Line Clutch for Halyards

[roverhi]

It really depends on what you can take. Sailed with all Dacron halyards for 10 years. If the winds were constant, could hoist and forget. If winds were variable or changed the sails would develop scallops or the luff would be too tight and the halyard needed to be adjusted. If you are not anal about sail trim, dacron will work fine. If you are like me, you'd be going to the mast regularly to adjust the halyard tension. From casual observation seems the former is more common. Having said the above, the main reason I want low stretch is I have an ATN Mast Climber and low stretch makes climbing with it way easier.

If you have wire reel winch for the main and can live with it, convert the wire to single braid exotic line of the same diameter as the wire. Single braid Dyneema, Technora, etc is relatively cheap and easy to make the conversion. You get rid of the problems with wire, like fish hooks, but retain the low stretch advantage of wire.

If you have roller furling, luff tension is not that big a thing and you might be happy with a dacron halyard. On my new to me 28' boat went to this 5/16" line for halyards. It's worked fine and cheap compared to the big guys exotic lines. NovaTech Argus Double Braid Spectra Sheet Halyard Line 5/16" x 50' Red/Silver | eBay NE Ropes makes a partially exotic cored line called VPC that is lower stretch than dacron but not as good as the top end lines at a much cheaper cost.

Have run rope halyards on dual grooved sheaves at the masthead for decades. Have never had an issue with those sheaves over more than 10,000 miles of open ocean sailing. A good idea to check the sheaves out and smooth any rough areas but have never had to do that. Despite as much as 40 plus years with wire halyards, the sheaves have been fine for converting to rope.

[TheThunderbird]

I feel uneasy at what l read. (Bar Roverhi)

Dyneema is now the standard choice for halyards

PE has >2% stretch, which is 18cm (7") on your 30' mast

Please consider

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by TreblePlink

On my 28 foot sloop, there is currently a mast-mounted wire rope winch for the main halyard, and a mast-mounted standard sheet winch for the jib.

Can I convert to 3/8" polyester line for both, and use a Garhauer double line clutch two feet above the standard winch, and lose the wire rope winch?

This would appear to simplify things.

I used 10mm polyester doublebraid on my 33 foot sloop for main and headsail halyards with no real problems stretch wise, probably no more than an inch or two at worst. As roverhi said in his excellent post I occasioanlly had to tweak halyard tension to suit windspeed changes but not very often. And a floating tack with cunningham lead aft would avoid having to go forward to adjust it.

It was easy on the hands, cheap and it locked nicely into a very low cost and simple ronstan V Cleat saving me the cost of clutches and freeing up a winch if I needed it. I sailed the boat to antarctica 10 years ago with this setup and it is still working well. I had a regular cleat below the Vcleat to add extra security and hang the halyard in rough conditions.

6mm spectra (4.5mm covered or 6mm uncovered) would also likely work fine on the reel winch. 8mm spectra (6mm dyneema core +polyester cover) would also work well led through a clutch and then to a normal winch but it's getting down to the smaller size of what is easy on the hands.

[waterman46]

I would go to 1/2" Staset line. 3/8 is too small to be comfortable on the hands and the larger line will stretch a bit less and will grip better if you use a clutch. And when you go aloft on the halyard, bigger is also better if only for peace of mind.

[savoir]

Originally Posted by TheThunderbird

I feel uneasy at what l read. (Bar Roverhi)

Dyneema is now the standard choice for halyards

PE has >2% stretch, which is 18cm (7") on your 30' mast

Please consider

What percentage of sailing time will the halyard be under enough load to create that much stretch ? For 3/8" sta-set that would be roughly 1500 lbs.