Rope bag on the boom.

[Montanan]

Instruction of how to coil halyard [and / or reefing lines] from Cruising World magazine.

https://www.cruisingworld.com/how-coil-halyard/

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by The Way

Thanks, Ann. Folding the coil is a great idea; I do it for rodes, but never thought of it for halyards. But as I visualize this, the tail must be loose. What if you keep the tail through the cleat with a figure-8 knot, to avoid the tail escaping your grip? Then the tail isn't loose to secure the coils with.

Or am I missing something?

Best regards,
Jack

Jack,

It is not like the Hasse method in the link above. When you coil it, you introduce twist. The link shows only 4 coils, but our mast is 65 ft. tall, and our tails are commensurate with the height. It is in parallel flakes, then folded in half, and with the very last bits of the line, enough for the two turns around and and then up through the eye thus formed and into a traditional cleat hitch on the cleat for the halyard. I make each flake about double arms distance, so the finished product just clears the deck, but is as few flakes as possible, so it doesn't bulge up and get messy to see around.

You know how they say, "different ships, different long splices?" Well, the way we do it is one of those differences. For instance, some people only use a half turn on the bottom of their cleat hitches. We do not. We used a full round turn, because then, if you are easing the line, whether it is on a winch or it is on the dock when the wind is blowing, you can always control the line.

If one had an appropriate place to tie off the bitter end, and a hole through the bag for it, I think you could stuff anchor rode into a bag and have it come out fine (ours did for years in our lazarette on the previous boat's stern anchor, where it was simply stuffed into a tall milk crate, rather than a bag), no way to tangle it.

But the OP was discussing dumping all his reef lines in one bag together, and ropes [imo] should be in separate bags, and not have a chance to play snake...and wind up looking like the photo montanan posted in his last link in his post, as we KNOW they will do.

Ann