There is a special place in hell for SOB's that do not secure their halyards

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

What distinguishes these things from slapping halyards?

Because the slapping banging halyard could have been prevented with 30 seconds of effort by the lazy inconsiderate SOB boater!

[Dogscout]

Well this hit a cord. So as Sailorboy1 points out, its 30 seconds of effort to tie it off to the rail or to otherwise keep your own gear in good shape and be a good neighbor.

For everyone who said that I need to accept it, love the windchimes, or that it was something about ME that needed adjusting, well you can go make love to yourself (respectively of course). Its not about me and as I said there is a special place in hell for you if you do this. Also as a foreigner in another country I am unsure of the local custom whether it is okay to board someone else's boat, legally or not. I'm very reluctant to do it.

It seems that about 10% of the world actually give a dam about how they are perceived. the rest just say ** im here get out of my way I dont give a dam about you. These are the takers of society.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Dogscout

It seems that about 10% of the world actually give a dam about how they are perceived. the rest just say ** im here get out of my way I dont give a dam about you. These are the takers of society.

I prefer to think of the takers as the 10%. Although lately it seems like 40%. But the reality is, I don't think they outnumber us. I think we just notice them more.

[Kd9truck]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Putting aside legality and morality for a moment, I keep coming back to one question:
Why do I let slapping halyards bother me?

If I'm anchored near a rail line, I'm OK with train noise. Near a bridge, traffic lulls me to sleep. I can even sleep through loud music if there's a party nearby and I know people are having a good time (assuming I don't get up to join them.) Even seagulls, which I don't really like, I tolerate.

What distinguishes these things from slapping halyards?

These are the sounds of people (or animals) going about their normal lives. But slapping halyards are the result of someone who just doesn't care about the rest of humanity, or (worse yet) the welfare of their own boat's rigging.

All knowledge is situational, that is to say none of us know everything about everything. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge on a particular subject. I think the slapping halyard paradigm is either from a group that does not know there vessel is making noise and compromising the longevity of there rigging.

Or they are OCD, compelled by a preconceived need to snug things up. In the absence of understanding the noise and stress it creates of in spite of how the noise is an indicator of what not to do.

My father who sailed his whole life, self taught, my grandfather was a merchant marine when they sailed stuff around the world he figured my old man “would get the hang of it eventually “. My father admittedly a fair weather sailor, had no idea what kind of noise his vessel made when the wind Blew stronger than his liking. 20+ years ago I was down visiting him right before a good blow(over 50 knots predicted) I asked him if he had secured his vessel (1973 23 ft Oday)he said no and off we went.
Much to my dismay his vessel was clanking away in time with several other boats. I moved the halyards over to the stays after releasing the tension and secured them loosely with a bungee. He was delighted that I had solved the noise issue, when I asked him why he had not came to adjusting the halyards to not make noise he said “well that’s what everybody else does so I figured it was right”.
We laughed hard.

[JPA Cate]

^^^^
This is how it is in life.

When I read this, "These are the sounds of people (or animals) going about their normal lives. But slapping halyards are the result of someone who just doesn't care about the rest of humanity, or (worse yet) the welfare of their own boat's rigging," I thought, no, that is you projecting what you feel and calling it their motivation. But, while it COULD BE that they just don't care, you don't know that until you've asked politely for them to change it, and they don't. At least you have a hypothesis you can test.

Sometimes, halyard slap is due to simple ignorance.

Annoyance to halyard slap is to some extent a choice of how to react to it. Apparently some of us would rather feel peaceful about it, and others would rather feel that anger, I-am-powerful feeling. And both types seem to think their own way is "better" than the other guys'.



Ann

[Cadence]

If someone is bothering you with it at a marina, introduce yourself to he/she offer them a beer and explain the situation. They are probably totally unaware of it being a problem.
You'll probably end up with friend.

[Emoyeni]

I avoid snapping halyards on my boat for wear and tear reasons, but honestly I enjoy sailing so much that I have a positive association with the sounds of halyards agianst the mast. That's what a *marina* sounds like and we are in the lucky 1% of people who can even associate that sound with anything and if you're actually sleeping on the boat, you're further in the minority of boat owners. Congrats! You made it!

[Cthoops]

I cringe when I see threads like this. We have external halyards and every time we are at anchor or in a slip - no exceptions - we employ a variety of bungee cords and other techniques to keep them from slapping.

However, sometimes if the wind is blowing with sufficient velocity from a certain direction they bang. It’s strumming at the very top of the mast - no way we can get a bungee up that high. It drives me crazy and obviously from this thread it drives others crazy too. I’m happy to hear any suggestions for how we might resolve this problem, but do realize that the boater isn’t always an ignorant, inconsiderate, a-hole.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by Cthoops

I cringe when I see threads like this. We have external halyards and every time we are at anchor or in a slip - no exceptions - we employ a variety of bungee cords and other techniques to keep them from slapping.

However, sometimes if the wind is blowing with sufficient velocity from a certain direction they bang. It’s strumming at the very top of the mast - no way we can get a bungee up that high. It drives me crazy and obviously from this thread it drives others crazy too. I’m happy to hear any suggestions for how we might resolve this problem, but do realize that the boater isn’t always an ignorant, inconsiderate, a-hole.

