opposite one another, using #10 self-tappers, although through-bolting is probably a better way to go ...
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Postby Alan » Sun Nov 13, 2011 12:22 am

Good point about the chafing, Tim, and I'll report back as soon as I can manage to raise the mast. I'm hoping that because the top part of the hinge overlaps the bottom part, it won't chafe, but we shall see. Back when I was experimenting with standing blocks and cheek blocks and fairleads and deck organizers, I worried - probably way too much - about the direction the halyards would take, and how to keep them away from the hinges. That's what comes of having way more time at a desk than in the boat. :)

Oh, yeah, almost forgot - in my box of shiny stuff is a smaller version of the halyard blocks, which I found at my local West Marine store and intend to use for the topping lift.
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