Replacing Headstay Wire without removing Furler Extrusion

[chouliha]

I am sure many of you know about this tip but thought I would throw it out there again

I am doing a full refit on our old cruising boat in Tahiti. I needed to replace the headstay but did not want to disassemble the numerous lengths of extrusion.

I have seen people weld the new wire to the old after cutting off the Norseman. Also have used a wire chase for pulling the new wire.

Since I did not have access to either of those methods I did the following:

With the Furler laying on the ground

Cut off the lower norseman
Unrolled about 8" of the exposed outer strands of exposed wire
Cut off 6" of the center core of wire.

On the new wire I cut off 6" of the outer strands leaving the center core

With the new wire stretched out on the dock.

I joined both new wire and old wire together carefully laying the outer wires of the old headstay around the new wire center core. I fit very tight.

I then "pushed" the new wire thru the furler extrusion. Never pulling it. It went thru very smoothly and easily. Never needed to tape it.

It took < 15 minutes.

The third rerig we have done in the past 30 years. Seems it takes longer than I remembered but maybe that is my old farts brain. haha

Safe sailing

Chuck
Jacaranda
Papeete, Tahiti

[Jim Cate]

Well done, Chuck! Exactly the method we used, years ago, with the foil laid out on the lawn at the Aore island resort in Vanuatu. Worked treat!

Jim

[UNCIVILIZED]

SWEET!!!

[double u]

smart, guys! smart!!!

[Blue Stocking]

work smart, not hard.

[Dougtiff]

Interesting, i was taught by a rigger to firts measure from pin to pin, then cut off the swage at the top and pull it thru, the new wire is shaped like the head of a bullet and pushed thru with some rotating of the wire, have done many that way with no issues.