Hi, Ct,

One thing to try is slackening the halyards a lot, then bungee them and their tails out towards the shrouds.

I have also seen people foul the halyards by taking a turn around the mast itself, and sometimes that works.

If your boat's cutter rigged, you could loosen the halyards, and pull them forward, and bungee them to the inner forestay, or baby stay, if you have that.

You could try under the banging conditions, to see if any of those approaches might work for you.

Next time, when you take the mast out, you could consider running the halyards internally. It is much easier, then, to just lead them forward to the bow pulpit, and you don't have to worry about the tails of the halyards then. It won't work, though, with a timber mast.

Our halyards are internal, but we mount the spinnaker pole up the mas, to there are the spinnaker pole topping lift and also the spinnaker pole car up/downhaul lines on the front of our mast. We have designed our mainsail cover to go over those lines and the spinnaker pole, and that quietens them.

Good luck with it.

Ann

[mvweebles]

I lived aboard for about 5 years in San Francisco, which is known for breezy conditions. I could ignore many halyard slap boats, but some just seemed to have an extra loud claxon-like clang. Not a big deal, I'd just hop aboard and do whatever it took to secure and quiet the halyard. No different than retying a parted dockline or trying to secure a furler that is trying to unwrap in a stiff blow.

I didn't take it personally. Im sure that if the owner were aware of the condition, they'd be mortified. If I ever saw them, I'd mention "I saw your halyard was loose and clanging to wake the dead. I tried to tuck it in a bit."

Peter

[Cthoops]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Hi, Ct,

One thing to try is slackening the halyards a lot, then bungee them and their tails out towards the shrouds.

I have also seen people foul the halyards by taking a turn around the mast itself, and sometimes that works.

If your boat's cutter rigged, you could loosen the halyards, and pull them forward, and bungee them to the inner forestay, or baby stay, if you have that.

You could try under the banging conditions, to see if any of those approaches might work for you.

Next time, when you take the mast out, you could consider running the halyards internally. It is much easier, then, to just lead them forward to the bow pulpit, and you don't have to worry about the tails of the halyards then. It won't work, though, with a timber mast.

Our halyards are internal, but we mount the spinnaker pole up the mas, to there are the spinnaker pole topping lift and also the spinnaker pole car up/downhaul lines on the front of our mast. We have designed our mainsail cover to go over those lines and the spinnaker pole, and that quietens them.

Good luck with it.

Ann

Hi Ann,

Thanks for the suggestions. I do believe it’s typically the jib halyard, so we couldn’t really slacken that more than a tad, but we can try it. We’ve tried wrapping them around the mast in the past - no success.

It will be a while before we pull the mast again, but we’ll keep in mind the option of running them internally, although I wouldn’t want to add much friction. Right now in the right conditions I can raise the main to the top without needing a winch which is nice.

Thanks again!

[sck5]

For 2 dollars you can grab a bungie cord and give them a lesson in halyard quieting.

[Big Moe]

Hello:

I have a 49 Beneteau that has roller reefing. I pull my sails at the end of my season, before I put it up on the hard, as I am not a liveaboard. I insert “Black Pipe insulator sleeves” that I buy from Home Depot up the mast to stop the center roller from clanging all winter. I make sure I am considerate of my neighbors and I preserve my mast.

Big Moe

[themediadoctor]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

You likely will find a fellow sufferer in Sailorboy1, but most of us who live aboard just learn to ignore those sounds, along with wind whistles in the rigging, sea lions barking, gulls screaming and other nautical noises.

Life aboard is too short and too good to get upset about such things.

Very loud rock music or worse, rap, at odarkthirty is a different matter... but that ain't natural or nautical and IMO, less tolerable.

YMMV, but it will not be to your advantage!

Jim

Yikes! Really?? I've been living aboard for the last decade+ and it's a little hard to "ignore" a forest of loose halyards going at it in a 30-knot wind ALL NIGHT LONG. It's not like white noise -- damn things don't keep a beat. It's like listening to someone in an epileptic fit playing the cowbell. When it's one boat, bad enough, but when it's 15 or 20 (as has happened in my marina) it's beyond cacophonous. It's called being considerate of your dock neighbors! That does extend to playing loud music at all hours. In a former marina, the guy next to me had a nice SF. Ok. I get that he was anxious to get out and go fishing early every Sunday morning. Ok. But sending his captain over to fire up the diesels in the slip next to me at 4:30 freaking a.m. -- and then he arrived to climb on board at 8 -- was, well, inconsiderate. What was wrong with his damn engines that they needed to run for almost 4 hours before he left the dock?? Same guy would leave an AM radio on the flybridge playing an oldies station (with the requisite number of screaming car commercials) on 24/7. I asked his captain about it and he said he did it to discourage "thieves" from coming onboard while he was away -- presumably sleeping peacefully in his bed on land. He never had any thieves onboard but various people in the marina eventually just climbed on board and turned the damn thing off. BE CONSIDERATE.

[lo2jones]

There is a marina I know where the harbor master ties them up with some strong red ribbon. If he has to do it more than twice, the third time he cuts the halyard.